SierraFlyer
Registered
scare the people coming up the hill
Counter-steering...?
- Thread starter BulletTrain
- Start date
This brings up another question, Sierra. I've read about loading the pegs to manipulate the bike, too. Any tips on when and which peg for which direction?
Let's use the left corner again. I'm entering a curve to my left. Walk me thru where the weight should be during entry, apex, and exit, please.
I'm still lookin' for a decent place to buy the suggested books so I can read all this for myself and not bug you guys. No luck yet. B&N is just too danged expensive on these books and Amazon.com can't get their act together and ship my orders lately...
Let's use the left corner again. I'm entering a curve to my left. Walk me thru where the weight should be during entry, apex, and exit, please.
I'm still lookin' for a decent place to buy the suggested books so I can read all this for myself and not bug you guys. No luck yet. B&N is just too danged expensive on these books and Amazon.com can't get their act together and ship my orders lately...
Buffo Busa
Registered
SierraFlyer
Registered
Sorry, I didn't see the question to me. You don't really need a book to learn this one. It is natural when you practice it. There is no way to fake it because the bars are free to do what they want. A weight input will result in the Busa moving to it. The front end will track in a stable way to balance the forces. It is designed to be stable. Counter steer adds unblanced forces to speed up turn in. Some riders don't add the weight shift and rely on counter steer to do all the work. I used to do this but found the turns more stable by using weightshift. The more balanced the bike is the better it can remain stable in a turn.
About the peg weighting, you will not be able to turn a bike to the left by standing on the right peg. It is not possible. When I do the hands off practice I turn by weighting the inside peg and lift the outside knee into the tank with no weight on that peg. It is like a kayak roll technique I learned a long time ago. It only works if you are leaning your shoulders to the side you are trying to turn. So to answer your question - to turn to the left, I would shift my upper body to the left and weight the left peg a lot. Then I would lift my right knee into the tank to stablize me on the bike and to help push it over. When I get to the desired lean angle. I allign my body CG with the bikes CG and weight both pegs evenly in a smooth motion. The bike will keep turning at this rate. To exit the turn I start by moving my upper body to the right and then weighting the right peg. lifting the tank with your left knee is not really needed because cenrifugal force will help to straighten the bike up. The bike want to stay upright by itself when moving, believe it or not.
Now using hands you can help the bike lay over with counter steer, but the weighting is the same as hands off. Once in the turn you can relax the counter steer and your weight will keep it in the turn. The more of your weight you put on the pegs the more stable the whole bike will be. I try to have all my weight on the balls of my feet on the pegs and little to none on the seat or bars. In fact I have been trying to not push on the bars in all my turns. When it hits bumps the front end tracks where it needs to automatically to balance the forces and the force on the pegs stablize the whole event. You can feel the bike floating under you in a controlled way. Very cool!
In the real world I set up for the turn by getting up on the balls of my feet and slide my butt over one cheek toward the turn direction. I Brake in the straight before the turn using front and rear brake. To help the bike stay stable while breaking, I crack the throttle each time I down shift to stop rear wheel slides while down shifting. It important to keep your RPMs up in the 8-9000 area to help with engine braking. Lower RPMs don't generate as much drag so down shift often. As I enter the turn, I release the rear brake and get back on the ball of that foot. I will release the front brake smoothly as I lean over and set the suspension with a small fixed throttle setting into the apex. Shoulders are square to the turn leaning the appropriate amount (hands off lean technique)and eyes are level and looking way thru the turn (I have a problem with this). Through the apex I have both feet evenly weighted and no counter steer force. I am not touching the seat much and am leaned forwad as much as possible to lower the CG. Then exiting I add throttle smoothly to stand the bike up and not spin the rear. Unless you are going into a switchback right away, no counter steer is needed to stand the bike up. It will drift to the outside of the turn as the power comes on.
I hope that is clear?
