Originally Posted by
grolby
It is true that essentially 100% of the population believes that you go left on a bike by turning the handebars to the left. It is also true that 100% of bicycle riders don't actually do this, because they wouldn't be bicycle riders if they did. Fortunately, understanding how it works isn't required. The process of learning to ride a bike isn't like reading a book or watching a video and then remembering and recalling that information. It's a process of training your autonomic system to build the connections between your vestibular system and the mechanics of what your arms and hands and body are doing on a bicycle.
Exactly. I was unaware of countersteering until I was c. 50 years old...yet I'd been doing it all of my life. And as you said, even the term countersteering is misleading. It's just essentially learning how to balance a bicycle. Once you accept that you won't fall over, and that you have to shift your weight to control the bike, the rest is automatic.
O-K, now as for the part about countersteering at any speed above zero: I need a refresher on that! I'm going to get out a bike and experiment. I am STILL under the impression that I've steered by turning the bars in the direction that I wanted to go, when going very slow.
I'm sure that if I ride around in a small circle at c. 4MPH, the wheel will be turned in the direction that i am going. Maybe not. Off to the "physics lab"! [It was recently mowed! ]