firstian

I just came back from my practice ride, trying some of the suggestions. While I'm still wobbly most of the time I did *feel* some of the key points you guys mentioned:

1. I forced myself to not look down near the front wheel even when I'm wobbly. It still felt messy to recover, but I only went wobbly once on the straight, and that's when I tried to shift . The best part is that I managed to stop straight both times in front of the stop signs, and then took right turns without a wobbly start.

2. The counter steering bit it *very* tricky, but I did feel it both at low speed and higher speed. I was playing around a bit while deliberately biking very slowly. I'm beginning to feel the fall after the push on the handle bar, but I'm not sure about the timing to lean and catch the turn at low speed. The most difficult part was the controlling how hard to push. The best part of this is on a sharp left turn at the bottom of a slope. I pushed the handle bar just a hair before entering the turn and I just whoosh through it (well I almost kissed the curb by not leaning enough , but I did manage to pull it straight through without stopping, wobbling, or braking). Wow, that was such a great feeling!

This is my first week of riding in 20 years. My rear end can only about 15 min at a stretch so far. It'll take me a while to build up to my 14 miles roundtrip commute (that last mile of straight up hill is going to kill me ). I hope I can make it in time for the fall. My route to work is actually quite scenic and I've always been envious of the bikers slowly passing by, taking in the scenes. My car is feeling more and more like a cage, I get in just so I can get there and get out. I can't wait to leave it at home and go enjoy the open road.

recumelectric

You are absolutely right. It's something that I normally do without thinking, but I can't begin to comprehend or explain the technique or the physics involved.

I went through some difficulty in my motorcycle class, when the countersteering was explained and then we were expected to do it. I kept struggling and panicking until one of the instructors who knew I rode bicycle quietly pulled me over and said, "Ride it like you'd ride a bicycle." I went, "Ooooooh." Things went just fine after that. Until that class, I had never consciously thought about what I was doing while steering. Even now, the concept freaks me out. But it works.

cerewa

Sometimes countersteering is so subtle you can't really tell it's happening at all, and if you are making a not-very-sharp turn. With a lightweight (i.e. not a motorcycle) 2-wheeler that's not turning sharply, you may be able to get it to turn without countersteering by bending at the waist so that your hips lean into the turn.

BCRider

Sounds like you're well on the way now and have at least seen the first glimmer of the light. Keep practising.

Another thing that may help with how you handle the second part of a turn once you've used the initial push to lean the bike....

Lets say you're riding along fairly slowly. You start to fall. What do you do to catch yourself? The right answer is that you turn the front wheel into the fall to catch yourself and get the bike back under you. Or if you only turn into the fall enough to stop the fall but not to lift it back up then you end up balancing the bike in a lean and carve around a turn. This is basically the second part of the turn.



cerewa is very correct in that at low speeds or if you want to lean into higher speed turns very slowly that the amount of initial counter steering can be hardly anything at all. You can snap into a turn with a lot of push pressure or you can barely push at all and at higher riding speeds the bike will do this really long lazy slow lean into the turn. Soon doing all this and playing with sharp snappy turns and long slow transitions will be part of the fun.

Leiniesred

Ride rollers.

ItoDoeblin

+1 to this. Roll down to the local park or elementary school parking lot, wear jeans, and recognize that you will fall - and there's nothing wrong with it. Those of us that learned to ride as kids did - I know I've got more than a few knitted bones and scars from riding as a kid - and thats the way to do it. The main idea, in my mind, is just to get out in a car free environment and ride like a psychopath -- that way you'll begin to feel how a bicycle works. Do the stuff kids do - sprint, slalom through tetherball poles, ride down stairs (unless you're on a roadie...that could be bad), ride through the grass, pop in and out of gutters - all of that should help you start building the muscle memory that any activity requires.

tjspiel

Does this bike have gears or is it a single speed?

If it does have gears, you may be starting out in too high a gear. It sounds like it's taking you a lot of effort just to get the bike moving, - hence the wobble.

All of what you said though would be typical of somebody just getting used to riding. Keep practicing. While some of the long technique descriptions above are probably accurate, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Trying to over think it won't help.