About the peg weighting, you will not be able to turn a bike to the left by standing on the right peg. It is not possible. When I do the hands off practice I turn by weighting the inside peg and lift the outside knee into the tank with no weight on that peg. It is like a kayak roll technique I learned a long time ago. It only works if you are leaning your shoulders to the side you are trying to turn. So to answer your question - to turn to the left, I would shift my upper body to the left and weight the left peg a lot. Then I would lift my right knee into the tank to stablize me on the bike and to help push it over. When I get to the desired lean angle. I allign my body CG with the bikes CG and weight both pegs evenly in a smooth motion. The bike will keep turning at this rate. To exit the turn I start by moving my upper body to the right and then weighting the right peg. lifting the tank with your left knee is not really needed because cenrifugal force will help to straighten the bike up. The bike want to stay upright by itself when moving, believe it or not.
Now using hands you can help the bike lay over with counter steer, but the weighting is the same as hands off. Once in the turn you can relax the counter steer and your weight will keep it in the turn. The more of your weight you put on the pegs the more stable the whole bike will be. I try to have all my weight on the balls of my feet on the pegs and little to none on the seat or bars. In fact I have been trying to not push on the bars in all my turns. When it hits bumps the front end tracks where it needs to automatically to balance the forces and the force on the pegs stablize the whole event. You can feel the bike floating under you in a controlled way. Very cool!
In the real world I set up for the turn by getting up on the balls of my feet and slide my butt over one cheek toward the turn direction. I Brake in the straight before the turn using front and rear brake. To help the bike stay stable while breaking, I crack the throttle each time I down shift to stop rear wheel slides while down shifting. It important to keep your RPMs up in the 8-9000 area to help with engine braking. Lower RPMs don't generate as much drag so down shift often. As I enter the turn, I release the rear brake and get back on the ball of that foot. I will release the front brake smoothly as I lean over and set the suspension with a small fixed throttle setting into the apex. Shoulders are square to the turn leaning the appropriate amount (hands off lean technique)and eyes are level and looking way thru the turn (I have a problem with this). Through the apex I have both feet evenly weighted and no counter steer force. I am not touching the seat much and am leaned forwad as much as possible to lower the CG. Then exiting I add throttle smoothly to stand the bike up and not spin the rear. Unless you are going into a switchback right away, no counter steer is needed to stand the bike up. It will drift to the outside of the turn as the power comes on.
I hope that is clear?
Yes, Sierra, that's clear. 
The rain showers today killed my cornering practice plans. I'll have to wait till I get another opportunity to ride before I can work on anything else, but I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. 
The rain showers today killed my cornering practice plans. I'll have to wait till I get another opportunity to ride before I can work on anything else, but I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. SierraFlyer
Registered
Any time. Hope my technique works for you. There are as many ways to do it as there are riders.
Dude, Sierra...I dunno man...Countersteering Upsetting a bikes balance??? Where did you get this??? "Body Steering" may eventually get you turned some, but in the end consiously or not you are countersteering. There is no way around it. Countersteering works like a charm from about 10-15 MPH and is about the only way you are going to be able to change direction quickly on a bike at high speed. I would freeking kill to see a guy negotiate even a 50 mph corner on the track with his "Hands Off"...
Telling someone that countersteering isn't the way to go because it upsets the bikes balance? Man, so how is it that you have more experiance than say the MSF, Keith Code, Thousands of magazine articles, hell everything I have ever heard about riding in my life? Not trying to be too big a bobo but I would like to know where you are getting this information?
And if you really practice what you are preaching I want to see a video Dude. Seriously, I want to see you turn a bike at 50 MPH effectively with your hands on the tank... 
Telling someone that countersteering isn't the way to go because it upsets the bikes balance? Man, so how is it that you have more experiance than say the MSF, Keith Code, Thousands of magazine articles, hell everything I have ever heard about riding in my life? Not trying to be too big a bobo but I would like to know where you are getting this information?
And if you really practice what you are preaching I want to see a video Dude.
Seriously, I want to see you turn a bike at 50 MPH effectively with your hands on the tank... 
Mikey D
Registered
Scary to post after all this info but...
