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Counter steer starts at what speed?

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5.1K views 78 replies 30 participants last post by  Sleddog  
C
#1 ·
I have switched over to a CT on the back of my wing and I was noticing that my steering changes from turning into the turns to counter steering at about 25 - 28 MPH with the CT.

I didn't think to check this while I still had the MT on the wing. Can someone tell me about what speed the MT changes from steer into the turn to counter steer?

Thanks
 
#2 ·
crabkiller said:
I have switched over to a CT on the back of my wing and I was noticing that my steering changes from turning into the turns to counter steering at about 25 - 28 MPH with the CT.

I didn't think to check this while I still had the MT on the wing. Can someone tell me about what speed the MT changes from steer into the turn to counter steer?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Counter steer begins depending of several factors..U turns? Type of road conditions,avoiding obstacles,arc of road,the type of line you prefer entering/exiting any curve,your speed..

Seeing you have just switched over..Give your self a few weeks and then come back and read this thread,and I bet you don't even realize that you are now adjusted to the very little extra input you are using now to toss the bike around..

I love playing on mine when I ride,and don't give it a thought about what I do to make the bike respond to my acting like a kid on this 18..

In fact when I am behind slower traffic out in the twistys.and some idiot feels the need to tail gate me thinking the people in front of me will go faster?? I start to ride the bike standing up on my pegs-They drop back-Thinking I might fall down in front of them..I love it.I get cooler air up there and they get off my tail at the same time... :yes:
 
#3 ·
I doubt seriously that the tires or the profile of the rear tire has very much to do with the speed that the steering reverses. Years of building road race bikes has proven that "rake" more than tire profile is the determining factor. I have found that steering head rake affects it more than anything. It has always been a problem for the Bonneville streamliner's because some where over 200 mph, the steering goes back to standard instead of counter steer. I personally haven't ever been faster than 200 mph so I'm not real sure at what speed it actually it takes place
 
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#4 ·
Countersteering starts at anything over 0 MPH. Even when you think you aren't. at 1 MPH, you think you are simply leaning and turning but you aren't. Yes, you lean, but are still holding the bars for just a bit before turning in. If you think you are not, do the same thing with your hands off the bars and see how slow it happens. Not only that, but at slow speed, you actually countersteer to stop the lean or "Turn-in" durring the turn.
 
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#5 ·
well i saw a vid of Jerry "the motorman" Paladino that said that counter steering
starts above 15mph

below that speed most movement is controlled by the bars in the direction u want
to go.....

he did a low speed thing thru some cones to show what he meant.... seemed
to make sense

YMMV

8)
 
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#6 ·
nedro said:
Countersteering starts at anything over 0 MPH. Even when you think you aren't. at 1 MPH, you think you are simply leaning and turning but you aren't. Yes, you lean, but are still holding the bars for just a bit before turning in. If you think you are not, do the same thing with your hands off the bars and see how slow it happens. Not only that, but at slow speed, you actually countersteer to stop the lean or "Turn-in" durring the turn.
Click to expand...

+1
I've heard several times it does't start until 10 -12 MPH. If you are turning full lock circles, the only way to tighten them is to lean the bike over more, if you put in a little counter steer she'll lean over & start scraping stuff. Or coming to a stop in a straight line, just before the stop, turn the bars to the right which way does the bike lean?
 
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#7 ·
LordZarkon said:
well i saw a vid of Jerry "the motorman" Paladino that said that counter steering
starts above 15mph

below that speed most movement is controlled by the bars in the direction u want
to go.....

he did a low speed thing thru some cones to show what he meant.... seemed
to make sense

YMMV

8)
Click to expand...
Possible, yes. Practical, no. At slow speeds you do turn the steering twards the turn, but not until the initial countersteering is done. Sometimes more subtle than the rider can feel.
 
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#8 ·
nedro said:
Countersteering starts at anything over 0 MPH. Even when you think you aren't. at 1 MPH, you think you are simply leaning and turning but you aren't. Yes, you lean, but are still holding the bars for just a bit before turning in. If you think you are not, do the same thing with your hands off the bars and see how slow it happens. Not only that, but at slow speed, you actually countersteer to stop the lean or "Turn-in" durring the turn.
Click to expand...

Nedro described it better than I did.. :yes1:
 
T
#9 ·
From my viewpoint: You're not countersteering until the bike needs to lean. If you can turn the bike while it is perfectly vertical or close to it, you can turn the bars the direction you want to go only. But, if a lean is necessary, countersteering is needed to initiate the turn.
 
