Forum

[Beezabryan]

Two wheels good Leon, Three wheeks gooder

[Alan R]

The more experienced would have seen that pot-hole and planned a route around it (ie..predictive riding as opposed to reactive riding)------- It's also the reason that you can't steer your way from being close against the kerb.....The counter-steer has just been negated....Incidentally, anyone know the theoretical maximum angle of lean ??-----

[Leon Novello]

No, but the practical maximum angle of lean is when the footrest digs into the road.

[PeteF]

Alan, theoretical angle would be 90 dergrees I guess.
Practical angle would depend on clearance and tyre adhesion.

[ed.lazda]

Wouldn't be 90°, as at this point the normal reaction and frictional forces disappear. You could get to something arbitrarily close to 90°, but would need an arbitrarily large coefficient of friction between tyre and road.

[Oudaios]

Two thoughts on this topic. 1: Above 15 miles an hour you cannot steer a bike without using counter-steering. It comes naturally but needs mastering to make rapid changes in direction. 2: leaning off a bike will change the centre of gravity but does not appreciably change direction of the machine. You can only do that via the handlebars.

Keith Code has a great book on the physics of riding - would thoroughly recommended it.

[Norm]

I remember seeing an article on this a year or so back and they were showing some race bike and I think he was at something like 80 degrees

[PeteF]

You can steer a bike without counter steering just using your weight. Watch the wall of death artists - they do it hands off and they've got lots more physics than most of us to deal with.

[Alan R]

Grab your coa-coa and have a read of this}--------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_an ... e_dynamics ------------ From my Apprentice days involving experiments for Coeficient of Friction I had a vague memory that 30 degrees from the horizontal was the maxm....Certainly GP and Moto GP riders get close to that figure-------- Counter-steering is when out shopping ( UGH!!) Joyce has seen the local motorbike shop approaching and "steers" me towards Tescos' instead !! (bin there, done that yourself I'll bet ??)

[Oudaios]

Knew this would be a contentious issue. I agree that shifting weight helps aid steering but not as much as many people think - it does change the centre of gravity allowing a greater contact patch for the tyre during cornering but you won't get a bike to go round a corner effectively at speed without the wonders of counter steering. A good video that shows this well is the no BS (Body Steer) bike - voice over by Julian Ryder!
http://youtu.be/8_5Z3jyO2pA


Incidentally, wall of death is the face my wife pulls when I start talking about bikes!!!