We all use body english and countersteering when riding a crotch rocket. A choper has a front end raked out much further and needs to be steered conventionally. In my humble opinion counter steering (turning the bars to the right when turning left) and leaning exposes the (in this case the left) side of the tire to the road, and lowers the COG. The side of the tire is a smaller diameter than the center and naturally wants to follow around the curve. I explain it this way to my students and they seem to get it fairly easily.
We all use body english and countersteering when riding a crotch rocket. A choper has a front end raked out much further and needs to be steered conventionally. In my humble opinion counter steering (turning the bars to the right when turning left) and leaning exposes the (in this case the left) side of the tire to the road, and lowers the COG. The side of the tire is a smaller diameter than the center and naturally wants to follow around the curve. I explain it this way to my students and they seem to get it fairly easily.
SierraFlyer
Registered
Hey Revlis, I think I didn't explain it well enough. The whole purpose of riding hands off was a tool to show how the bike has its own stability and will turn without counter steer. It helps people who use too much counter steer to get a feel for what the motorcycle wants for steering input. I regularly ride at 40-50 MPH down a steep grade turning only with my weight. No 90 degree turns but some challenging ones none the less. It helps me to learn where to position myself on the bike to keep it balanced. I would think a good rider could ride a track with no hands at lower speeds.
The man that taught me this was Reg Pridmore. You should recognize the name. He has as much or more experience and championships as Keith Code. I have Mr. Code's books also. Mr. Pridmore did not go into the detail I do below but it made an impression. Try it.
I do counter steer. I just don't use it as much as I used to. Counter steer just helps the bike turn in. Once in the turn I can now let go of the bars and the bike will stay in the turn and not stand up immediately. I did this yesterday in the mountains on hwy 80 at 95 MPH. Big sweeper on a freeway leaned way over and I was barely touching the bars. It worked even over bumps.
I used to have bad habit of staying on top of the bike thru a turn and using counter steer to lean it over under me. If I ever let go back then the forces of my weight (imballanced) on the bike would cause it to stand up and go straight. I was fighting it to keep it over. And if I hit mid-turn bumps my weight would shift and the whole thing would become unstable and buck me becasue my weight was not balanced on the bike. For a while I tried to "lock" myself down on the bike by wedging my knee into the tank on the out side leg. It helped to stablize me in the seat - a little - and minimize the weight shift. But cornering school taught me a really cool thing. A motorcycle that is ballanced will remain stable if it hits a bump mid-turn...even without hands. It will also recover smoothly if the back end breaks free momentarily. My friend Matt took this class too and he now uses small weight shifts to fine-tune his line in a turn instead of countersteering. The trick is to get your weight in the correct position relative to the motorcycle's CG when leaned over. Lower CG is more stable than high CG. That is why I put my weight on the pegs. That is as low as I can get my weight on the bike. Also leaning forward will lower your body CG in addition. After all, some of the weight is on your wrists too. The sideways lean is what is most important. It only takes a little shift in the saddle to move your CG a lot. Hands off technique is just to get a feel for how much shift is best for what lean angle. Thats all. I am not trying to say we should not counter steer. It is important too
The comment I made about counter steering being unbalanced is that it is a force the motorcycle will fight until the force is removed. It is an artificial input to cause the bike to lean instead of using weight to lean it over. For instance, you can ride down a straight road while leaned way over by leaning one way and countersteering the other. The bike will track straight while leaned but you will feel the bars fighting you to straighen out. That is an unballanced input. If you are ballanced the steering will track without your hands on the bars. A person can over-lean too for that matter.
The man that taught me this was Reg Pridmore. You should recognize the name. He has as much or more experience and championships as Keith Code. I have Mr. Code's books also. Mr. Pridmore did not go into the detail I do below but it made an impression. Try it.
I do counter steer. I just don't use it as much as I used to. Counter steer just helps the bike turn in. Once in the turn I can now let go of the bars and the bike will stay in the turn and not stand up immediately. I did this yesterday in the mountains on hwy 80 at 95 MPH. Big sweeper on a freeway leaned way over and I was barely touching the bars. It worked even over bumps.
