Modern Vespa

Allthough I have not ridden a motorcyle nor a scooter, my neighbor said when he went through the motorcyle course he was told that when turning right you push left with your right hand and vice versa. Seems strange but does the MP3 handle the same way? I'm to pick up my MP3 500 next week (or whenever I get my trailer finished to haul it back) and wonder how it will handle. Any advice will be welcomed. (please, no laughing). Thanks.

Yes, because it leans like a regular motorcycle. They call it counter-steering when your getting some speed. When going slower you steer with turning the handlebars.

Take a class and ride a bicycle before you end up spending all that cash.

It's called countersteering. I couldn't visualize it either, but you do it REALLY instinctively. To my twisted logic you don't push left, you push sort of down and left to go right, and down and right to go left. Basically, you are just leaning into the turn. You don't actually turn the wheels of the bike unless you are going very slowly. Again, to my twisted logic you do it even more with an MP3. When I rode a motorcycle in the course we were countersteering with our hips, legs, and feet as well as our hands and arms. You are still steering with the bottom half of your body, but not quite as much as on a bike where your legs are wrapped around the frame of the motorcycle. Good luck and enjoy. Take the MSF course and practice in a parking lot. Be safe and have fun!

Interestingly you have to counter-steer at very slow speeds to get the turn and slight lean started, before the handle-bars have to get turned in the direction you are sharply turning.

And who first worked this out?

No less than Wilbur Wright.

So on this same thread. I was horrible on the U-turns with my 250 MP3 during the test. Sounds like it would have done better if i counter-steered? (Press down with right hand and lean left)

Counter leaning / Counter balancing is what you use on U-turns.

And I still suck at U-turns. Trying to practice on those when I can.

U-turns are more to do with speed control. Clutch just engaged, constant throttle, use the rear brake to control speed. Turn head to look where you are going to end up, the bike will obey.

ok push right to go right and push left to go left...right?

fixed....What you are doing is making the bike start to roll on the outer side of the tire, instead of the center. As the wheel leans more to the side, the raduis of the tire gets smaller, giving you a tighter turn. Just like a smaller wheel. You do have to be moving for this effect to take place. (had it differant in my mine, pushing left to go left, but remembered it as turning right on bar going left) matter of interpretation. NOTE: do not post at 6 am in the morning to self!

No No No! Push on the left bar and the bike will lean and turn left, and vice versa.

Correct.

This is an excellent summary of bike handling.

Always turn your HEAD and look where you will end up in the turn, don't just use your eyes. It is amazing how a bike will track the direction of your head turn. Don't become fixated on the edge of the road, guardrails and such, look into the turn.

Thanks for the correction. With so many saying it backwards I thought I was going nuts. Truth is that pushing down with the right goes right but the front wheel points left - giving it the name "counter steering" - at least the way I understand and practice it.

Countersteering very nicely shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C848R9xWrjc

Yup! The front wheel only turns slightly at slower speeds though - at higher speeds gyroscopic effects take over and precession happens - the wheel leans more because of that than the other effects that happen at slower speeds. Luckily they all work to the same effect because of the design of the front forks and wheel axle placement - so the same actions produce the same results at all speeds.

Slow-speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzB5oriblk
Mid-speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1A7o-aXvqU&feature=related

From this rather good article:
http://www.obairlann.net/reaper/motorcycle/beginner/countersteering.html

Keith Code's No Bull-Shit bike demos that you can't steer effectively by leaning - only via the handle-bars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nRUeEkS644&feature=related

I understand counter-steering however, I have read controversy on pushing "down" vs. pushing "forward" on the handgrips....forward being the chosen practice (from what I've read). Since I am STILL new to riding, I'd like to get in the habit of the "proper" method of counter-steering. So, is it pushing "down" or "forward?"

A GREAT BIG THANKS for all the information. I still have to process it all but nobody made fun of me and it sounds a lot easier than when I first heard it. I really want to take the safety course but you have to use their bikes and I want to use my MP3. At 63, I don't plan on buying a HOG or shifting a bike. I shifted too may cars and trucks in my engineering life. I heard you could get a letter to use your own bike so I think I'll take that route. I've not heard anything bad from people who went through the course except they have it rain or shine and if it's pouring down, not very fun. Safety knowledge is never wasted.

It's actually forward - but it often feels like 'down' - especially when you have to give it some more to get around a bend you have entered rather optimistically and you're leant right over!

Just being curious, can you cite the reference for someone claiming you countersteer by pushing "down" on a handlebar? I for one have never heard such a thing.

Here is a link to the MSF Basic Rider Course. It is an excellent resource. You may wish to review page 21 in Unit III.

MSF Basic Rider Manual

The MSF information library is available at The MSF Library

Cheers!

got-cha....... okay then....."forward" it is, thanks jimc for all the info here.

Just press the grip forward on the side that you are turning toward. This will cause the bike to lean in that direction and start the turn. Then as you are going through the turn, use countersteer to turn more sharply and throttle to keep upright.