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#10 ·
nedro said:
Countersteering starts at anything over 0 MPH. Even when you think you aren't. at 1 MPH, you think you are simply leaning and turning but you aren't. Yes, you lean, but are still holding the bars for just a bit before turning in. If you think you are not, do the same thing with your hands off the bars and see how slow it happens. Not only that, but at slow speed, you actually countersteer to stop the lean or "Turn-in" durring the turn.
Click to expand...
+1
 
#11 ·
I completely disagree and so do all of the experts in the world. Counter steer doesn't occur until 20+ miles an hour. Depending on the geometry of the motorcycle.

At 10mph, sitting straight up in the seat, push the right handle bar slightly away from you..... the bike will turn LEFT Same senerio at 30 mph, again push slightly on the right handle bar and you will turn RIGHT.
 
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#13 ·
Phat Chance said:
I completely disagree and so do all of the experts in the world. Counter steer doesn't occur until 20+ miles an hour. Depending on the geometry of the motorcycle.
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Experts, :roll:
One simple question;
What magic happens between 19 and 20 MPH that suddenly changes the laws of gravity and force so that you now have to change your turning technic?

Phat Chance said:
At 10mph, sitting straight up in the seat, push the right handle bar slightly away from you..... the bike will turn LEFT
Click to expand...
Unless you are leaning in that dirrection, it is an impossibility. The fact that the forces needed to accpomplish this feat are so minimal is the reason that you do not realise that you are doing it.
Phat Chance said:
Same senerio at 30 mph, again push slightly on the right handle bar and you will turn RIGHT.
Click to expand...
or at any speed.
 
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#14 ·
Unless you lean in the direction you turn the bars(ie turn the bars left and lean left), the bike will always fall towards the opposite direction.
 
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#17 ·
PoleCat said:
When I am pushing my bike around in the garage counter steering does not work. I have never exceeded 2 mph doing this however.
Click to expand...
Well, actually PoleCat, yes you are countersteering. Countersteering is the action of turning the steering with manual inputs that are counterintuitive to it's natural motion. And that applies regardless of which way you are leaning the bike. :mrgreen:
 
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#18 ·
No reason for it to get heated. We're just discussin' .

Some of the problem here might be the terminology. We could be discussing different things.

When I'm in a slow race, I'm counter-steering like crazy to keep the bike up. If steering to the left did not make the bike lean right, then it would be just as easy to balance standing still as it is while moving. I don't think the gyroscopic force of the wheels helps a lot at 1MPH. ;) . (I mean "rightward", that is, if it's starting to fall over to the left, then I steer left with the bars, making the bike stand up, which is tipping it to the right from its leftward tip.) Sooooooo. I think we use counter-steering to set up a turn as soon as we start moving, especially on a heavy bike like the Wing where body weight shift works kind of slowly. At low mph and tight maneuvers, the bars are actually turned in the direction of the turn, once the bike is correctly leaned by initiating counter steering. I have no doubt that if my bike were perfectly straight up and down, and I turned the handle bars sharply to the left at 10 mph, I would fall over to the right. Newton's first law. Bike wants to keep going same direction, same speed. Deflection of steering axis to left. Tires gripping road make bottom of bike go left, center of mass of bike continues straight. Bike tips right. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

There is some point where the diameter of the tire at its edge is enough smaller than at its center to turn the bike sufficiently without having deflection of the steering head in the direction of the turn. This point is determined by the arc of the turn actually required, the speed, and a lot of factors specific to the bike. I think this is the point that some of the experts like Palladino are talking about when they discuss "when counter steering takes over".

Trialsman, I know your trials bike is waaay light and you use a lot of body English, but you ought to weigh in on this.

I am absolutely certain that I don't want to get into a slow race with a guy that calls himself "Trialsman". :)


So, the point where countersteering is used to initiate the lean needed for the turn starts as soon as you start moving.
The point where you no longer need to deflect the steering axis in the direction of your turn starts at some higher speed, depending on before listed conditions.

TWO DIFFERENT SUBJECTS, thereby the confusion.
 
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#19 ·
Lazyboy said:
No reason for it to get heated. We're just discussin' .

There is some point where the diameter of the tire at its edge is enough smaller than at its center to turn the bike sufficiently without having deflection of the steering head in the direction of the turn. This point is determined by the arc of the turn actually required, the speed, and a lot of factors specific to the bike. I think this is the point that some of the experts like Palladino are talking about when they discuss "when counter steering takes over".
Click to expand...
If this is truelly what Palladino is teaching, he is doing a disservice to riders. At what excact point will this tiny tollerence occure? And to get it there, you would need to countersteer it to that point. And if you could get it there, how precise would you have to be? And if you were on a surface that was not perfect, how long would it be able to last?
C'mon, it's an abstract idea at best, thought up by someone on the loosing end of a late night bar arguement.

