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Countersteering

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Re: Countersteering

#41

Post by KennyBlanken »

ho_schi wrote: post #13
superice wrote: post #2

This Veritasium video touches upon the same phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cNmUNHSBac

And also Sheldon Brown: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html The writings of Sheldon Brown are somewhat a Wiki for cyclists teaching maintenance and riding a bicycle. I've learned riding a bicycle as child but the theory and maintenance guides are useful to know. If you are German you may also appreciate Wikipedalia: https://wikipedalia.com

FYI Sheldon Brown passed many, many years ago and the site has gone downhill since. The current "editor" has been replacing and adding content but has little to none of the practical knowledge Brown had from working in a bike shop for decades.

A lot of content is now merely the new editor's opinions, quite a bit of it is bullshit, and sadly people treat it as authoritative because Brown's name is so strongly associated with it.

Re: Countersteering

#42

Post by Phenomenit »

HPsquared wrote: post #23
CraigJPerry wrote: post #7

There’s a lot about riding a motorbike that feels counterintuitive. The way this article is written it sounds like you can only initiate the steer with a counter steer but even if you’re already in a bend you can provide a counter input to tighten your line and steer harder. It’s taught pretty early on for new riders and it saves lives. There’s loads of other weird things, because the rear tire is wider than the fron…

On the second point (the need to maintain light acceleration) I'd always thought this was more to counteract engine braking - if there is engine braking, that is more demand on the rear tyre, kind of like applying the brake - which takes up a bit of the "available" friction that could be used for cornering.

I think its for overcoming the braking that occurs when you turn because of the normal force. Even if you hold down the clutch the bike will brake more that if you run in a straight line.

Re: Countersteering

#43

Post by engineer_22 »

mort96 wrote: post #19
frankdejonge wrote: post #14

In the Netherlands, countersteering is part of any motorbike practical exam. This is not standard in a lot of companies, but it is such an essential skill. It literally saves lives.

I'm not sure what you mean by "it literally saves lives". Anyone who rides a single-track vehicle will instinctively do it any time they turn. Do you mean that having a more conscious relationship with how you countersteer when turning can help keep control in particularly difficult turns?

I have been riding a bicycle all my life, so I suppose that I was counter steering unconsciously. I recently started riding a motorcycle and the experience is quite a bit different because it takes force and conscious effort to turn the bars on a machine weighing several hundred pounds. I think that people try to turn with their bodyweight instead of steering inputs if they don't know any better.

Re: Countersteering

#44

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #26
jpe90 wrote: post #9

When you lose traction in your car from rain or snow, your instinct is probably to countersteer, but you should instead steer into the turn and countersteer when you regain control. I can't remember if they actually taught that in driving school, but my dad had me deliberately lose traction repeatedly in a parking lot in the snow to get the hang of it. It saved my life a few times because I was a reckless idiot as a…

Your car understeering or oversteering is not countersteering. Steering inputs to correct for understeer and oversteer are not countersteering. Countersteering is specific to two-wheeled vehicles. Please read links before commenting...

Did you see where the link says:

>For the technique with a similar name used in automobiles, see Countersteering (Automobile).

?

Re: Countersteering

#45

Post by ehnto »

HPsquared wrote: post #23
CraigJPerry wrote: post #7

There’s a lot about riding a motorbike that feels counterintuitive. The way this article is written it sounds like you can only initiate the steer with a counter steer but even if you’re already in a bend you can provide a counter input to tighten your line and steer harder. It’s taught pretty early on for new riders and it saves lives. There’s loads of other weird things, because the rear tire is wider than the fron…

On the second point (the need to maintain light acceleration) I'd always thought this was more to counteract engine braking - if there is engine braking, that is more demand on the rear tyre, kind of like applying the brake - which takes up a bit of the "available" friction that could be used for cornering.

I can only really explain it intuitively, in that when you pull on the rear brake or engine brake, the angular forces of the rotation of the wheel are transferred into making your bike straighten up vertically. I don't know if that actually happens, but that's how it feels.

Part of it is also similar to the reasons you trail brake into corners, in that you're managing the weight distribution over your tires. You don't want to be erratically changing how much weight is on the front tires, otherwise you'll find you suddenly have a lot less front grip.

Re: Countersteering

#46

Post by exDM69 »

jpe90 wrote: post #9

When you lose traction in your car from rain or snow, your instinct is probably to countersteer, but you should instead steer into the turn and countersteer when you regain control. I can't remember if they actually taught that in driving school, but my dad had me deliberately lose traction repeatedly in a parking lot in the snow to get the hang of it. It saved my life a few times because I was a reckless idiot as a…

The article was about bicycles and motorcycles, not opposite lock countersteering in a car.

I don't know what exactly you mean by "losing traction" (understeer or oversteer) but your advise does not sound correct to me.

But when you get into an oversteer situation in a car, the aligning moment acting on the tyre contact patch will automatically counter steer the front wheels to the outside corner (assuming the fronts still have grip).