In the Basic Rider course (MSF) I took they taught it this way:

Slow (as you approach the turn)
Look (Turn your head in the direction of the turn and look at where you want to be going.)
Press (the grip forward on the side you are turning)
Roll (on some throttle as you go through the turn)

I didn't really get it until I practiced it on my own, and I didn't understand it until I read Proficient Motorcycling.

I think of it this way: Countersteering sets up the lean, and the lean sets up the turn.

Here is the thread on countersteering:

https://modernvespa.com/forum/topic33738?highlight=

And, by all means, read Proficient Motorcycling by David L. Hough for an even more complete explanation.

I think of it as down and forward. You wouldn't want the handlebars to remain level.

I also vote for reading Proficient Motorcycling.

Just push forward - the down part will take care of itself.

It's also physically so much easier to intentionally countersteer - something that, at my age (61), makes riding much more enjoyable!

Do you have a bunch of extra $$$ lying around to repair your bike? In my opinion, it is far better to practice on a small bike belonging to an instructor than on your own shiny new bike. Piaggios cost a fortune to fix. And parts, especially nonstandard ones, can take forever to arrive. The minor irritation of shifting (I despise shifting and will never own a bike or scooter with a manual clutch) is a small price to pay for the professional instruction and objective evaluation of the MSF course.

Motorcycle riding is an entirely new skill set to learn. Would you advise someone to not take a drivers education course because he did not like the instructors car, rather to buy a new car and practice alone?

As you read throughout our forum (past threads and even as Jerry just stated) the "push/down/forward" gets mentioned often in any of the counter-steering discussion(s). I get confused (&, I am blonde ) I have it straight now, because jimc cleared my cloudy head up....it's "FORWARD." As far as MSF...I am familar. I started this thread awhile back on the forum, hope the info helps others as it has helped me and continues to. https://modernvespa.com/forum/topic39012?highlight=taking+msf+course
Welcome

Oh, paige......+10 on "no shifting"

When I took my safety class I asked for a scooter when I signed up, and one was provided. Remember if you drop theirs it doesn't hurt so bad as if it was your brand new scooter.

As mentioned above "Proficient Motorcycling" is an excellent reference for new and experienced riders. I just bought two copies from Amazon.com. One for me and one for my stepson in LA.

To be fair, you won't fall off if you don't understand countersteering from Day 1.

This is because once you do understand what it is, you'll most likely say: "Oh, I must have been doing that all along without realising it". Assuming you've been going round some corners.

IMHO, if someone had tried to introduce the concept of countersteering to me when I was learning to ride, my brain would have exploded

However, once I'd had a bit of experience under my belt, and was learning to take a more active interest in being a better rider (as opposed to just getting there in one piece), it helped me to learn about the concept of countersteering.

If you're going round a corner, you'll be countersteering. Whether you know it or not. Learning to actively countersteer can be useful, but personally I wouldn't make this a priority from Day 1. You'll get round corners just fine. Learning WHY you can go round them is something that can come later.

>Learning to actively countersteer can be useful, but personally I wouldn't make this a priority from Day 1. You'll get round corners just fine. Learning WHY you can go round them is something that can come later.

I'm going to have to disagree with you based on a personal, and very nearly fatal, experience. I have ridden motorcycles and scooters all my life; the largest bike being a Honda CB350 that weighed about 200lbs.

Four years ago I purchased a Honda Shadow 600. Today, that's considered a "small" motorcycle, but when I was actively driving 20 years ago, it would have been a midsized bike shading towards "large." It weighs 425 lbs, about the same as an MP3/250. I spent a few minutes puttering around the parking lot, then headed off to the highway. As I came up on my exit at 65mph, I attempted to turn right onto the ramp and instantly zoomed left into the next lane - the opposite direction of where I wanted to turn. If anyone had been there I'd have been an oil smear. I attempted to force the bike in the direction I wanted to go by turning the handlebar to the right and using my weight to try to push the bike over into a right lean, which had ALWAYS worked for me before. It was as if someone else was in control. Suddenly, as my speed dropped below 35mph, the bike yanked in the direction I wanted to go and off the highway.

Needless to say, I drove very slowly home and went immediately on the Internet to learn about this "countersteering" thing I'd never heard of, even though I'd been doing it all my life. Thing is, with a bike that doesn't weigh more than you do or at least not much more, it doesn't really matter. You can manhandle it through a turn (my technique was to force the bike down to one side with my weight, sort of how you drive an MP3 at ultra-slow speed...that works great on a 150lb dirt bike). But when a bike weighs double or triple your weight and the wheels are generating a high moment, you're in trouble. You may not need to know what countersteering is well enough to explain the physics that makes it work, but you absolutely do need to know what NOT to do (i.e. attempt to turn the handlebars in the direction of the turn) because you are not going to be able to force that 540 lb MP3/500 to obey your will!

