Most of us have been on a bicycle, and I'm sure we never really thought about how we steer it. Steering a bike is different when compared to steering a car; there are multiple inputs to steering a bike. This doesn't mean that cars are not challenging or are less complex; the point here is that they are different.
One thing they have in common is that they are both a game of hand-eye coordination. What you do should be a fluidic motion, and the key here is you look where you want to be a few seconds later. Your body and hands will follow through, if you practice staring at an imaginary crosshair, and pointing it at some point on the road, the location of which is changing every moment.
The importance of this technique becomes evident under sudden braking. What I realized was that at times, my eyes froze due to a sudden change of circumstances. This implies that I wasn't looking at a fixed point on the road when I was braking. When you focus at a certain point on the road, you tend to brake better because you have set a reference point at which you will come to a halt. You can shift this point closer if you can brake harder, and this depends on the road conditions. Over time, it becomes a part of your technique and you will eventually start using it instinctively.
You can steer a bike two ways; you can shift your weight around or you can use the steering angle to control how much you bank. Some people think that you steer a bike left, to go left. This is true at slow speeds, but at higher speeds, the opposite is true. You pull left to go right, or as I like to remember it, push right to go right.
If you think that this is confusing, try this: take a bicycle, and tilt the steering to the left. You will see that the bicycle will fall to the right. This is called countersteer, and it can help you achieve unbelievable banking angles and hence reduce the probability of crashing into something if you are on the road, or corner like a man possessed if you are on a closed track.
When you use countersteer, what you are doing is using the bike's own weight to induce a controlled fall in the direction that you want to go. You control this fall by powering through the corner, and hence it is important to shift into a lower gear before the corner. To come back to the vertical position, all you need to do is to do the opposite of what you did to induce the fall, which is to turn the handlebar to the right, if you just went through a right handed corner. This pushes the bike up, with you exerting a minimal amount of effort. All of us use this, it is almost always that we don't realize it.
You can also shift your weight around to lean the bike into the corner, and this can be done by moving your upper body, getting your knees out, etc. There are many other techniques which belong to the family of "Weight-Shifting" techniques.
The key is to combine these two techniques, and sum it into a systematic dance. It helps if you are smooth with the throttle, you should always remember that you will be faster if you are smooth with the throttle input. If you don't move with the bike, then you aren't one with the bike anymore, and this will destabilize it. It is essential to build a technique, which smoothly sums all these elements up into one fluidic motion.
One thing they have in common is that they are both a game of hand-eye coordination. What you do should be a fluidic motion, and the key here is you look where you want to be a few seconds later. Your body and hands will follow through, if you practice staring at an imaginary crosshair, and pointing it at some point on the road, the location of which is changing every moment.
The importance of this technique becomes evident under sudden braking. What I realized was that at times, my eyes froze due to a sudden change of circumstances. This implies that I wasn't looking at a fixed point on the road when I was braking. When you focus at a certain point on the road, you tend to brake better because you have set a reference point at which you will come to a halt. You can shift this point closer if you can brake harder, and this depends on the road conditions. Over time, it becomes a part of your technique and you will eventually start using it instinctively.
You can steer a bike two ways; you can shift your weight around or you can use the steering angle to control how much you bank. Some people think that you steer a bike left, to go left. This is true at slow speeds, but at higher speeds, the opposite is true. You pull left to go right, or as I like to remember it, push right to go right.
If you think that this is confusing, try this: take a bicycle, and tilt the steering to the left. You will see that the bicycle will fall to the right. This is called countersteer, and it can help you achieve unbelievable banking angles and hence reduce the probability of crashing into something if you are on the road, or corner like a man possessed if you are on a closed track.
When you use countersteer, what you are doing is using the bike's own weight to induce a controlled fall in the direction that you want to go. You control this fall by powering through the corner, and hence it is important to shift into a lower gear before the corner. To come back to the vertical position, all you need to do is to do the opposite of what you did to induce the fall, which is to turn the handlebar to the right, if you just went through a right handed corner. This pushes the bike up, with you exerting a minimal amount of effort. All of us use this, it is almost always that we don't realize it.
You can also shift your weight around to lean the bike into the corner, and this can be done by moving your upper body, getting your knees out, etc. There are many other techniques which belong to the family of "Weight-Shifting" techniques.
The key is to combine these two techniques, and sum it into a systematic dance. It helps if you are smooth with the throttle, you should always remember that you will be faster if you are smooth with the throttle input. If you don't move with the bike, then you aren't one with the bike anymore, and this will destabilize it. It is essential to build a technique, which smoothly sums all these elements up into one fluidic motion.
i think its just a way of making simple thing complex and analyzing it.. from day one of any1's biking experience, all that happns subconsciously so chuck the fundas...
ReplyDeletepappu.. either be a man and ride, or be a physicist and analyze... gl
Yeah,it does, but it helps if you analyze it and build a technique based on the analysis. I do ride a bike, so all that I say isn't just theory, it is my point of view and what I've learnt over the past few years.
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