Torrilin

Seconding that bit on gears. I gear down quite a bit at stops... I *can* get the bike going from a full stop in my normal cruising gear, but it takes a lot of effort. Not just physical strength, but balance since in a higher gear the bike doesn't want to cooperate. When I gear down, I have very smooth starts. Means I accelerate faster too, so I hit my cruising speed before some cars can even get started. Very handy when biking in traffic.

That was probably *the* best tip I found on the internet when I started biking again last year.

ItsJustMe

When I was a kid, my brothers and I would have "slow races" - mark out a 20 foot course, last one to finish wins, no fair zig-zagging. I think that might help. Honestly, it's like asking someone how to figure out how to walk better; I have no idea how, and I didn't take any structured approach at it, I just did it for 40 years, and here I am.

It is a serious issue though. Most bicyclists I see, even those in kit, are what I'd call "all over the road". I like to be able to ride on a 3 inch paint line and stay on it for hundreds of feet at a time, it's a good way to test myself. Also I ride over a lot of gravel and I need to be able to weave around and hit the 2" wide high spots between the almost-solid potholes on parts of the road.

daintonj

It's not tricky and it's not even something you need to think about, motorcyclists make a big deal about it but almost everyone countersteers without being told about and consciously doing it. Don't think, just corner.

JR97

One of my favorite things to do on my commute on a few sections of the MUP is to see how long I can go without pedaling starting from a very mild push off. I'll occasionally do a 1/2 to full rotation to keep going. Takes a little longer to get home but it's a good way to rest the legs/lungs and chill out before I have to starting hammering away again once I"m off the MUP and into traffic and start hitting the hill climbs.

But the point being that I picked up good slow riding balance skills and can almost track stand just from riding home.

caloso

I agree. Don't overthink this. When I took off my son's training wheels I said "When you want to turn, just lean in that direction. Don't worry about tipping over. The bike wants to go straight."

If a three-year old can get it, an adult can too.

ok_commuter

Anybody know the game "foot down"? Cyclists get together and ride around in slow circles, both hands on bars, both feet on pedals. They try to gently nudge each other off their bikes as opportunities present. Put your foot down and you are out.

Don't know if people try this w/clipless shoes. I probably wouldn't.

gtd

Ask your bike shop to check your wheels for "true" and "dish".

"True" means the wheels are straight -- they don't have bends in the rim. Problems are corrected by tightening and lossening the spokes. It's hard -- let a professional check it if you don't know how.

"Dish" is akin to alignment in a car. When your car pulls to one side, often the wheels are not aligned, and you take it to the tire shop to fix that.

On a bike, if a wheel rim is not properly centered over the axle hub, the bike is not properly aligned and it will tend to pull to one side.

I learned this the hard way. I bought a new bike after going twenty years without one. I thought I was just old -- I rode like a drunken sailor, always veering off to the right. After lots of trial and error, I learned that the rear wheel was not properly dished -- it was off-center -- causing the bike to pull to the right. I fixed that, and I've been riding straight ever since.

firstian

Just came back from another ride. This is my third day and it's beginning to feel a better. My rear end only feels uncomfortable on the uphill, so I up my ride to 2.2 miles. For most part it only gets wobbly when I try to shift. There are a couple of things I noticed:

1. I seem to "use my hands" too much. When I'm tired and not paying attention, my left hand tend to lean on the handle just hair more and it threw me into a wobble.
2. I feel a lot more stable if I consciously keep my knees tight (it also seems to make it easier to stay on the pedals).

As someone suggested above, I tried to "feel the bike beneath" by gently changing the balance back and forth using only my lower body. This is definitely a Aha! moment: if I can train myself to do so consistently, I won't have to rely on my hands to rebalance (which is likely what caused the wobble to begin with).

About not thinking too much, that's definitely one of my problems . What I've been trying is to do all my thinking before I get on the bike, and pretty much let it roll once I started riding. The only things I consciously think of during the ride is when to brake, when to shift, keep a good pace, etc.

