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by baud147258 2983 days ago
> countersteering is always required

Only on a motorbike.

3 comments

The steering geometry is exactly the same.

The only time you steer left to go left is if you're going so slowly that the only reason the bike doesn't fall over is because of your near-superhuman balance. That is to say, when you're practically at a standstill. Anywhere approaching walking pace or above, if you try to turn left by steering left, you'll fall off the right hand side before you make any appreciable turn.

> if you try to turn left by steering left

Well, if you're leaning left when steering left, I don't see how you'll fall to the right

That's the issue; how do you lean left to start with? If the human-bicycle system has its center of gravity over the wheel line, shifting your weight relative to the bike doesn't move the center of gravity - you lean one way, the bike leans the other, and you end up in the same overall position. The only way to initiate a lean to the left is to countersteer to the right.
That's weird since I don't think I'm countersteering when turning.

Or perhaps I'm doing it unconsciously?

> Or perhaps I'm doing it unconsciously?

You are. I proved this to myself once by applying pressure to the handlebars using only the palm of my hands on the backside of each handle. Even at very slow speeds, I could not for the life of me turn left by applying pressure only to the right bar (to turn the front wheel to the left). No amount of leaning helped. To lean the bike, I needed to create some external force to push it over. Leaning my own body to the left just made the bike lean to the right.

I'll have to check, because I don't believe it. I wonder who's right: me or a bunch of randos on an internet thread.
> If you lean left, front wheel will "do" countersteering itself

The same applies to a bicycle.

> Only on a motorbike.

Only above a certain speed, at low speeds countersteering will not work

Similarly above a certain speed on a bicycle countersteering is the only way you can turn

Some people seem to describe this difference as unconscious countersteering versus deliberate countersteering, that is, that the difference isn't really whether you're countersteering or not, but whether the countersteer is large enough that you have to do it "on purpose".