# How to Countersteer FAQ



## WingNut (Oct 12, 2005)

This is in conjunction to another thread out there at the moment - 'Descending weight distribution'
Countersteering does seem to be the key for those who can descend fast, My understanding of countersteering is 'leaning the bike more than the body'
To do this it seems to me that weight distribution is crucial 
*how much on the hands (and which hand) 
*how much on the saddle and on the pedals - 

Countersteering is yet to feel natural to me and unless I consciously think about it before a corner and make myself do it, I find I'm leaning my body into corners, and chickening out with the brakes. 

So how do you countersteer? 
Can you do it seated or should you unweight yr butt?
Hand weight must also be important, Do you push with the inside hand or lift with the outside hand?
Can you pedal while countersteering?
Any drills suggested to make it more natural?

All comment from happily countersteering descenders appreciated...


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## Argentius (Aug 26, 2004)

*superman...*

Maybe I am missing something, or maybe there are two definitions of "countersteer," but to me, it's just the backwards steering effect that happens at speed. Perhaps the effect is the bike leans more than the body, I don't know...

You do it all the time with motorcycles, as it's the only way to really get 'em to turn. People will call it "superman," -- you know, "up, up, and away?"

Just gently, smoothly push forward with the inside hand -- the way you want to go. The front tire will turn slightly the way you don't want to go, and the bike will "deflect" and lean into the corner. You still need to lean your body weight, too, but mostly things will take care of themselves.

It's "counter" steer because it is the opposite of what happens at low speed, when you actually TURN the bars the way you want to go, like a steering wheel.


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

Perhaps it's because I ride motorcycles, but I find that the amount of countersteering needed to get a bicycle to turn on a descent is so small as to be unnoticeable. I wouldn't obsess over it.

Also, countersteering isn't leaning the bike more than the body... Argentuis has the right definition. Leaning the bike more than your body does get the bike to turn better, but it's a technique that is needed more for tight turns than for making turns at speed on a descent. It's something that you have to do all the time for motorcycle trials where you are making very tight turns at low speeds. Again, it's not something that is really needed for fast descending on a bike. Check out pics of pro road racers going down hill... they're not leaning the bike much more than their body.


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## Wookiebiker (Sep 5, 2005)

WingNut said:


> Countersteering does seem to be the key for those who can descend fast, My understanding of countersteering is 'leaning the bike more than the body'


Nope....Argentius has the right definition of countersteering.




> To do this it seems to me that weight distribution is crucial
> 
> *how much on the hands (and which hand)
> *how much on the saddle and on the pedals -


The same weight distribution you would normally have on a descent. Generally in a turn that you are going all out in, you will be pushing on the outside pedal hard enough it actually lifts your butt off the saddle just a bit, which puts all your weight on your hands and feet.




> Countersteering is yet to feel natural to me and unless I consciously think about it before a corner and make myself do it, I find I'm leaning my body into corners, and chickening out with the brakes.


Actually, if you have ever hit a corner at higher than 18 mph - 20 mph you have already used counter steering and I'm willing to guess it felt very natural to use at the time. To turn a bike at speed the only way to do so is to countersteer.

If you don't believe it, next time you are on a long straight decent try and turn the bike into the direction you want to go. A funny thing will happen....You will go in the opposite direction you want to go. That's countersteering and it happens naturally at speed. The difference is knowing it's happening and using it to your advantage.




> So how do you countersteer?
> Can you do it seated or should you unweight yr butt?
> Hand weight must also be important, Do you push with the inside hand or lift with the outside hand?
> Can you pedal while countersteering?


As has been explained already, push the handlebar forward with your inside hand (hand on the inside of the turn). You are turning the wheel against the direction you want to go, which actually leans the bike to the side you want to turn and initiates the turn in that direction. The more you push with that inside hand, the more you will turn.

Hand weight has little effect on countersteering. As long as you can turn the bars you can do it regardless of how much pressure is on the front end of the bike or weight on your hands.

Yes, you can pedal while countersteering. Chances are you already have, just didn't realize it. Again, it's just natural to countersteer while descending at speeds above 18mph or so, somebody just put a name to it.



> Any drills suggested to make it more natural?


Again, find a long straight downhill and play with it just to get an idea of the feel on a conscious level. Then used it to your advantage on twisty descents.

At slow speeds it doesn't work and if you are just tooling around in a parking lot it doesn't work. You need speed to make it work, which is where descents help. If you happen to have a motorcycle you can see the effects really easy when riding down the road.


