Pub Argument: Can you change the direction of bike without using the bars.
 

Hi,

During a recent drunken discussion with a good friend he suggested that it was not possible to make a useful change in direction of a M/C without resort to the bars.

He used physics to suggest that changing the vector of a 200 Kg M/C doing 100 mph without resort to the bars was not a viable proposition, as the energy input was above the level that my own weight could affect.

However my own experience makes me think that a lot of steering input comes from my own weight positioning on the bike, without resort to pressure on the bars.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Can you steer a bike with a fixed front wheel by shifting weight alone?

I reckoned something on the reduced radius of the tire contact patch when you shifted your weight, but then I was drunk.

Tests on my way home suggested I might be right, but I'm not brave enough to try it with no hands.

Anyone got an evidenced based argument either way?

Thanks,

Adrian

No.

See California Superbike School's No BS bike.

Ah yes he mentioned that.

How come?

Adrian

Hi,

Does telelever make a difference?

No springs in the forks no Resistance etc?

I'm not arguing, I just want to understand.

Thanks

Adrian

Yes.

Use your hips. Never tried this in a bar though... but I did on the road.

HJ

I know of at least one well known rider who's ridden in the British Superbike Championship,who'd wear a pair of boots out with holes in soles of his boots because of the amount pressure he put on the pegs,getting the bike to steer how he wanted too.

+1 On the K Code "No BS Bike", I've tryed it...
 

It was my impression that this subject was long closed -on the road if not the bar. You need to initiate any turn on any motorcycle with counter steering (from the bars), in conjunction with appropriate body position to then maintain what ever intended course adjustment. See Keith Code's now notorious Super Bike School training bike with secondary fixed handle bars and students attempting to affect the direction of this bike with anything but steering. Hysterical -and the last word on the subject. :D

http://www.superbikeschool.com

BMW's innovative Telelever moto suspension is no different in regard to initiating steering -just more forgiving, all be it at an over all weight cost. Telelever steering may not be as visceral in regards to feedback experienced with conventional fork systems, but it is benevolent and can inversely considerably isolate spastic breaking and even heavy handed vise paws from the suspension equation as well. My '04 R11S has been happly doin' it for me for 4 years now!:p

Oh man, just got a K Code eMail update on "Levels of Throttle Control" -Code Scares me sometimes.:eek:

Your friend is right. I didn't think it was even worth intelligent debate any more. It's a case closed scenario. Sure, weight plays a role, but it's relatively minor. I can, on a fairly straight road, ride miles at a time without touching the bars, but it requires a LOT of body english. A significant magnitude or quickness of direction change requires bar input, period. Both the physics and all objective tests back that up.

Worn boots mean squat. I wear out the bottom of boots moving myself around on a 150# race machine (that requires relatively little input) It has nothing to do with how much I am or aren't weighting pegs (which I only moderately do in any event) It's the result of me moving my own 150# back and forth continually.

Code has a bike that demos it quite well.

Now, there are some fast guys that feel otherwise, but their being fast, and understanding how and why they're fast (assuming any understanding exists) are two separate things.

I have another good bar question that alot of average riders will get wrong. If you are making a right turn....do you push the bar to the right or do you push it to the left? When you say push to the left you will get some strange looks. It does seem strange that is that way though.

Lane

Counter Steering
 

Counter Steering is often confused with drinking at one and talking about riding.:p

I should have said per race!!!

I think all the racers do pretty much the same things, but people tend to remember and emphasize the one or two things that really clicked for them.

It's like flying airplanes. You hear something ten times, and it makes no sense. Someone else says the same thing using slightly different words, and the whole idea clicks into place.

maybe if your friend gets some panties that fit, he won't be squirming around on the bike quite so much.

invariably, the "countersteering" question comes up in the BRCs i teach, with students not "understanding" it. i just tell them it's magic, and that there is no point in trying to understand it. unlike Tinkerbell and clapping, you don't have to believe to make it happen!
so then they go out and do what i tell them to. they do, it works remarkably well, but some still don't believe me, even after doing it!

go ahead, try it yourself. try to steer your bike down a twisty road without touching the bars. yeah, you'll make it move, but not nearly enough to stay between the painted lines, unless you're going thru more gyrations than a dancing hippo in Fantasia. it's about efficiency of effort. oh yeah, don't send me the repair bill.

Obviously a trick question.

Anybody with a throttle counter-force spring or, even better, a ThrottleMeister, can tell you you can steer just fine while waving with two hands at oncoming Vespa scooters. With the condition that on a BMW boxer, you need to either be above maybe 45 mph or have 22 lbs extra weight on the left side (or be good at sitting way off to the left).

But the question asked about not "using" the bars. While you can steer just fine (within broad limits), I suspect your bars are swiveling like they ought'a. So you ARE using them. Now, when I am waving with two hands, I am not able to pay any kind of close attention to the bars, so just guessing they are moving a minuscule amount.

BTW, one of the cardinal rules of bike posture (violated by Harley riders) is the need to be sitting so you can put pressure down on your feet. In turn, that doesn't compute well without tank knee pads... like on /2s and Brit bikes in days of yore.

Maybe I'm missing something... or oversimplifying, which is often the case.

I have a Throttlemeister, and a really pleasing last-3-miles-of-my-commute home which is a curvy, 35-mph road through a preserve with trees & fountains & the occasional deer or heron. Lately I've been in the habit of setting my throttle & just leaning through the last three miles hands-free, provided there's no traffic--and yes, a bias to the left is a requisite for staying on the road!

As speeds increase, as you'd imagine, responsiveness decreases, but I've gotten pretty comfortable with attaining respectable lean angles from left to right & back with no manual input to the bars. The bars do turn, but only as a result of the lean. (Leaning the bike shifts the position of the contact patch? How would one say that?) I don't have any practical experience on a bike with a fixed front wheel & I guess that's what I'm missing.

