Steering with your Hips

[DebW]

VG, can you clarify some things.

For steering with hips, are you talking about rotating the hips in the vertical or horizontal plane?

I googled countersteering a couple weeks ago and mostly found stuff about motorcycles, describing how, for a right turn, the handlebars need to go left to initiate the lean of the turn. Is that true for a bike as well, and at what point in your description do the handlebars move, however slightly?

[velogirl]

For steering, the hips move in a pendulum motion -- I think that would be considered both vertical and horizontal.

When you push the inside bar, it actually turns the bar/wheel to the outside (just like the descriptions you see for motorcycling). That's the counter part of counter-steering. So, if you're turning right, you push the right hand and the wheel actually turns to the left just a tiny bit.

[DebW]

For steering, the hips move in a pendulum motion -- I think that would be considered both vertical and horizontal.

Where's the fulcrum of the pendulum?

[velogirl]

Where's the fulcrum of the pendulum?

belly button

[aicabsolut]

Yeah that's right.. While I'm not great in practice cornering fast yet, I understand the physics (helps to have dated a guy who raced motorcycles). Though on a horse, turning right means leaning left ..this is what messes me up.

If you turn the wheel right on a right hand turn, then you're going to skid and wiggle and hydroplane around because turning the wheel right keeps the bottom of the tire more on the road. Pushing a little on the right bar puts more weight on the inside of the tire, you roll to the edge of it, and that plus the lean is how you turn rather than steering that you have to do at a slow pace (when you're slow, you don't have enough speed to keep you upright in a lean and you can't create enough friction with the tire to keep it from sliding out from under you). That's why motorcycle tires on racing bikes have tread that wraps around the sides pretty far. The faster you go, the more you have to lean to make the turn. And yeah, when sitting on anything it helps to watch your line.

Now just to get the execution down..