I have a question about riding position. Someone on the board suggested I should learn to bike in lower gear, pedal faster but go slower. Before I bought the bike, I read through pretty much all of Sheldon Brown's articles. One thing mentioned in the saddle piece is that the saddle isn't meant to hold the entire body weight, and much of the weight should be on the pedal instead. It seems to me that in order to pedal faster, pretty much all my weight has to be on the saddle and use the handle bar as a support. Otherwise, I feel that my legs can't spin fast enough to keep up with the low gear. What is the right amount of weight on the saddle?

BCRider

You're right. When you spin faster you can't help but end up with more weight on the saddle. Like most things in life you want to try to hit a happy compromise. I'm not really sure how much % of my weight is on the saddle when I'm riding but obviously it goes down on the hills and increases to "mostly" when I'm just cruising along with little pedal resistance. I know that on the flats I tend to pedal in bursts and then coast while standing on a pedal to ease the pressure on the saddle. Then pedal some more, coast, pedal, coast..... It works for me and I really find it's tough on the backside when riding with a little group where it's important to maintain the pace because we're all drafting off each other. So I tend not to ride with these drafting groups anymore. But that's just me of course.

You've got to watch that errant hand pressure stuff. You've seen now sensitive the bars are to pressure. So yeah, a twitch at the wrong time can lead to a side trip through a flower garden if you're not watching for it...

Not sure what you mean by "knees tight". If you ride with too much internal isometric stress in your legs you'll tire sooner. Try to relax and if you think about it at all think about easing up on any residual pressure that tries to limit your feet and knees from moving in a circular way. Relax what isn't needed for the work and apply what is needed.

firstian

It's good to know that my rear end is not alone...

By tight, I meant tried to keep the thighs parallel to the top tube, and a bit closer as the knee rises to the top. I'm still experimenting with it to find a comfortable style. What tipped me off about my knees is that my inside heel kept getting caught by the frame as the pedal rises. It occurred to me that my left knee in particular is waving in and out a lot as I pedal. That partly makes it a bit harder to have consistent balance, and it also made it more difficult to keep my left foot on the pedal.

mikesdca

Sure wish Tom Danielson would read this thread.

BCRider

So misery loves company does it?





Ah, I see. It's nice when your legs and knees don't wave outwards like that. You can TRY to angle your foot so it's inline with the bike rather than toe outwards which tends to encourage the wandering knee. But only stick with it if it helps and does not create any pain in your joints.

You've got my curiosity up now Mike....

BarracksSi

You're overthinking it.

Look up.

Pedal straight, not knock-need or bowlegged.

tFUnK

wider handlebars, shorter stem

recumelectric

Cool. I'm glad that worked. This is going to sound weird, but I sometimes think of my bicycle as a horse. (I don't ride horses, by the way. I'm basing this on what I've heard from some horse-riders.) The act of riding is a form of 2-way communication between you and the bicycle. When you do various things, the bicycle will "respond," and you will learn to feel those responses and respond back, etc. more and more.

That's why it's good to keep playing with the bike, as so many here have recommended. It's how you learn the language.

...By the way, when I was out and about tonight, I kept trying to analyze my own countersteering. I was playing around with turning and swerving in some parking lots just to try to figure out exactly what it is I'm doing. I still can't quite explain it. The real benefit was just more practice...and having some fun.

huhenio

and faster!!

ItsJustMe

Right. It's not possible to ride a bike without countersteering. That's what you're learning when you learn to ride a bike. If you tried to turn without countersteering, you'd fall over. You just don't realize you're doing it. If you make extreme turns (sharp or rapid) then the countersteering becomes big enough that you realize you're doing it, and your conscious mind can screw you up.

BarracksSi

I view countersteering as a rider-controlled method of knocking the bike over.

No, really -- and it's much less severe than that sounds. This is one of the clearest explanations I've seen yet, which was posted in a thread some time back about countersteering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C848R9xWrjc

As everyone's been saying, though, it's a subconscious thing, and you can get stuck in "paralysis by analysis" if you try riding around watching your handlebars.

Almost all the time, I just look where I want to go, and the bike goes there. I've known how to ride a bike most of my life, but the same principle applied within a week or so of when I began learning.