Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Fry
I hadn't remembered Keith Code calling countersteering rubbish. Ironic. He has led the charge to promote the understanding of steering a bike for several decades, I'd guess. His "no BS" bike provides a good demo of the futility of trying to corner without counter steering. As he points out, even the Wright brothers understood the concept.
Superbike School :: No B.S. Machine |
I read the link and yesterday I tried the gentle push on the inside bar with only one hand, the other was not touching the bar. Of course the bike counter steered. I guess I picked it up because it is about the only way to change direction, but I think I can explain the effect, maybe better than he did.
It goes back to the toy gyroscopes some of us played with when we were children, and the same effect that was used to guide torpedoes in the old days.
When you place one of those spinning gyroscopes on a string and lean it at an angle other than true vertical, the string bends in the opposite direction the gyroscope is leaning but the gyroscope will stay in that position and not fall over. I think they call that centripedal force.
I have always wondered if it could be used for propulsion but that's a different topic. With the front wheel turned, even very slightly in relation to the rear wheel you have the two wheels acting as gyroscopes and their centripedal forces are no longer on the same axes. This creates the same push effect as the gyroscope does on the string, but the gyroscopic effect of the wheels maintains stability on the bike.
In fact if the bike had a gyroscope spinning in it at high speed, when the bike itself was stationary, you would not have to put your feet on the ground to keep it from falling over, I know this would work when the axis of rotation of the gyroscope is vertical. I believe it would work if it was horizontal but perpendicular to direction of travel. I know it won't work if the axis is in the same direction as the bike would be moving if it was moving.
Maybe countersteering should be called centripedal steering.
Centripetal force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
regards
Mech