Originally Posted by
recumelectric
...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.
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:
http://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.