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## Fredke (Dec 10, 2004)

There's all this mystique about countersteering. When I first started reading all about countersteering it took a fair bit of experimenting on decents before I realized that countersteering is what I had been doing all along without realizing it. ("_By my faith! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing anything about it._" --- Molière)

Knowing that I was countersteering helped because now I have a better understanding of how to manage lateral weight distribution on fast corners, but the "technique" of countersteering seems to be what you do intuitively anyway. As Argentius says, the amount you have to move the handlebars to effect countersteering on a bicycle is so small that you don't notice it unless you're really paying close attention. Otherwise it just feels as though you're leaning the bike into the turn. As Wookie says, "*The difference is knowing it's happening and using it to your advantage.*"


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## Eric_H (Feb 5, 2004)

*Agree with all*

Counter-steering is just a name, and if you can get around any corner at a decent speed you are already doing it. 

For the OP, if you are having problems descending and cornering as fast as your peers it is much more likely a mental thing rather than a physical thing. First things first, you have to be relaxed and focused on the road ahead, not tense and focused on what your body is doing. I might be overstating the simplicity here because I started riding motorcycles befofre I was 4 years old (custom Honda Z50 to fit me) and basically grew up on two wheels. But in all my years of motocross, MTB and road racing I have helped teach others how to corner faster and in almost every case there has not been a physical problem so much as a tension and over-analysis problem.

One thing I'll add in the technical department: To really rail a fast corner you have to keep your outside foot down and put weight on it. This is pretty obvious, and you can demonstrate it to yourself by taking a fast corner with outside foot down and then doing the same with pedals level. The difference here is in the weight distribution, esecially the vertical force on the rear wheel. FWIW, I have observed decent cat 1/2 road racers trying to corner on a fast descent with the pedals level, scary stuff!


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

Eric_H said:


> Counter-steering is just a name, and if you can get around any corner at a decent speed you are already doing it.


yip...there's no other way to turn a bike at speed.


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## comsense (Feb 24, 2005)

this guy knows what he is talking about and the diagram is fantastic

http://www.flammerouge.je/content/3_factsheets/2006/descend.htm

http://www.flammerouge.je/images/factsheets/Corner Schematic.pdf


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## JCavilia (Sep 12, 2005)

*disagree*



comsense said:


> this guy knows what he is talking about and the diagram is fantastic
> 
> http://www.flammerouge.je/content/3_factsheets/2006/descend.htm
> 
> http://www.flammerouge.je/images/factsheets/Corner Schematic.pdf


I didn't read the whole thing, so it may contain lots of good advice, but I think the diagram is bogus. His "correct" line includes a sharp turn that is as tight as the sides of the road. That line does nothing to lengthen the radius (straighten the bend) and allow a higher speed. Its only advantage is letting you see well around the curve before you pick your final line, but it's not a fast line, IMO.


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## Wookiebiker (Sep 5, 2005)

JCavilia said:


> I didn't read the whole thing, so it may contain lots of good advice, but I think the diagram is bogus. His "correct" line includes a sharp turn that is as tight as the sides of the road. That line does nothing to lengthen the radius (straighten the bend) and allow a higher speed. Its only advantage is letting you see well around the curve before you pick your final line, but it's not a fast line, IMO.



From what I can see in the diagram (I can only see the small version, the big one won't open up) is he is explaining "Late Apexing". This is best used for corners that are more than 90 degrees or for corners you can't see around.

The basic idea is to keep an outside line all the way through the turn until you can see through it, then head for the apex of the turn, which may be 70% or 80% of the way through the turn instead of 50% like a normal apex.

This is both a safer and faster line in certian instances, especially where visibility is limited through the turn, such as with continually decreasing turns, turns with walls/buildings blocking vision, etc.

For a normal turn that you can see through a normal apex works well. 

However, the turns should be fluid and not sharp or blocky. I'm guessing that was just a bad draw up in the diagram it's self.


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## Gripped (Nov 27, 2002)

Argentius said:


> Just gently, smoothly push forward with the inside hand -- the way you want to go. The front tire will turn slightly the way you don't want to go, and the bike will "deflect" and lean into the corner. You still need to lean your body weight, too, but mostly things will take care of themselves.


This is a pretty good explanation. I rememeber when someone laid it out as simply as this and I had an "ah-ha" moment on the bike the first time I tried it out. Just push forward -- or down -- with your inside hand and push down on your outside foot. Or just pedal through ...


