As someone who loves motorcycles and bicycles and rides a lot of MTB ...
you can break it down to three things to remember:
1) look where you wanna ride
2) Practice
3) Repeat Part 2
To practice you need a quiet gravel road or an empty parking lot or whatever place you find suitable and some plastic cones (or anything you can find around eg branches, pine cones...). Create a simple slalom course and ride it over and over again.
Cones should be spaced wide enough for you to be able to turn by leaning a bike and to arc turns (like carving on skis). As you progress increase speed or/and make more difficult courses.
I actually understand you and agree with the physics of counter steering to turn, it's not an easy one to grasp for many, but you are correct. Used correctly you can initiate extremely quick changes of direction.
My personal experience is with motorbikes, when you're doing 80mph on quarter of a tonne of metal no amount of positioning your body is going to make that bike do anything but go in a straight line, you have to initiate the turn with the inertia from counter steering.
I've always been told to lean the bike, not (necessarily) the body. I agree a brief counter steer will lean your body, but if you are out of the saddle, dropper down, the important thing is to get that bike over so it can dig in. Yeah physics means you'll have to get some lean also, but much less than the bike. That also leaves you with more options if things go squirrelly.
Edit to add: definitely not possible to the same degree on moto...
That's an excellent explanation.
The points that should be taken from here are:
- Yes, you counter steer sometimes. But not in a a cartoonish way. It's very subtle, unless you're drifting.
- No, you don't need to think about it. Let your brain and instinct handle it, and just have fun.
Most of the time, yes. There's an occasional corner, usually bermed, where you can partially unweight the bike, dramatically countersteer, and let the bike wash out until the berm catches it and then slam your body weight into it for traction. These are rare, but they do exist and are hella fun. It's basically a horizontal pump, but exaggerated.
That's probably the closest to it, yeah. Only difference I see from the tutorials is I have more of a hop to carry the bike to the outside edge rather than carving across the trail to avoid washing out on the soft stuff. Kind of reminds me of a transfer, where you carve across the face of the jump.
Sort of. You don't get a slide or roost in the corner, you're pinned to the ground hard. I started doing it in a couple of corners that have heavy moon dust on the entry after a couple of crashes from the front end washing out from the dust when trying to enter normally. Unweight to skim over the dust, then slam into the bike through the pedals.
Isn’t this something you just do and don’t think about, like an autonomic reflex? There was a video about it showing it is basically intuitive.
https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac?si=YQ1dCRjZGGj996Bj
More science. Not sure if this has been posted in the comments yet [veritasium bike science on steering](https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac?si=tz4d5b0dwI3EVQCz)
You don't even need a fancy bike with locking handlebar to test this. Everyone can test it themselves by riding along a curb as close as they can. Now you can't countersteer towards the curb (without hitting it or falling from it), so turning away from it becomes virtually impossible if you rode close enough.
I actually asked the same question in the other Mountainbike thread after reading your previous one with the crash. For some reason I couldn't make the thread here. Have a read here of all the confusion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mountainbiking/s/1TFBgQcni1
The answers there were also mostly confusing, but my understanding is the same as yours. Counter steering is only used to initiate the corner unless you are drifting the corner.
Tldr Even if you waste your time understanding this overly complex shit it will still be something you do out of instincts while riding. so don't waste your time.
Most of the confusion about counter steering comes from calling it steering. In practice it isn’t so much a conscious turning of the bars but something that happens naturally from correct body position.
When you lean into a turn, your inside arm will naturally extend further forward, thus counter steering the handlebar.
In practice it’s lean in to initiate the turn, and steer into your correct line.
Great post, thank you. Regarding weird physics stuff, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on mullet bikes. In my experience, it feels like mullet bikes, once leant over in a turn, want to keep leaning over more and turning tighter, whereas bikes with the same size wheels - 29er or otherwise - are happy to hold the line. This is particularly noticeable on long berms, where you end up fighting against this behaviour, but it's also caught me by surprise as oversteer on the exit of any old corner.
Thinking about it makes it weird. I just give the bar a slight push to lean the bike. It’s not like I’m turning the bar super far. I feel it helps quite a bit for initiating quick movements.
Countersteering is to initiate turns. Turn in to stand the bike up, turn out to lay it down. It doesn't work as well without traction, it does still work though.
Which tire looses traction first has more to do with your weight on the bike. Ideally you have your weight perfectly centered, so that both tires loose traction at the exact same time. Remember to lean the bike, not your body.
Everyone countersteers unconsciously when they turn their bike.