I used to have bad habit of staying on top of the bike thru a turn and using counter steer to lean it over under me. If I ever let go back then the forces of my weight (imballanced) on the bike would cause it to stand up and go straight. I was fighting it to keep it over. And if I hit mid-turn bumps my weight would shift and the whole thing would become unstable and buck me becasue my weight was not balanced on the bike. For a while I tried to "lock" myself down on the bike by wedging my knee into the tank on the out side leg. It helped to stablize me in the seat - a little - and minimize the weight shift. But cornering school taught me a really cool thing. A motorcycle that is ballanced will remain stable if it hits a bump mid-turn...even without hands. It will also recover smoothly if the back end breaks free momentarily. My friend Matt took this class too and he now uses small weight shifts to fine-tune his line in a turn instead of countersteering. The trick is to get your weight in the correct position relative to the motorcycle's CG when leaned over. Lower CG is more stable than high CG. That is why I put my weight on the pegs. That is as low as I can get my weight on the bike. Also leaning forward will lower your body CG in addition. After all, some of the weight is on your wrists too. The sideways lean is what is most important. It only takes a little shift in the saddle to move your CG a lot. Hands off technique is just to get a feel for how much shift is best for what lean angle. Thats all. I am not trying to say we should not counter steer. It is important too
The comment I made about counter steering being unbalanced is that it is a force the motorcycle will fight until the force is removed. It is an artificial input to cause the bike to lean instead of using weight to lean it over. For instance, you can ride down a straight road while leaned way over by leaning one way and countersteering the other. The bike will track straight while leaned but you will feel the bars fighting you to straighen out. That is an unballanced input. If you are ballanced the steering will track without your hands on the bars. A person can over-lean too for that matter.
Buffo Busa
Registered
And therein lies the answer...and the more aggressively you counter steer, the quicker a sport bike will turn in.
I did it yesterday at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, but when you get to a corner like turn 2 which tightens up again about half way around (ie. a reducing radius turn) you need to counter steer again to bring the bike even further over. It's almost impossible in my opinion to use "weight shift" to do it at that speed when you are already hanging off the bike with your knee about an inch off the ground.
I think I see what you are getting at about the counter steering unbalancing the bike, but I don't really agree that it is detrimental because it is this unbalancing that actually causes the bike to lean when you counter steer. When you counter steer, the weight of the bike and its momentum want to continue straight ahead in a line whereas the direction of travel of the wheel wants to shift from that same line to one side or the other as it deviates on the road. I believe that is what causes the bike to lean.
SHODA
Registered
WWW.motorcyclebooks.com/twisofris.html best price and fast delivery.Counterstreer is the only way to flick the little beauties.Hope this helps.
People talk about the MSF course right. Here is my two cents on that. I took the MSF Advanced Riders course and was severely disappointed. It didnt teach me anything. I was still just as shady about riding as I was when I started. Basically I could have used that time to learn on my own. I thought it was a COMPLETE WASTE. Everybody talks about it so maybe I just got a bad course or instructor, I dunno. Do what you will. 
SierraFlyer
Registered
You guys are right. For the record, I want everyone to know that I use countersteering too. We can't turn-in fast or FLICK the bike without it. I must not be saying it right or something. I will try to explain it one last time....
My whole thing is that once you are in the turn, weight shift will keep you in the turn but only if your weight is balanced on the bike. If you are using countersteer to keep you in the turn, there is a better way. I USED to try to keep the bike on line by countersteer alone. I would lean the same amount with the bike regardless of how far I need to lean the bike for the turn. You can find that balance spot by taking your hands off the bars while turning. If you are leaning your body weight sideways enough to balance all the forces, the bike won't change direction or lean angle when you let go of the bars. The body position for each bike lean angle is different. The more the bike leans - even more the rider needs to lean. The suspension will do its job better too if the bike and rider are balanced. You can hit bumps in a turn with your hands off and the bike will take care of it without the rider having to "wrestle" the bars. That is stability. That fact alone helped me. I never really trusted the bike to do the work. I never felt completely stable in turns so I would slow down a little. Now I know the bike will be there and can go faster and with more confidence because of it. The tire grip is better too. Less forces are working on them. Summary - Countersteer gets the bike over on it side but your weight will keep it there in the most stable way. I found that by letting go of the bars, a rider can learn exactly how much weight shift is needed to get the bike to do what you want it to do and how the bike will be stable and remain stable if it is balanced. And that most riders (me previously included) rely on countersteeering too much while in the turn. I would bet the faster riders do this naturally. I just figured it out this year after 30 years of riding. I had to unlearn bad habits from riding dirt I guess.
