Push Right, Turn Right
Oct 14 '00 (Updated May 16 '02)
The Bottom Line Learning how to steer a motorcycle correctly is important to be able to control it properly and not become alarmed by what you might consider unexpected feedback.
Being a new motorcyclist, I am finally able to explain the concept of "push right, turn right" using my own experience. For those of you with no motorcycling experience, this concept probably sounds counterintuitive. When driving a car, you turn the wheel right to go right and vice versa for turning left. So, why is it that for a motorcycle, you don't always turn the handlebars to the right (clockwise) to turn right, but sometimes the exact opposite? If I say "clockwise", I mean to turn the handlebars clockwise around their axis, so that your right hand pulls the right grip towards you and your left hand pushes the left grip away from you. If you are sitting on the bike, the front wheel would be pointing to the right if you make a clockwise turn. Vice versa if I say "counterclockwise".
The physics of this system I'm going to explain escapes me. I don't know why this works as it does, but you don't need to know how electricity works to explain how to turn on a lamp. I just want to describe the causes and effects of this system so you know what to expect when you ride. If you're not considering owning a motorcycle, I hope this article gets you interested enough in riding a bike to take an MSF (Motorcycle Safety Foundation) course to get to know these amazing machines.
http://www.msf-usa.org/
If you were to suddenly find yourself on an straight, open road, going in a straight line at secondary-road speed (about 40 mph), sitting on and in complete control of, a motorcycle, how do you think it would react to you turning the handlebars? Having experience driving a car, you would probably think that turning the handlebars clockwise would make the bike turn right (and of course vice versa). In fact, the bike will react in the exact OPPOSITE way. This is amazing to do because it seems to defy logic, but if you sit on the bike and just gently push the handlebars clockwise, the bike will gently lean to your left and begin to turn in an arc to your left. If you decide to own a bike, do this as practice. Going in a straight line, gently push the bars side to side so that you stay in your lane but the bike leans and turns from side to side. Every time you push your left grip away from you, you'll turn left, and... "push right, turn right"!
Going into turns, this actually works in your favor, because in a left turn, as you push your left grip away from you and the bike begins to lean to the left, you can move your body into the space where the bar used to be and lean with the bike into the turn. This is a bit of an exaggeration because the bars are turned so slightly in most turns, but it provides a memory device for you to remember, even at the beginning of your experience, which way to push to turn. You don't have to think "uh... left turn so push left and that means the left hand push left, and the right hand, uh, pull in". It becomes natural and automatic quickly.
As you begin to learn to ride, this concept of countersteering must be understood before you leave the parking lot. I took a risk taking my bike out to a curvy, long road with no experience and no training. I got close to the "point of no return" on a couple of curves without turning. Then when I realized that my hands instinctually resisted turning the bars "away" from the turn, I loosened my arm muscles, and I mentally forced myself to do the opposite of what I was expecting the bike to do. The bike did exactly what it wanted to do, not what I expected it to do. Since this was counterintuitive, I had to relearn how to handle a motor vehicle to control it properly. Now that I have a couple thousand miles of riding experience and am comfortable with it, I feel countersteering is one of the most amazing and entertaining components of motorcycling.
Keep in mind that when you turn a bike, two things influence its direction from side to side. You turn the bars from side to side and you lean from side to side. The most important influence on its direction is the force applied to the bars if you are above parking lot speeds. That affects the direction of the bike to the greatest degree. Much less influential is your leaning from side to side. In fact, as I began to familiarize myself with riding, I would turn the bars, push the bike down with the bars to make it lean into the inside of the turn, but not lean my head or body at all. I did this because I was fearful of falling over, and while it worked okay for me, I feel it might cause bad habits in riding. You must understand that you can lean a bike very far over as long as you are going at least about 20 miles per hour and you DO NOT SLOW DOWN. The reason you can lean while in a turn is that the wheels of a bike, when rotating, want to stay upright, and apply force to whatever is attached to the axis of the wheels (the bike and you) to make it stay upright. This is why it is much easier to keep a bicycle upright when riding it than sitting on it at a standstill. You will not fall over while keeping a constant speed or accelerating while in a turn. You may fall over if you lose a LOT of speed while in a turn because you lose that force that comes from the rotating wheels that wants to keep you upright. Think of a bucket of water that you swing in a circle quickly; a bike acts in the same way. The water doesn't fall out of the bucket even when upside down because it is moving fast enough that forces want it to stay pressed into the bucket rather than allow it to fall out. But, when you stop swinging hard enough, you've got a wet mess. It is because of this crucial rotation of the wheels that you should not brake except very gently when turning at low, parking lot speeds. If you do brake hard while in a slow turn, the bike wants to lose its balance and fall over. I believe this specific action is what causes bikes to be dropped most often. The solution is to give the bike power. The wheels will begin to rotate quicker and the force of the wheels turning will make the bike begin to stand upright immediately. THEN you can try to brake again, this time with more control. Again, to suggest counterintuitive action, at low speeds, do not try to stop but accelerate if you can, when you begin to lean over too much. Most bikes are heavy enough to be difficult to keep from dropping once they lean over too far.
The bike can turn right when you turn the bars clockwise but only if you lean far in the direction of your turn (in this case, to the right). You are basically trying to make the bike turn in a less efficient way, and while it will do it, it won't like it. The faster you go, the harder you have to lean to make the bike turn in the "intuitive" way. Not only do you make it hard on yourself by having to force the bike to turn left as you push right by leaning if you insist on turning this way, there is no case in which you MUST turn the bike this way. As you pull out of your driveway onto your street, you can push right to turn right from rest all the way to top speed and everything in between. It is an all-inclusive technique that can, but does not HAVE TO, be used to turn the bike, all the time. Just remember to lean harder at low speeds to make a sharp turn. The bike needs you to lean less and less as your speed climbs. Remember riding at 40 mph and turning from side to side as you push the bars side to side? The bike will lean by itself; all you have to do is push the bars. As you make tighter and tighter turns at moderate to high speeds, however, you can tighten a turn by leaning more and more. Remember that the frictional force of your bike's tires on pavement is very large. The bike will not just fall over out of the blue. There are specific actions that must be taken to cause a bike to fall over, which is either braking hard in a low-speed turn, or losing grip at a high-speed turn, whether from turning way too sharply and/or braking too hard.
A bike is a relatively forgiving machine. It will act in a stable, predictable manner so long as your control inputs are smooth and not jerky. Go easy at first, understand the basics of control in a parking lot, trust your bike to grip the road and keep you in control, watch road surfaces and avoid wet roads (at first), oily patches, broken glass, gravel, etc, and you will begin to build experience in turns that inspires confidence. Strong confidence that doesn't go overboard and turn into a feeling of invincibility, is a factor that was crucial for me to learn quickly and be safe on the roads.
I hope that clears up an often-mentioned but under-explained concept. I placed this article in City Riding rather than Highway Riding, because I feel you should know how to handle a bike very well at low to moderate speeds before you consider taking it onto the highway. If you have any more questions, or corrections, please let me know. Happy riding!
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micmackman
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Member: Mike
Location: Austin, Texas
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