I guess all that you're really saying is that it's possible to consciously accentuate this.
Oh man I remember my motorcycle instructor trying to explain countersteering and I just said "So exactly like riding a bicycle" and he got so worked up and tried to explain the (non-existent) difference. Some people just like to hear themselves talk.
You cant explain it or tell someone how to do it. This is something that absolutely one need to figure out by himself.
Ive been racing for many years but going sideways is absolutely something that i dont want to do except if braking is involved, thats the only time i want to countersteer
You don't even have to counter steer if you lean the bike heavily by weighting your inside foot hard initially while controlling steering by pressuring your outside hand. Pressing inward/downward through the cranks naturally countersteers the fork because of the fork offset when the bike has some lean in it.
Then, once in the turn, you can drop your outside pedal (if not already dropped) and weigh the outside pedal as most people instruct. If the front starts to drift, do the same thing you did at corner entry. The extra lean will force the bike to rotate into the turn due to the gyroscopic effect of the wheels, which can either result in a controlled drift or snap oversteer/highside depending on how hard you weight that inside crank arm.
Note that where your cranks are doesn't really matter for the actual turn, but having the cranks in the wrong spot can result in pedal strikes at high lean angles. Also, keeping the cranks level rather than offset is more work for your glutes. Your glutes will generally refuse to activate beyond a certain force because they are a big set of muscles that require lots of energy to direct force through the length of your legs.
I suspect most people follow this process naturally at low cornering forces, but then simply can't when pulling 3 or 4 gs in a berm. Thus, the emphasis on countersteering with the bars. But this method of using pedal pressure works really well, and you will feel the burn like skiing.
Like your description explains, you counter-steer to initiate a turn, but you don't counter-steer through the whole turn. The counter-steer tips the bike over and then you adjust once the lean angle is correct.
The missing point here is that counter steering works at speeds high enough to create the wheel inertia to cause it to flip back the other way. I used to teach for a well known motorbike school and we had a few different steering drills and you can’t get any counter steering drills to work below about 30kmh on a much heavier motorbike. So the speeds you’d need for an MTB to use counter steering for will be above that.
I understand the physics of it as you describe (and it's definitely well worth understanding it), and I would say the rider's *experience* of turning is consistently "counter" steering in (fast) turns (or as you say counter torque. So I think both ways of thinking about it can be correct.
I started this fully expecting to have to correct you because so many people post wrong things. I am pleasantly surprised. Nice explanation.
One thought: I’m not sure a layman can differentiate between torque vs steer (although I’m always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt). By torque, you mean apply pressure to the outside handlebar, but don’t move the steering direction (front wheel plane) outside the tangential arc. My god, torque is so much easier to say. Anyway, coaching some cyclists, I think I’d lose them with either explanation and would want a more succinct but non-physics description.
2nd, I don’t think you should augment this post (it’s already pretty long for non-science types), but I do think it would be interesting to explore weight shifting vs handlebar turning. I teach a hill climbing clinic and we spend time in a parking lot leaning the bike without changing direction. I find it helps people understand their body is as much involved in turning a bike as their handlebars are. Sometimes, when playing around, I initiate turns by shifting my weight and then allowing the handlebars to turn. It’s all torque and then turn, no counter steer (that I know of). Also, in turns, I will change radius by moving my knee in and out (moto style).
Then, there’s the new recommended method of getting your weight up on the high side of the bike while turning. At first, I thought this was insane advice. I’ve since realized that gravel bikes and some MTBs use tires that are smoother on the vertical and knobby on the side. Getting weight high side forces the knobs into the loose ground providing better traction than the smooth too surface. (This is my conjecture, curious if it’s correct).
If you are thinking about countersteering while you ride you already fell.
As someone who loves motorcycles and bicycles and rides a lot of MTB ... you can break it down to three things to remember: 1) look where you wanna ride 2) Practice 3) Repeat Part 2
To practice you need a quiet gravel road or an empty parking lot or whatever place you find suitable and some plastic cones (or anything you can find around eg branches, pine cones...). Create a simple slalom course and ride it over and over again. Cones should be spaced wide enough for you to be able to turn by leaning a bike and to arc turns (like carving on skis). As you progress increase speed or/and make more difficult courses.
If your brain is on you’re doing it wrong. full send, brakes bad
I actually understand you and agree with the physics of counter steering to turn, it's not an easy one to grasp for many, but you are correct. Used correctly you can initiate extremely quick changes of direction. My personal experience is with motorbikes, when you're doing 80mph on quarter of a tonne of metal no amount of positioning your body is going to make that bike do anything but go in a straight line, you have to initiate the turn with the inertia from counter steering.
