Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Big whoop! Six years of riding. I have 5 times that and thousands more miles...most of it here in Colorado. Do not tell me that I'm inexperienced! I'm not fresh off the boat nor some wet-behind-the-ears newbie. I resent the implication.
Of course you can ride with pedal parallel to the ground, you can ride with your inner pedal down, and even no handed if you like. I'll bet your little experiment was squirrelly as hell too. You probably had to make all kinds of course corrections as you went around the corner. But, if a bicyclists wants to go through the corner faster and with more control, they ride like I've described. It's natural and is done without thinking about it. Everyone does.
I do apologize for the comment about 'harping on things you don't understand'. I was attempting to say something else and it came out wrong. For that I am sorry. What I was trying to say was that you keep concentration on only one item that I have said and not looking at the totality or perhaps not understanding what I was trying to say. Through the editing process...and some admitted hotness under the collar on my part...the above statement came out wrong. Again, I apologize for that.
I've been riding for 25 years, just the last 6 in Colorado. I retired from mechanical engineering 6 years ago at age 50, so I've had a lot of time to ride in the mountains since then.
You admitted to having no motorcycle experience. That's where you really learn about countersteering. If you ever try a motorcycle, after many years of cycling, like I did, you'll find that even a sport bike turns slowly and requires a lot of countersteering effort compared to a bicycle.
As for my cornering experiment yesterday, no it was not squirrelly and it did not require corrections. It was really quite easy to negotiate sweeping turns at 38 mph using one hand, without the outer foot down. I could have done it faster with both hands and outer foot down, but not as you described. You never have to apply weight to the outside of the bar and you better not expect the bike to keep turning if you don't keep countersteering. The amount of effort required to countersteer a bike is just very small - so small that some people don't even realize that they are doing it.