If that explaination doesn't work, I will give up. I just wanted to share this cool concept with my fellow Busa pilots.
k5fan - I know what you mean about MSF. I took an advanced rider course years ago and took few good tips away from it. It was like a driver safety class. You know the kind with cones in some parking lot? The course I took with Pridmore was a "CLASS Cornering School" taught at Sears Point raceway in Sonoma, CA. He teaches them all over the country too. It was like a track day but with racing instructors. Keith Code and others teach the same kind of classes. Those are the Sh8t! You get to race for a while and then you go into a classroom and talk about it with instructors. They follow you on the track too and then make suggestions. Every 20 minutes you are on the track or in a room alternating the entire day. I came out of the class with a ton of great techniques. I am much faster now too, smoother and am more stable at higher speeds. I wouldn't mind going back and doing it again - many times. You can go as fast as you want. The only restriction is no inside passing. Coming out of turns the Busa makes the other bikes look like they are in reverse!
I can't wait for next season!
My whole thing is that once you are in the turn, weight shift will keep you in the turn but only if your weight is balanced on the bike. If you are using countersteer to keep you in the turn, there is a better way. I USED to try to keep the bike on line by countersteer alone. I would lean the same amount with the bike regardless of how far I need to lean the bike for the turn. You can find that balance spot by taking your hands off the bars while turning. If you are leaning your body weight sideways enough to balance all the forces, the bike won't change direction or lean angle when you let go of the bars. The body position for each bike lean angle is different. The more the bike leans - even more the rider needs to lean. The suspension will do its job better too if the bike and rider are balanced. You can hit bumps in a turn with your hands off and the bike will take care of it without the rider having to "wrestle" the bars. That is stability. That fact alone helped me. I never really trusted the bike to do the work. I never felt completely stable in turns so I would slow down a little. Now I know the bike will be there and can go faster and with more confidence because of it. The tire grip is better too. Less forces are working on them. Summary - Countersteer gets the bike over on it side but your weight will keep it there in the most stable way. I found that by letting go of the bars, a rider can learn exactly how much weight shift is needed to get the bike to do what you want it to do and how the bike will be stable and remain stable if it is balanced. And that most riders (me previously included) rely on countersteeering too much while in the turn. I would bet the faster riders do this naturally. I just figured it out this year after 30 years of riding. I had to unlearn bad habits from riding dirt I guess.
If that explaination doesn't work, I will give up. I just wanted to share this cool concept with my fellow Busa pilots.
k5fan - I know what you mean about MSF. I took an advanced rider course years ago and took few good tips away from it. It was like a driver safety class. You know the kind with cones in some parking lot? The course I took with Pridmore was a "CLASS Cornering School" taught at Sears Point raceway in Sonoma, CA. He teaches them all over the country too. It was like a track day but with racing instructors. Keith Code and others teach the same kind of classes. Those are the Sh8t! You get to race for a while and then you go into a classroom and talk about it with instructors. They follow you on the track too and then make suggestions. Every 20 minutes you are on the track or in a room alternating the entire day. I came out of the class with a ton of great techniques. I am much faster now too, smoother and am more stable at higher speeds. I wouldn't mind going back and doing it again - many times. You can go as fast as you want. The only restriction is no inside passing. Coming out of turns the Busa makes the other bikes look like they are in reverse!
I can't wait for next season!
Similar threads