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## Eric_H (Feb 5, 2004)

*More thoughts*



Gripped said:


> This is a pretty good explanation. I rememeber when someone laid it out as simply as this and I had an "ah-ha" moment on the bike the first time I tried it out. Just push forward -- or down -- with your inside hand and push down on your outside foot. Or just pedal through ...


Yes, the notion of counter-steer on a bicycle is so sublte that I really think it is better described as "weighting the inside hand down and toward the outside of the corner". 

I did some training today and I was mostly doing a hill circuit close to my house because it was threatening to rain most of the day (I'm past getting wet at this point of the season, unless I'm racing in it or I get caught through bad planning  ). On the circuit coming down I hit a couple of fast 90 degree turns each time. Today, instead of just riding the corners with no thought about what I was doing, I actually thought about this thread and what was going on. As I said elsewhere, I have been on 2 wheels of some form for almost my whole life so I don't really think about what I'm doing physically to make the bike respond very often.

Anyway, my summary for the OP would be that counter-steering is really all about the inside hand and weighting it down and away from the corner. At the same time your outside leg should be extended and down with a lot of your weight on it. Other things for better cornering and descending: Position yourself in the drops, flexed at the elbows with a relaxed grip to absorb shock. Look further up the road, not immediately in front of you. And one thing always to remember: do your braking before you start turning. The action of braking will essentially want to make the bike stand up and make it much harder to go around the corner. Plus, if it is wet out, hitting the brakes while cornering is a sure-fire way to hit something else....


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## WingNut (Oct 12, 2005)

Thanks for yours, and the other posters on this thread, very helpful and simple 'Weight the inside hand and outside leg'. Now it's practice and confidence...


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## bas (Jul 30, 2004)

WingNut said:
 

> Thanks for yours, and the other posters on this thread, very helpful and simple 'Weight the inside hand and outside leg'. Now it's practice and confidence...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering

http://www.wikihow.com/Countersteer-(Motorcycle)


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## homebrew (Oct 28, 2004)

When you countersteer you slightly turn the front wheel away from your intended direstion by placing wieght on the bar on the side you intend to turn to. This throws the balance of the bike very quickly, in effect making the bike start to fall into the turn. If you try this at low speeds you will see a how much this effect has. PRACTICE before you try this at speed. IMO most prople do NOT countersteer. As I posted on the other post this is just one of many suggestions to improving your downhill bike skills.


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## Fredke (Dec 10, 2004)

Wookiebiker said:


> Actually, if you have ever hit a corner at higher than 18 mph - 20 mph you have already used counter steering and I'm willing to guess it felt very natural to use at the time. To turn a bike at speed the only way to do so is to countersteer.


Just a quibble, but I regularly corner at 20-25 mph without countersteering when I want to pedal through the corner without striking a pedal and crashing. I lean my upper body into the turn, keep the bike pretty much upright, keep pedaling and weight the INSIDE [edit: typo I meant OUTSIDE] hand as I turn the bars INTO the turn. It's a very different feeling from countersteering. It also feels a lot less natural than countersteering.

For sharp corners at 30+ mph, I can't do this and can only negotiate them by countersteering.


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## Wookiebiker (Sep 5, 2005)

Fredke said:


> Just a quibble, but I regularly corner at 20-25 mph without countersteering when I want to pedal through the corner without striking a pedal and crashing. I lean my upper body into the turn, keep the bike pretty much upright, keep pedaling and weight the INSIDE hand as I turn the bars INTO the turn. It's a very different feeling from countersteering. It also feels a lot less natural than countersteering.
> 
> For sharp corners at 30+ mph, I can't do this and can only negotiate them by countersteering.


By weighting the "INSIDE" hand I'd be willing to bet you are countersteering, you just don't realize it. On a bicycle it doesn't take much at all to initiate the turn and a slight weighting of the inside hand would initiate countersteering.

Also by leaning into the turn you are moving your weight to the inside of the turn, which again puts pressure on the inside hand and initiates countersteering.

The simple fact is after a certain speed on a two wheels vehicle (be it moped, motorcycle or bicycle) there is no other way to turn.

There is a motorcycle training school out there that shows this to their students. They have a bike where the front wheel is locked straight. Students are told to lean the bike to get it to turn, since a lot of people think it's the leaning into the turn that initiates the turn. The students can't get that bike to turn as all. It leans but doesn't turn.

