If you are going fast, the knee might give you some asymetric drag to help the turn along a little bit against the air instead of against the contact patch. I prefer to start a turn with my weight high, and then kind of fall into the bike by the end of the turn.

On a related note. I recently tried to just turn my handlebars while going straight at low speed, no leaning, just to see if I could. I found that I was unable to turn the handlebars more than 5 or so degrees. I am not sure if it was a psychological barrier or a physical one. But atleast for me it seems impossible to just turn the handlebars without also leaning onto the bars and shifting my weight.

yet another amazingly helpful one-liner from the peanut gallery. perhaps I've described it clumsily, but I do know how to lean a bike. go ahead and lean to one side without moving your hips at all, I'll just wait right here.

Balancing the bike requires steering the front wheel, however minutely. It's possible to ride a bike with tiny wheels (no gyroscopic effect), short wheelbase, long wheelbase, etc, but lock the steering and any normal rider will fall over.

It's pretty much impossible to turn the bars without turning or leaning; it's how two wheeled things work.

Okay, it's probably like saying it's impossible to fold paper in half more than 8 times. Mythbusters did 11 folds I think, using a huge piece of paper (100 yards x 100 yards?) and using a bulldozer and steamroller to help fold. I'm sure that a super wide tired bike (think 2 foot wide slicks off the back of a dragster) could be "steered" without leaned. But a normal bike, no.

No, I'm not talking about steering the bike, just turning the handlebars. I mean even if I was perfectly willing to crash the bike, I just couldn't turn the handlebars to make it happen. I feel like there was a lot of force preventing it from happening.

a psychological one, probably.

not actually a one-liner, just an honest question. my hips lean with the bike when it leans, but i have never had to swivel them to turn...i do all my turning with the handlebars, the rest just follows.

maybe i misunderstood what you were describing?

All I know is when I've tried pointing my knee out during a turn, it feels most unnatural to me, and I get the feeling that I look like I've assumed the position of a dog about to take a leak... which is a posture I normally try to avoid.

I love the "countersteering doesn't exist" argument.

Let us know when you fall off the edge.

Pretend you are floating along and there is no bike under you. Then, initiate and follow-through a turn. During the turn, what did you do? What did you feel?

Use this experience as a baseline for future adjustments.

You rotate your hips because that is the natural movement of the body to adjust position in that direction. You push down on the outward pedal and the handlebars because you are naturally compensating for the positive movement of the bike. Bike handling shouldn't be something you struggle to do and make strategies for... you're really only under control if it's natural.

That being said, you probably have better control of your bike than you think. The trick is just to stop thinking.

-Old Indian secret, taught to me by an old Indian.

Ride your bike no handed including around turns, and you'll be surprised how much you can do to steer the bike with your lower body.

merlinextraligh, i don't think you are arguing that body steering is truly effective, and that you simply mention it as an aside, so please don't think my response below is aimed at disabusing you of that particular notion.

actually i DO have a pretty good idea of how much my body (minus handlebar input) can steer a bike...a bit, but nowhere near enough to convince me it is an effective way to turn a bike at any kind of reasonable speed and with any kind of accuracy and stability. i would never say you cannot influence the direction of a bike with ones hips, but i am positive that using countersteering and a relaxed body is really all you need to most effectively get a bike to turn.

when i worked as an instructor for Keith Code's California Superbike School, we had a "NO BS" bike which was a kawasaki 600 with an extra set of handlebars mounted and bolted only to the frame (i.e. they would not move the forks). Anyone who insisted that they could "body steer" a motorcycle effectively was given the opportunity to ride this machine. The short story is that a lot of crazy writhing and wiggling would occur, and the motorcycle would barely deviate from a straight line. We actually had one guy almost run over a portapotty and threaten to sue us because he couldn't let go of the top bars and grab the working ones until it was almost too late.

obviously a motorcycle has much more mass than a bicycle, and is not as easily influenced by these kinds of body contortions, but the principle stands that if you want to get through a turn as quickly as possible, focusing on any kind of "body steering" is not worth the investment of time and attention.

That is a motorcycle. Besides simply weighing a ton more, it has a lot of inertia that a bicycle doesn't, particularly in the wheels.

Another test besides no-handed is to ride a bicycle on rollers and see how much of your corrections are made with your core, and how much is made with your arms. You will feel it in your hip flexors. If you have a very smooth pedaling technique and good balance, you don't need to correct much at all, and won't notice this as much. But normal riders, especially those who haven't ridden rollers much, will definitely be making corrections primarily with their lower body.

This next part you definitely will know and not disagree with. Regardless of the body motions and physics in play, once you know how to lean a bicycle, you just do it. You don't have to consciously think about push right to go right, countersteering, tilting your hips, or any of that. Most people in fact would need to watch themselves on video to properly describe what their own body is doing at speed.

This is a very interesting topic.

