You don't *have* to countersteer to turn on a bike. When you are riding straight... (2024)

> I personally don't consider "countersteer" to be a thing.

It sounds like you've never ridden a motorcycle? Most safety courses on motorcycles teach counter-steering, precisely because it is a thing and failure to understand it can compromise your ability to recover from a bad situation.

On a motorcycle going fast, you counter-steer continuously. If you make a slow right turn on a freeway, you can turn for 30 seconds by only pushing forward on the right handle.

I'm pretty sure you always counter-steer even on a bike, it's just very hard to notice, especially going slow. We don't think about it. It's not really a choice though, there's only one way to turn without leaning, you don't get to pick counter-steering or not.

You should definitely try it on a bicycle while going fast. Once you consciously turn your handlebars right and end up steering right no matter what you do, it becomes really clear.

I mountain bike regularly, and I actively counter-steer all the time. It's super obvious if you know what to look for. I personally most feel it when doing fast, flat, sweeping turns. I lean the same direction as the turn, and the bike will feel like it wants to fall further in, making the turn sharper and sharper.

Pushing on the side of the handlebar on the direction I'm turning counters this desire of the bike to fall into the turn. That's counter-steering. It's a pretty unconscious action, and to most feels like what comes natural when one leans a bike to turn.

>there's only one way to turn without leaning

I generated an argument that refutes that statement in the post you are responding to. I am not arguing that the effect does not exist, only that it isn't interesting and is not worthy of a special term to describe it.

FWIW I ride motorcycles on a regular basis... I oppose the discussion on countersteering in the regular motorcycle training curriculum because it suggests that there is more than one type of turn for no real reason. It would be better just to say that you turn on a motorcycle by changing the angle of the motorcycle from vertical. Then there is only one thing to learn.

You actually described counter-steering, even though you might disagree. ;) You said that I can lean right to start a right turn, then turn the handlebars into the turn as soon as you want to stop decreasing the turning radius. That is part of counter-steering. Turn the handlebars right to begin turning the bike left -- that can and does include slowing down an increasing right turn until it's at a constant turning radius.

That's why you're always counter-steering on a two-wheeled vehicle; because turning the handlebars right of where they currently are always causes you to turn more right of where you'd have gone if you didn't move the handlebars.

Since you ride motorcycles, then you already know anyone who's facing a quick turn definitely does not want to wait to fall. To turn quickly, you must counter-steer.

I am curious why you think it's not worth a special term, when it's unintuitively opposite from the way car steering works, and it's important to know in order to stay safe?

>and it's important to know in order to stay safe?

I disagree with that. Before someone learns to turn a cycle, motorized or not, they have to learn to not fall over. So we tell them that they have to turn towards the direction they are falling. Once they master not falling then in practice there is nothing more to teach. They can easily generalize to adjusting the bike to any lean angle because the required motion of the handlebars is exactly the same. If we don't tell them about countersteering they will have no idea they are doing something different for steep turns vs shallow turns. They just have to establish a greater angle sometimes.

Back in the day prospective pilots were taught by having someone show them how to move the controls for each possible manoeuvre. These days the prospective pilot is first taught what the effects of the controls are. After that they are entirely responsible for achieving the required aircraft attitude using that knowledge. They are told to roll the aircraft to turn. They are not told that they have move the stick to the right for a while and then centre it even though that is something that would not produce a continuous turn in a car.

It's not my opinion that learning counter-steering is a safety issue, there's a reason that practically all motorcycle safety courses teach it, and that reason is outlined in the Hurt Report on motorcycle safety.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurt_Report

"28. Motorcycle riders in these accidents showed significant collision avoidance problems. Most riders would overbrake and skid the rear wheel, and underbrake the front wheel greatly reducing collision avoidance deceleration. The ability to countersteer and swerve was essentially absent."