The correct response to oversteer is opposite lock (counter steer) to the outside (not to the inside!) and rapid recovery (center the steering wheel) when the car starts to correct itself. In a front wheel drive car, some throttle can help to correct the oversteer faster but it can also induce a really bad tank slapper pendulum and you shouldn't do this in public roads. In a rear wheel drive, if the reason for the oversteer is too much throttle (power slide), easing off the throttle will correct it. But getting off the throttle quickly (esp if you're not power sliding) can also induce lift-off oversteer and make the oversteer worse.

In an understeer condition, just easing gently off the steering and the throttle will usually correct the situation but doing it too quickly can induce a tank slapper oversteer (from lift off oversteer), which you need to correct by counter steering. It sounds like this is the scenario you're describing, but you should definitely not apply more steering input in this situation.

In a road car you will almost never get to an oversteer without deliberately inducing by power sliding, hand brake, scandi flick or other rally driving moves (or accidentally in the case of a bad recovery from an understeer). Road cars' vehicle dynamics are set up to be very understeering through mass distribution and suspension set up.

My driver's education had two full days of skidpad training in slippery conditions. Opposite lock was the response that they taught for oversteer (which the instructor induced by pulling the hand brake in a turn). I also used to do a lot of parking lot snow drifting back when cars didn't have nanny electronics to prevent it. On top of that I have done lots and lots of simulator racing, both track and rally.

Re: Countersteering

#47

Post by ehnto »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #26
jpe90 wrote: post #9

When you lose traction in your car from rain or snow, your instinct is probably to countersteer, but you should instead steer into the turn and countersteer when you regain control. I can't remember if they actually taught that in driving school, but my dad had me deliberately lose traction repeatedly in a parking lot in the snow to get the hang of it. It saved my life a few times because I was a reckless idiot as a…

Your car understeering or oversteering is not countersteering. Steering inputs to correct for understeer and oversteer are not countersteering. Countersteering is specific to two-wheeled vehicles. Please read links before commenting...

Although you're right, and we're talking about different things in the article, it's still called countersteering when you correct an oversteering car.

Re: Countersteering

#48

Post by KennyBlanken »

HPsquared wrote: post #23
CraigJPerry wrote: post #7

There’s a lot about riding a motorbike that feels counterintuitive. The way this article is written it sounds like you can only initiate the steer with a counter steer but even if you’re already in a bend you can provide a counter input to tighten your line and steer harder. It’s taught pretty early on for new riders and it saves lives. There’s loads of other weird things, because the rear tire is wider than the fron…

On the second point (the need to maintain light acceleration) I'd always thought this was more to counteract engine braking - if there is engine braking, that is more demand on the rear tyre, kind of like applying the brake - which takes up a bit of the "available" friction that could be used for cornering.

I can't speak to motorcycles, but when driving a car at the track there's "maintenance throttle" which is partly to counter the slowing you get from the tires scrubbing, and partly to balance 'weight'; most cars are far heavier up front than in back, so a bit of throttle puts a bit more weight on the back of the car, which helps keep the front outside tire from getting overloaded but also puts some weight on the back tires for more grip. It also offers the option to induce some oversteer via throttle lift, if necessary.

Re: Countersteering

#49

Post by ehnto »

Ambolia wrote: post #28

Am I missing something on the top diagram of the article labeled "A hypothetical curve on dry asphalt"? It has sections labeled "counterstearing" but I don't see any counterstearing in the movement marked in red. While on the real-life images below it clearly shows it.

In the bottom right of the image is the text "countersteer left", denoting the part of the turn where you might countersteer left in order to get the bike to turn right. You would not go perceptibly left according to the line, when you steer slightly to the left, the bike immediately leans over to the right and the front wheel steers right immediately also. The act of countersteering is entirely about leaning the bike over, the resulting turn to the right is actually a second order effect of that lean.

Re: Countersteering

#50

Post by freetime2 »

ho_schi wrote: post #13
superice wrote: post #2

This Veritasium video touches upon the same phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cNmUNHSBac

And also Sheldon Brown: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html The writings of Sheldon Brown are somewhat a Wiki for cyclists teaching maintenance and riding a bicycle. I've learned riding a bicycle as child but the theory and maintenance guides are useful to know. If you are German you may also appreciate Wikipedalia: https://wikipedalia.com

> Skilled cyclists use the front brake alone probably 95% of the time

I am skeptical about this claim. Here’s a recent video by a former pro on the subject of braking, for example, and he is squeezing on both brakes at the same time in most of the shots. [1] He does say that the front brake can be squeezed a lot harder, though, and is source of most of your braking power.

Even in the places where Brown says you should use the rear/both brakes comprise much more than 5% of my total brake usage: bumpy roads, slippery roads, long descents, breaking during a turn, etc. But I’ll also use both breaks to come to a stop pretty much any time I’m coming up to a traffic light or other non-emergency stop.

[1] https://youtu.be/wX4tFn4RzrU

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