Without the countersteering effect at speed your bike won't turn either.


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## filtersweep (Feb 4, 2004)

How can you ride a bike if you do not countersteer?



homebrew said:


> IMO most prople do NOT countersteer.


The other problem is in the definition of "leaning the bike more than the body" that the OP mentioned. That is not good form. It would drive me crazy when I would drive my motorcycle with a passenger who was clueless--- who would lean away from the turn, rather than maintaining the same axis as the bike. It creates an unstable situation to lean away from a turn.


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## Gripped (Nov 27, 2002)

Eric_H said:


> Look further up the road, not immediately in front of you.


Look through the turn (did someone already say this?). You will tend to go where you're looking -- so if you're looking right ahead of you, you'll be fighting the urge to go straight.

In mountain biking, it's important to look where you want to go, not where you don't want to go. And this translates well into cornering. Don't look at that pothole in the turn. You know where it is and you've already plotted an arc around it. Just execute the turn.

Foks also get all bent out of shape when they there is rough pavement in a corner. If you keep loose and follow the rules, you can ride right over the rough stuff. You will get in trouble if you tighten your grip on the bars, tense your arms, and fixate on the bumps.


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## vonteity (Feb 13, 2005)

filtersweep said:


> The other problem is in the definition of "leaning the bike more than the body" that the OP mentioned. That is not good form. It would drive me crazy when I would drive my motorcycle with a passenger who was clueless--- who would lean away from the turn, rather than maintaining the same axis as the bike. It creates an unstable situation to lean away from a turn.


Leaning the bike and not the body does not mean to lean the body in the other direction! It's actually quite good form to lean the bike and keep your body centered over it. Lean with your bike, and your center of gravity moves so that you are more apt to slide out. I'm not entirely sure that cornering on a motorcycle and cornering on a bicycle can really be equated. They are very different from each other, IME. It's a heck of a lot easier to corner when your tire is wider than 23 mm, after all.

Cornering (on a bicycle) simplified is:

1) scrub off speed before you hit the turn, don't brake in the turn itself.
2) lean the bike into the turn, keep your body centered over the bike.
3) keep everything loose.
4) look through the turn to the straightaway you're aiming for.

I always found the whole "weight your inside hand, pull up with the outside hand" thing very confusing. It made me think too much. Now I don't think, I just lean the damn bike.  

Attached is an example picture. Person in the back: good form. Person in the front: looks terrified because their form is not so good. Look at the arms and legs, you can see that the person in the back is better centered over their bike and more relaxed. It also seems that the rider in front is looking at the edge of the road where the turn ends and not through the turn where the road continues.

I will not admit to being the dorky fat cat 4 in the pink and black helmet!!!


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## homebrew (Oct 28, 2004)

filtersweep said:


> How can you ride a bike if you do not countersteer?
> 
> 
> 
> The other problem is in the definition of "leaning the bike more than the body" that the OP mentioned. That is not good form. It would drive me crazy when I would drive my motorcycle with a passenger who was clueless--- who would lean away from the turn, rather than maintaining the same axis as the bike. It creates an unstable situation to lean away from a turn.


I think the issue hear is in what is countersteering. In a strict sence it has nothing to do with if you lean your body or not. Most people turn just like the last poster stated. This is not countersteering. It works well in most situations however when your going all out countersteering as I discribed in my prior post will get you around a high speed turn that other methods will leave you in the ditch. Its been around for as long as I've been racing (30 years) and is well known and used in the pro ranks. I suggest you try my suggestion at low speed. Turn the wheel slightly in the opposite direction you want to go while sitting ballanced on the bike. You will feel the bike start to fall in the direction of the turn. You will need to pick up the speed a bit to complete the turn and maintain control. Try it on some sharp corners at higher speeds. You will soon see that this produces a sudden sweep into the turn that standard turning practice does not. Please note that this is an advanced skill. Making any high speed turns as discribed is not for everyone and contains risk. I will say however that countersteering has saved my butt many times on fast downhills and helped me thru many crits


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## Fredke (Dec 10, 2004)

Typo: I meant to say weighting the outside hand. 

When I look down at my wheel, the front is pointed toward the inside of the curve, not the outside. When I want to correct my line, I push on the outside of the bar to reduce the turning radius and on the inside of the bar to increase the radius. This is opposite of countersteering, in which turning the bars one way makes the bike turn the opposite direction.