...depends on the speed you are moving at... at slow speeds the bike follows direct steering input, wen you are going fast enough for the gyroscopic forces to take controll, it turns into counter steering...

This is one of those "We both are right" questions...

Right. We agree completely. I sometimes try to see how far I can ride hands free on the R1100S, like we used to do with /2s that were balanced. Sometimes a mile is possible on a dul road, but then I am old and unbalanced.

My sense is that the trick bike has an extra fixed handlebar that you hold for training purposes but that the wheel has to pivot normally. Anybody know?

The key is the word "Meaningful."

I suggest opening up your copy (which I know all of you have) of Nick Ieanatsch's "Sport Riding Techniques" to page 35 and studying what is discussed in this chapter.

Yes, you can make casual corrections using only body english and/or your legs grasping the tank tightly while loping down a sweeping country road. But you cannot make useful, aggressive or defensive, rapid cornering adjustments or turns without the handlebars. Period.

Your friend is correct. While handles steering is possible at low speeds (as proved by stunt riders), at higher speeds it becomes very difficult and at some point impossible, limited by your own weight.

The common misconception arises from the fact that many riders countersteer without being aware of it, while at the same time shifting weight to make a turn. This can lead to a preconception that steering with hands is much less effective than it really is, especially because of the fact that bike steering is counterintuitively flipped resulting in "counter"-steering.

Well its after 2am here and after reading this, I can't sleep, wondering why I turn the bars when cornering whilst wheel-standing a trials bike.... :confused:

from your Avatar you appear to be standing the wrong wheel :)

> My sense is that the trick bike has an extra fixed handlebar that you hold for training purposes but that the wheel has to pivot normally. Anybody know?

That is correct.

ding ding ding! anotha winnah!! give that man a seegar!

Not the way I understand it. You can't do - any - steering without moving the wheel. So when you are riding hands-free, your body shift causes the bars/wheel to turn.

Body adjustments steer the wheel and at any speed - that's how the turning works. During ordinary riding, your body helps lean the bike faster into the geometry "predicted" by the way you've turned the wheel and the way the contact patch is scuffing. So normally, you move the bars first or simultaneously with body movements. When hands-free, your body moves first and the bars follow.

There's no speed at which your body movement doesn't have some effect. Provided you have some kind of throttle grip stabilizer (you know what I mean, so I wont mention it again here), you can take both hands off the bars and meander just fine down a dull road at any speed I've had the nerve to try it at providing I do not get too much upsetting wind and still have my eyes open (maybe 95 mph, can't say). Even elderly riders like me can take various curves (depending on the speed, sharpness, police surveillance, etc.) hands-free... and still keep their underwear dry.

Thanks for confirmation of my theory about the bars, Roger.

Personal note. Like with hot-shots on bicycles, one of the fun things to do on a bike - esp. when you tour or just out for a scoot - is to take both hands off the bars and steer with your body. The engagement of your body in biking is a key part of the zen of riding. It greatly saddens me (a) that the boxers like the R1100S aren't balanced to scoot straight down the road (without adding 22 lbs to the left saddlebag) and (b) the throttle can't be set to stay put hands-free. If you can't meet those two conditions, you are not getting the full joy of riding. What if your horse needed constant urging to continue moving and it veered to the right if you didn't rein it otherwise?

That's how I read it as well. I don't think there's any argument that "useful" steering can't be achieved just by shifting your weight; but limited steering is absolutely possible.

1 out of 2 ain't bad. With the Throttlemeister or some other friction/counterspring contraption and system case mounting brackets, hands-free riding is ultra-comfortable on the 11S.

I done it. For miles.

Cruise control on, 40 MPH, hands out like you are being hung on a cross, using the wind by bringing one hand in to your chest with the other in the wind...leaning and pushing bike with hips and legs.

Easy as pie. Next question?

-Eff

get going from the top of the hill. take your hands off the bars. lean left, and the biike drifts left. lean right, and the bike drifts right.

have gone miles on rural country highways never touching the bars on my old barge like victory.

Yes, we all agree you can steer at least some curves without touching the bars and at any speed. Trick riders can stand on the seat and steer, or at least continue to go straight which is almost the same thing.

The question is: if you could lock the steering in position (as you could do with ancient friction steering "dampers"), could you steer curves by body alone that way?

I don't think so, as I said before. But I'm not certain because the factors that lead to steering are so complicated. And the bars move so little when you steer, I don't think you could tell whether they are moving or not in response to body movement just by eyeball.

Semantics is messing up this conversation ("using" the handlebars?). When you ride with no hands, you're using body english to tip the bike and in turn, move the handlebars slightly. If the handlebars were locked into place pointing straight ahead, there would be no turning. Keith Code or somebody tested it and proved it, as I recall.

???? I had the impression that the turning of the bike was caused by the tapered profile of the tire.

lay a plastic cup on its side and give it a push... it goes in a circle.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion until a force is applied to cause change.. (inertia..)
Push the handlebar and try to change the direction of the front gyroscope (front wheel) and it causes the bike to lean over and run on the tapered part of the tires... now the bike goes in a circle... where it wants to stay now.... until more force is applied to the front gyroscope..to lean it further or to the other side. But force has to be applied to the wheel to disrupt the gyroscopic effects of the wheels. Jumping around on the bike is not going to do much in that regard... stunters do it al the time.... BTW keeping it going straight is not defined as steering. Any input by leaning is so little that it would not be wise to saw the bars off your bike. Ever wonder why companies make top clamps to put superbike bars on instead of clip-ons???