Counterintuitive

A few months back, when I took the "Motorcycle Safety Foundation" course, one of the things the instructor kept talking about was "counter steering." By this he meant that when going into a curve, you push on the handlebar opposite the direction you want to go.

Huh?

I thought I had a sense of what he was talking about -- kinda -- but not really. In the weekend safety course we never got going much faster than 15 or 20 miles per hour. The "counter-steering" technique doesn't really show itself at those speeds.

Today I was tooling along and I came to a broad, sweeping curve in the road. So I thought I'd give this counter-steering thing a deliberate try. Sure enough ... if the curve was to the left, I would push on the left handlebar and the bike would lean and go left.

I'm sure there's some physics-geek explanation for this.

All I know is it works and it's a great way to hold and force a curve. That's a particularly good thing to know if in a curve I lose my confidence and think maybe I'm going too fast. Perhaps I am going to fast, but the thing to do is maintain pressure on the opposite handlebar.

Counterintuitive ... but it works.