RIDING TECHNIQUES: Steering No.1
There are many schools of thought on just how to steer a motorcycle. While all of them may appear to work, some are more effective than others, and for any to work they must include, conscious or sub-conscious, counter-steeringBrouggy's Steering Bible: Part One - Counter steering
What the Dickens is counter-steering? Let's look at the term itself. Counter; opposite to. Steering; to change direction. Counter-steering means to steer opposite to the direction of the turn.
Now this may have quite some effect on your survival reactions. Think about it. To turn a left hand corner, you have to push the handlebars to the right. To turn the bike right, you have to push the bars left. To the part of our minds that is designed to keep us alive, this simply does not compute.
Especially when we consider that it is only on two wheeled vehicles that this is the case. After all, you don't counter-steer a car now do you!? Well, I hope not anyhow... What you need to understand is that you are already doing this whether you are conscious of it or not, and if something is being done sub-consciously, you're simply not in control of it.
To help clarify all this, there is one question you have to ask in relation to changing - "is lean a result of steer, or is steer a result of lean"? When you steer the bike does it lean, or when you lean the bike does it steer? The correct answer is; when you steer, the bike leans. Well done.
For those riders who are leaning into corners out of habit, and those who consciously practice body-steering, I have a few questions for you:
- Question One:
- How many contact points do you have with the motorcycle?
- Answer:
- At least five (two hands, two feet, and your derriere).
- Question Two:
- How many of those points are connected to something that pivots?
- Answer:
- Two (your hands). So, your only contact points that can change the position of, or move something on the bike, are your hands on the handlebars.
What this means is that when you lean or body steer, you are relying on the change of your body weight to steer the bike. If this is the case, you must be changing the distribution of weight via your contact points with the motorcycle, which moves the one thing to which you are connected that pivots, the handlebars. If you lean to the right, then your weight will shift to the right, putting weight on and therefore pushing away anything you are holding with your right hand.
This means that when you have been leaning the bike, you've actually been counter-steering it without even realising you've been doing it. As a matter of fact, without counter-steering, the motorcycle cannot make it around a corner. If that's the case, it makes sense to use the skill more directly so that it is more effective, don't you think? Remember, if it's not conscious for you, you're not in control. You can't change something that you don't know you're doing.
Good luck with your riding.
Steve Brouggy is the owner of the
Contact:
2 / 76 Rushdale St
Knoxfield, VIC 3180
Australia
Phone: 1300 793 423
+613 9763 3338
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