P.S. In Palladino's drunkin' stuper (er, I mean theory), it really has nothing to do with tire circumference, but rather the trail and rake. When you have enough trail and rake, the front tire will actually move across COG twards the outside of the turn which in theory (Er, I mean in a drunkin' stuper) will cause the bike to want to lean over slightly in the dirrection of the turn. Unfortunately, (and here comes the problem) you need to initiate it with, "countersteering".
 
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#20 ·
Its a good discussion. Heated or not. I disagree with the "anything above 0" thesis. I have always been taught it happens at 10-12 mph. And a decade of practice has told me that is close to the correct speed. I would not want to try direct steering above those speeds. Doesn't the bike just high side, or turn in the wrong direction if you do that? And counter-steering below those speeds would seem . . . inefficient. Not enough momentum to use momentum as a turning force. ???

If you just steer, say at 2-5 mph, isn't the bike just tracking along the front tire path and what your doing is counter-balancing?

Then above 10-15 mph your counter-steering but now the bike is "balancing" against the resultant turning force?

Because of the additional speed the bike is falling into the turn. Its kind of diving into the turn and turning because of the momentum generated by the speed of the back end . . .???

The real question is why didn't this ever happen with a bicycle . . . I mean, the part where we would talk about it. You'd think we would have all crashed our bikes when we were really going fast down a hill. :lol:
 
R
#21 ·
A very interesting discussion! From a mathematical standpoint, if the bike is traveling straight forward, it takes some type of force to get the bike to change direction, no matter how slow or fast the forward speed. At slow speeds, this is difficult to measure. At slow speeds, our lighter than the bike bodies can lean and the bike responds much more quickly. Then you may end up steering to control slow turn and the lean. At a higher speed, if you want to start turning quicker, albeit a less severe turn or change in direction, now you can lean, but counter steering makes the turn start happening much quicker. I think you are all right, in a way, but if you look at this as a physics problem, then you come to come to some definite conclusions, that are very hard to measure at low speeds.
 
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#22 ·
AFDavis11 said:
The real question is why didn't this ever happen with a bicycle . . . I mean, the part where we would talk about it. You'd think we would have all crashed our bikes when we were really going fast down a hill. :lol:
Click to expand...
Just because you can't feel it for yourself, doesn't mean it is not happening. In fact, the bicycle analogy is perfect! You absolutely countersteer a bicycle, but again, the inputs are so slight that you do not feel it.
I do not change my technic between fast or slow initiation of turns, only the amount (or degree)of input. But the actual inputs are the same.
 
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#24 ·
Counter steer begins depending of several factors..U turns? Type of road conditions,avoiding obstacles,arc of road,the type of line you prefer entering/exiting any curve,your speed..
Click to expand...

???????????????

When we begin teaching countersteering rather early in the MSF BRC (both day 1 and day 2). Students (and anyone else for that matter on a motorcycle) can begin to feel the effects of countersteering pretty easily (initiating lean, which produces the turning on a motorcycle) at speed around 12 mph and up. As the speed increases the affects and response is more pronounced, but it is still pretty easy to feel the affects at about 12 mph. Technically, you could produce it even earlier although it becomes a little more difficult to balance on a motorcycle. You can also feel the affects of countersteering in a swerve, which is essentially two successive countersteering maneuvers that you would use to avoid an obstycle like a rock, potholes and and other hazards in a road.

DaleC

P.S. Countersteering isn't used in Uturns as much as counter-weighting the motorcycle (shifting your weight the opposited direction of the turn) and outright turning your handlebars to a full lock or near full lock position.
 
#25 ·
Stand the bike up perfectly straight...& let go, what will happen? It'll tip over, one side or the other. Now, get on the bike & do the same thing. To keep the bike upright if it starts to fall left, slightly pull on the left bar & it will lean to the right. If you turn toward the lean you'll be on the ground.
The guys that are really good at a slow race do not whip the handle bars back & forth, they keep the front wheel as straight as possible & give very minor inputs, leaning ever so slightly from side to side.

You can also shift your weight from side to side & it will accomplish the same thing, but we're talking about countersteering. I've seen guys going 40mph throw themselves one direction or another to change lanes. To me it looks like they're trying to jump off the bike.

I've seen (& own) the Ride Like a Pro video & it's very good. However I don't agree with Jerry's comment that countersteering starts at 12-15MPH. For those that have watched his video. Remember when he describes then shows making a U-turn? He tells you to make a little dip away from the turn, that iniciates the lean toward the direction of the turn.

My opinion only, YMMV

Thanks to all the Vets :flg: :beer3:

Sleddog
 
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