I have a lot of experience in motorcycle cornering. On road, it is best to weigh foot pegs and lean into the turn, with being as light as possible on the bars. On motorcycle, front wheel is loaded with a lot of weight from the bike itself when cornering. So much that it is wise to open throttle a little bit while cornering, so some weight is transfered off the front to the rear wheel. Like someone said, push inner bar and (weigh) outer peg/pedal is the easiest way to steer a bike.

I feel that it is similar with bicycles - one should not put much weight on the front wheel. Especially since that would mean leaning harder on the bars which should not be held tightly since that would make bicycle unstable. Did I get this wrong? Would it be better to put weight on front when cornering on a bicycle?


Off road riding, where wheels don't have a lot of traction and where a (counter)steering input will be lost by wheel just slipping and continuing going straight, steering with one's body and pushing bike to lean makes sense. It is slower, less accurate, but in such conditions it is the only way. Also, when riding off road, body is kept more upright and foot kicked out in order to help stabilise the bike in case of a slide (controlled or unexpected).


About countersteering: it is the only way to quickly and accurately turn both bicycle and motorcycle at any speed above some 20 km/h. If there is little traction (mud, sand, grass, ice, snow etc), then it is safer to body steer, but on a dry road, body steering makes no sense at all. It will work, but it is second best to countersteering. You can even push bike beneath you and stay more upright with foot out to do a controlled slide, but you will still be quicker and more accurate if you get bike in the turn with countersteering while staying upright.

i do indeed understand the difference, and that is why i noted it myself...i have worked with both motorcyclists and bicyclists with these techniques and had exactly the same type of positive results.

the reason i am such a stickler about countersteering is that once people truly understand that they ALREADY ARE countersteering (otherwise they would not make it through a turn at any reasonable speed), they are able to make more decisive steering inputs, turn more cleanly, and become much more confident about getting their bike to turn exactly when and how much they want, so they are able to get through turns faster and with less drama (bikes AND motorcycles).

the example of how much you can influence a bike on the road or on rollers without using your hands is a red-herring in my opinion, since it is not an EFFECTIVE way of turning a bicycle effectively (i.e. quickly, completely, and in exactly the direction intended by the rider). i agree your body (sans hands) can affect the direction of a bicycle, but if you can't turn the bike effectively using that method, it is far more worthwhile to understand and practice countersteering before spending any time on the subtleties of "body steering" of any kind. i have no problems with people talking about how the rest of the body can affect a bicycles steering, but to suggest to someone who doesn't understand how countersteering works that they should instead put some of their focus on body steering is a bit irresponsible.

Can you explain your reasoning here? What is "safer" about it?

Oh no. I was cornering just find until I read the last technique debate thread, and then it was six weeks before I could corner smoothly again. Albeit, at faster speeds and better line but still: read it all at your own risk. Addressed to those other than expert cyclists or competitive racers of course.

I've figured mine out and I'm sticking to it!

Motorthings- I realize that others in this thread said that countersteering doesn't work. I am not one of those people.

It definitely does work at any speed above ~5mph.

I wasn't trying to create an argument that body steering is superior. You are reading that in through either your own prior experience and knowledge. I'm saying that it is exists and is more significant on a bicycle than a motorcycle. As in, can be and is used on a bicycle, and useless as you say on a motorcycle. (Shifting your weight/CG on a motorcycle does work, and that's not what we are talking about.)

I did not teach at Keith Code's school but I've spent a good amount of time on motorcycles. I'm not arguing with you about motorcycles. I think this discussion is most relevant when left to bicycles, though.

I never thought you (or most of the folks here) said "body steering" was superior to countersteering. My point all along was simply that "body steering" of any kind is not an effective way to steer a bicycle. If we were to compare just HOW effective it is on a bicycle compared to a motorcycle, we would likely see that is is MORE effective on a bicycle, but that it is still sooooo much less effective than simple countersteering, that it is not worth much effort or focus until the rider can countersteer cleanly and precisely.

If you try to countersteer front wheel will just slide forward with little effect. In such cases, body steering is the only way. So it is safer to stay more upright and lean the bike only.

ok, i think here we are running into confusion between countersteering and counterleaning? you can still countersteer in slick conditions, but often you can control a slide better if you keep your body upright aka counterlean (think supermoto style). the countersteering part of the equation hasn't changed at all.

Yes. More than half of "corning technique" is how it feels to the rider rather than how it materially affects corning. If it makes the rider feel more confident, he'll go faster, whether or not it makes the bike corner any better.

That has nothing to do with technique.

I didn't know cornering was so complicated.

When I walk should I be weighting the front of my foot or the rear?

midfoot strike! some guy wrote Born to Run and not only created a cult of midfoot strikers, he created a huge market for minimalist shoes.

bike related content:
after all those people eff up their knees, they will become cyclists.

Can anyone help me understand why this is the case? It seems like the extra weight holding the wheel down would stabilize it, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.