Here's a god exercise to try if you think countersteering is the only way to turn a bike. When you're climbing a steep hill with switchbacks at low speed, try turning the wheel sharply toward the outside on a curve. When I do it, the bike doesn't follow the turn but goes toward the outside of the turn. This is opposite of what happens when I countersteer on fast corners.

I'm arguing that if you start with your center of mass toward the inside of a turn, direct steering can get you around the turn. If your center of mass is centered over the bike, countersteering is necessary to get the point of road contact out from under your center of mass.


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## mquetel (Apr 2, 2006)

*How about course correction in the turn?*

I've read some really great descriptions of countersteering in this thread, but how about taking it to the next level and walking me through emergency course corrections while in a turn? How does countersteering help or hinder this? For example having to suddenly and temporarily take a section of a turn shallower or deeper than your originally anticipated line, because of some obstruction you just noticed?


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## GearDaddy (Apr 1, 2004)

C'mon, this is not that complicated. It is not an advanced technique, and is in fact quite intuitive.

How about when you get out of the saddle and rock the bike back and forth? You are in fact doing a succession of countersteering initiated turns. Turn wheel slightly to left - bike leans to right as you move your body towards left. Then turn wheel slightly to right and do the opposite and so on and on ....

The weight distribution is integral here, otherwise we'd be falling over. When you countersteer, you must oppose the lean of the bike by moving your upper body away from the leaning bike. The amount of shift of course depends on your speed and the sharpness of the turn. Applying pressure to the handlebars with your hands can be part of the process if you want. We do it all of the time without thinking. You can do this a slow speeds too.

It's a faster and easier way to initiate the turn. Is it the only way to turn? No. The alternative is to move your body towards the inside of the turn and keep the bike more upright. It is definitely a slower way to initiate the turn because it takes longer to shift your body weight properly. Why would you want to turn this way? I can only think of a couple reasons: 1) You want your front tire to track around an object, e.g. evasive maneouver to avoid something, or 2) You want better traction on a loose surface, and keeping the bike more upright as you turn helps this. I find myself doing the non-countersteer turn often when riding a technical mountain bike trail for instance.


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## WingNut (Oct 12, 2005)

*Nailing it - Hired a coach - keep my butt on the saddle...*

Thanks to all for your contributions, have read, thought about it and practiced, but was still having problems with descending. Hired a coach and went out today for a 1.5hr session, picked a steep local hill with two 45 degree turns and a long sweep and rode Up and down it with him behind me; after the descent he advised me on lines and body position. I have raced this hill before, gone down braking all the way, in terror while the pack disappeared.

My lines were fine, big problem was tensing my legs and lifting my butt off the saddle, this meant I weighted my front wheel and got front wheel bounce, terrifying and had poor control, squeezed the brakes so got even less control, went slower and slower and felt more out of control - the story of my descending on corners; But by simply forcing myself to put weight on my saddle my control improved immeasurably, lost front wheel bounce, kept off the brakes far more and after 6 or 7 descending attempts was nailing it, fastest ever. 

With weight on the seat, hands in the drops, it got way comfortable, I could relax for the first time in a descent. I didn't even really think about countersteering, once in control my confidence improved and the steering and leaning became intuitive and easy...


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## WingNut (Oct 12, 2005)

Another ride today, trying out my new found dscending skills and improving in confidence, concentrated on the ''gentle inside hand pressure down and forward, it was beautiful , some fast descending corners, carved beautifully. I'm not a gun, but vastly improved now \i've got my weigth right...


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## threesportsinone (Mar 27, 2007)

what Argentius said pretty much sums up what I've heard. However, I have heard that you should lean less than the bike the reason is that you see things on a verticle axis and when your head is leaning towards horizontal your brain takes a little extra time to make everything verticle, this lowers your reaction time and when your flying around a corner you need to have the quickest reaction time possible.


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## Mark McM (Jun 18, 2005)

*Head tilting vs. body leaning?*



threesportsinone said:


> what Argentius said pretty much sums up what I've heard. However, I have heard that you should lean less than the bike the reason is that you see things on a verticle axis and when your head is leaning towards horizontal your brain takes a little extra time to make everything verticle, this lowers your reaction time and when your flying around a corner you need to have the quickest reaction time possible.


Then why not just tilt your head? Surely tilting your head is easier than leaning the entire body (not to mention that you can tilt your head to a much greater angly than you can lean your body away from the bike).


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