Wikipedia's article on counter-steering with respect to motorcycle safety begins with:

"Even more so than on a bicycle, deliberately countersteering is essential for safe motorcycle riding"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering#Motorcycles

You're free to argue against it using logic and analogies to pilot training, but both safety data and public opinion don't seem to agree. I would counter that pilots are most definitely taught that pushing forward (up) on the yoke causes the plane to dive (go down), that is somewhat analogous to counter-steering. They are also taught that turning left causes a left roll.

But this didn't answer my question either - counter-steering is so-called because you steer counter to the direction of turn, which is true. Even if it weren't a safety issue, why would it be inappropriate to name it? It is a thing that's different in some ways from other types of steering; we should have a name for that. We have names for everything.

> that pilots are most definitely taught that pushing forward (up) on the yoke causes the plane to dive (go down),

No, they are taught that pushing forward on the yoke causes the nose of the plane to pitch towards their feet. The result of that depends on the starting attitude of the aircraft. Think inverted flight as an extreme example. In exactly the same way, pushing on the right handlebar has results entirely dependent on the starting attitude of the bike.

Your comment about the roll is correct. That is an effect of a control.

If people are not swerving enough then wouldn't we want to teach them to swerve?

I am pretty sure that I have answered your question. It's just a pointless distinction to make. Such pointlessness detracts from actual important lessons. Should we come up with a name for the "oversteering" used to recover from a turn (pro-steering?)? After all, if you don't do it you will be stuck in the turn forever. That would be dangerous.

> Should we come up with a name for the "oversteering" used to recover from a turn

Ignoring the reductio ad absurdum, then if you're referring to how you have to steer the handlebars further into a turn in order to straighten out, there is a name for that: counter-steering. :)

There's a sort of subtle difference that plays out in how effective the turning is. In countersteering, you don't move the center of mass of the motorcycle-human system; the wheels pull out from under the bike and it naturally turns into the capsizing. Body steering actually moves the center of mass of the system out of the bike's vertical axis. (That is, you're no longer in plane with it.)

Because motorcycles are so massive (at least mine is), body steering is much less effective, but it does help if you want to lean the bike a bit further. That's sort of where the advice to "push down with your legs comes from", since it shifts the bike down as you push yourself up - voila, bike wheels make a deeper u shape, capsizes a bit more, and turns harder. It's a trim knob for turning, kind of how the rear brakes add stability while the front do most of the work.

Like a lot of the points in the MSF course, it's a useful detail to internalize so that when something inevitably dumb/awful happens on the road a poorly trained snap decision doesn't lead to panic (ohgodohgodohgodthebikeisntswervingfastenoug-), but in everyday life you won't be thinking about it directly.

* It would be better just to say that you turn on a motorcycle by changing the angle of the motorcycle from vertical.*

Better than teaching students, "push right, go right. Push left, go left"? Yeah, I'm thinking your way isn't better. Your way, as I read it, just reinforces the idea of "you turn a single track vehicle by leaning". That might have some technical correctness, but it's practically worthless information as far telling a rider what they physically need to do.

Makes for great arguments on the Internet, though, and I'll bet if I cruised over to rec.moto it is still going on some twenty-five, thirty years later after it first started.

Sorry, but this is flat-out incorrect.

Countersteer is the only way to turn a bicycle at speed. If you lean, you are simply inducing the bike to countersteer for you. The fact that you are not conscious of this act does not change the fact that it is happening regardless of your awareness.

More to the point, you cannot turn a bicycle at speed to the right by turning the handlebars to the right. The bicycle will go left, independent of your intentions.

Perhaps you meant to say that the only way to turn a bike in a particular direction involves countersteering. My scenario required no leaning.

If you are on a moving bike and you turn the handlebars to the right you will soon be on the ground. :) On a two wheeled vehicle the handlebars are used to adjust the angle of the bike/rider system with respect to the ground. The handlebars are not used for turning but for adjusting things so that a turn can occur. "Countersteering" is something that occurs at all times and in all situations. It has nothing special to do with turning.