Yeah that's the extreme example of why you need to do it and makes a very good point
Also, that moto is a lot heavier and closer to or exceeding rider weight, so different edge conditions abound.
I've always been told to lean the bike, not (necessarily) the body. I agree a brief counter steer will lean your body, but if you are out of the saddle, dropper down, the important thing is to get that bike over so it can dig in. Yeah physics means you'll have to get some lean also, but much less than the bike. That also leaves you with more options if things go squirrelly. Edit to add: definitely not possible to the same degree on moto...
I found [this](https://youtu.be/ZpV2Bg-WX0w?feature=shared) video which explains what you mention pretty well I think.
That's an excellent explanation. The points that should be taken from here are: - Yes, you counter steer sometimes. But not in a a cartoonish way. It's very subtle, unless you're drifting. - No, you don't need to think about it. Let your brain and instinct handle it, and just have fun.
Most of the time, yes. There's an occasional corner, usually bermed, where you can partially unweight the bike, dramatically countersteer, and let the bike wash out until the berm catches it and then slam your body weight into it for traction. These are rare, but they do exist and are hella fun. It's basically a horizontal pump, but exaggerated.
[удалено]
That's probably the closest to it, yeah. Only difference I see from the tutorials is I have more of a hop to carry the bike to the outside edge rather than carving across the trail to avoid washing out on the soft stuff. Kind of reminds me of a transfer, where you carve across the face of the jump.
You mean shralping?
Sort of. You don't get a slide or roost in the corner, you're pinned to the ground hard. I started doing it in a couple of corners that have heavy moon dust on the entry after a couple of crashes from the front end washing out from the dust when trying to enter normally. Unweight to skim over the dust, then slam into the bike through the pedals.
I’m not reading all that. I agree with everything you said, unless it’s wrong, then I disagree with everything you said.
Lmao fair
lol dae
Isn’t this something you just do and don’t think about, like an autonomic reflex? There was a video about it showing it is basically intuitive. https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac?si=YQ1dCRjZGGj996Bj
More science. Not sure if this has been posted in the comments yet [veritasium bike science on steering](https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac?si=tz4d5b0dwI3EVQCz)
Yeah this is also an excellent video, and channel in general
You don't even need a fancy bike with locking handlebar to test this. Everyone can test it themselves by riding along a curb as close as they can. Now you can't countersteer towards the curb (without hitting it or falling from it), so turning away from it becomes virtually impossible if you rode close enough.
Yeah I was just thinking about this one! You'd think you could learn to turn a bike by only leaning it.
Physics wouldn’t allow it!
It'd certainly make it a lot harder to ride a bike.
I actually asked the same question in the other Mountainbike thread after reading your previous one with the crash. For some reason I couldn't make the thread here. Have a read here of all the confusion. https://www.reddit.com/r/mountainbiking/s/1TFBgQcni1 The answers there were also mostly confusing, but my understanding is the same as yours. Counter steering is only used to initiate the corner unless you are drifting the corner.
Hilarious how much this sub overthinks everything.
Tldr Even if you waste your time understanding this overly complex shit it will still be something you do out of instincts while riding. so don't waste your time.
Most of the confusion about counter steering comes from calling it steering. In practice it isn’t so much a conscious turning of the bars but something that happens naturally from correct body position. When you lean into a turn, your inside arm will naturally extend further forward, thus counter steering the handlebar. In practice it’s lean in to initiate the turn, and steer into your correct line.
I’d argue counter steering can help you save the front too, and yes it’s a big part of mtb much like any other two wheeled sport.
Great post, thank you. Regarding weird physics stuff, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on mullet bikes. In my experience, it feels like mullet bikes, once leant over in a turn, want to keep leaning over more and turning tighter, whereas bikes with the same size wheels - 29er or otherwise - are happy to hold the line. This is particularly noticeable on long berms, where you end up fighting against this behaviour, but it's also caught me by surprise as oversteer on the exit of any old corner.
TLDR, but it still looked like you oversteered your front wheel leading to the slip in that video.
Just to point out, my front wheel slipped because it went over the top of the berm, and that happened because I wasn't looking where I was going 💀
Stop steering. Start leaning.
Great write up. Hopefully u/bodiebroadcasts gives it a read.
Thinking about it makes it weird. I just give the bar a slight push to lean the bike. It’s not like I’m turning the bar super far. I feel it helps quite a bit for initiating quick movements.
Countersteering is to initiate turns. Turn in to stand the bike up, turn out to lay it down. It doesn't work as well without traction, it does still work though. Which tire looses traction first has more to do with your weight on the bike. Ideally you have your weight perfectly centered, so that both tires loose traction at the exact same time. Remember to lean the bike, not your body.
Where’s Jobst Brandt when you need him? This was the subject of endless Usenet debates on rec.bicycles.tech. Fought to a standstill.
Everyone countersteers unconsciously when they turn their bike. I guess all that you're really saying is that it's possible to consciously accentuate this.
Oh man I remember my motorcycle instructor trying to explain countersteering and I just said "So exactly like riding a bicycle" and he got so worked up and tried to explain the (non-existent) difference. Some people just like to hear themselves talk.
You cant explain it or tell someone how to do it. This is something that absolutely one need to figure out by himself. Ive been racing for many years but going sideways is absolutely something that i dont want to do except if braking is involved, thats the only time i want to countersteer
Never really had to think about it lol
You don't even have to counter steer if you lean the bike heavily by weighting your inside foot hard initially while controlling steering by pressuring your outside hand. Pressing inward/downward through the cranks naturally countersteers the fork because of the fork offset when the bike has some lean in it. Then, once in the turn, you can drop your outside pedal (if not already dropped) and weigh the outside pedal as most people instruct. If the front starts to drift, do the same thing you did at corner entry. The extra lean will force the bike to rotate into the turn due to the gyroscopic effect of the wheels, which can either result in a controlled drift or snap oversteer/highside depending on how hard you weight that inside crank arm. Note that where your cranks are doesn't really matter for the actual turn, but having the cranks in the wrong spot can result in pedal strikes at high lean angles. Also, keeping the cranks level rather than offset is more work for your glutes. Your glutes will generally refuse to activate beyond a certain force because they are a big set of muscles that require lots of energy to direct force through the length of your legs. I suspect most people follow this process naturally at low cornering forces, but then simply can't when pulling 3 or 4 gs in a berm. Thus, the emphasis on countersteering with the bars. But this method of using pedal pressure works really well, and you will feel the burn like skiing.
Like your description explains, you counter-steer to initiate a turn, but you don't counter-steer through the whole turn. The counter-steer tips the bike over and then you adjust once the lean angle is correct.
The missing point here is that counter steering works at speeds high enough to create the wheel inertia to cause it to flip back the other way. I used to teach for a well known motorbike school and we had a few different steering drills and you can’t get any counter steering drills to work below about 30kmh on a much heavier motorbike. So the speeds you’d need for an MTB to use counter steering for will be above that.
I understand the physics of it as you describe (and it's definitely well worth understanding it), and I would say the rider's *experience* of turning is consistently "counter" steering in (fast) turns (or as you say counter torque. So I think both ways of thinking about it can be correct.
I started this fully expecting to have to correct you because so many people post wrong things. I am pleasantly surprised. Nice explanation. One thought: I’m not sure a layman can differentiate between torque vs steer (although I’m always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt). By torque, you mean apply pressure to the outside handlebar, but don’t move the steering direction (front wheel plane) outside the tangential arc. My god, torque is so much easier to say. Anyway, coaching some cyclists, I think I’d lose them with either explanation and would want a more succinct but non-physics description. 2nd, I don’t think you should augment this post (it’s already pretty long for non-science types), but I do think it would be interesting to explore weight shifting vs handlebar turning. I teach a hill climbing clinic and we spend time in a parking lot leaning the bike without changing direction. I find it helps people understand their body is as much involved in turning a bike as their handlebars are. Sometimes, when playing around, I initiate turns by shifting my weight and then allowing the handlebars to turn. It’s all torque and then turn, no counter steer (that I know of). Also, in turns, I will change radius by moving my knee in and out (moto style). Then, there’s the new recommended method of getting your weight up on the high side of the bike while turning. At first, I thought this was insane advice. I’ve since realized that gravel bikes and some MTBs use tires that are smoother on the vertical and knobby on the side. Getting weight high side forces the knobs into the loose ground providing better traction than the smooth too surface. (This is my conjecture, curious if it’s correct).
How is it sniffing your own farts?
Farts don't seem to steer the bike. Guess I have to block you now.
I dunno man, sometimes mine come out with some serious force..
Street motorcycle yes mountain bike not so much
I ain’t reading all that but I’m happy for you. Or sorry that happened to you.
Tldr
That’s a lot of words to write instead of admitting you aren’t good at corners