I am in complete agreement with rjeffb ( above). The second day I had my MP3 250 I was making a slow left turn and started to swing wide. I instinctively turned the front wheels into the turn, which caused me to swing even wider. Seeing the curb ahead of me, I then compounded my error by braking, which immediately threw me off "high side".

And this was after I had taken the MSF course. I just didn't get the "press forward" thing, and was only pressing down.

During the two weeks I was recovering (sprained ankle) I got a copy of Proficient Motorcycling. Getting back on the bike (after the shakes subsided - it took a couple of minutes) I began very deliberately practicing turning the right way (see my post above) until it started to feel natural to me.

The MP3 is a heavy bike that responds very poorly to body leaning and exceptionally well to deliberate countersteering.

YMMV. All I can say is that I never had any problems getting a bike around corners before I began to first hear of countersteering, then have a partial understanding of it, and then began to be able to actually do it. From first to last, there was quite a gap in terms of time.

I don't want to deny your experiences. For me, I thought (like many others, I believe), that I was leaning to make the bike go around a corner. I now realise that this was a crazy idea, and that I was actually countersteering (albeit not knowing anything about the theory).

Any child who can ride a bicycle has learnt to countersteer. They don't know it, but that's what they're doing.

When I told a bicycling adult friend about countersteering, he was amazed. Even though he'd ridden his bicycle for 20-odd years withhout incident. He didn't believe me. He thought I was taking the piss. I told him that it was true, and that if he tried it he would see. He tried it, pushing on the bar to turn. He fell off his bike for the first time since he was a child. He still doesn't believe in countersteering. He tells me he's never tried it again, and that it's a damn fool idea. He rides his bike the way he knows how to ride it. He goes round corners just fine, and he hasn't crashed his bike since.

Which is why I don't believe that trying to learn a technique, which to me is instinctive, at the same time as trying to get to grips with the rest of the skills you need as a new rider, is useful for most mortals. I must admit, I'd never heard of, or thought of people finding it not instinctive to go round corners, as in your experiences.

I agree and dissagree. I agree that anyone that has learned to ride a bike, motorcycle or scooter and can make turns is countersteering to a degree unconsciously. I mean it is almost impossible to turn otherwise.

That said I dissagree on when to learn it. Consciously practicing and using countersteer can mean the difference between hitting that giant pothole that appeared overnight (possibly causeing loss of control and/or damage) and successfully avoiding it. IMHO it is one of the most important manuevering techniques a rider can learn and should be learned as early as possible.

+1 on that.

it has saved me a few times. only once for a double swerve countersteer. practice and practice so it becomes instinct and not a thought process so you just do it.

>I mean it is almost impossible to turn otherwise.

It's actually quite simple. When I am on rollerblades, I have no front wheel to rotate, no handlebar to turn. I turn entirely by leaning; countersteering plays no part.

And if I was shrunk down to 1" tall and had my MP3 wired to steer with a tiny remote control, then my leaning would obviously have no effect on turning; the only way to turn would be through countersteering.

So as a carving vehicle, such as it may be, becomes smaller, turning by leaning becomes an appreciable, and potentially sole, contributor; and as the vehicle becomes larger, countersteering becomes progressively more important. There is some combination of mass, speed, and wheel moment that the potential contribution of each change hands. So while I readilly admit that I have always countersteered all my life, in "extreme" situations I have manuvered primarily by leaning - which on a lighter vehicle is possible (if you disagree that a rollerblade qualifies as an example, then consider a unicycle). Because I did not understand and practice countersteering, this constituted a bad habit that very nearly killed me on a more massive vehicle that does not respond significantly to leaning.

and how did you get your unicycle or rollerblades to lean over (along with you) in the first place? you steered them subtly to the outside of the turn, after which their force started to push the combined system's center of mass in the direction you wanted to go. you countersteered, in other words. leaning without doing this will just make you fall over.

>and how did you get your unicycle or rollerblades to lean over (along with you) in the first place? you steered them subtly to the outside of the turn, after which their force started to push the combined system's center of mass in the direction you wanted to go. you countersteered, in other words. leaning without doing this will just make you fall over.

Oh no, you don't...you're not going to bait me into arguing a point that PhDs all over the world still debate. It's irrelevant to my point, which is, I am sure you will agree, that countersteering an MP3 is vital to not crashing.

(oh, and bicyclists can ride with no hands on the handlebars and turn, albeitly modestly, just by leaning, without falling over in the process. Bam!)

I think you'll find, that by using their weight, they initiate the countersteer and then correct it to lean into the turn.

As Wilbur Wright (your boy, not mine) first opined, correctly. Just physics, as we now know.

I don't think four hours of riding someone else's small bike is going lower my damage potential when I begin ridding. I've asked for a wavier because I want to ride the bike I will be riding on and I don't really care to have the license endorsement after completing the course. For me it is to hear from experienced instructors how best to ride, avoid accidents, equipment selection, etc. I'm in no hurry to go cross country. I'll my time learning before high speeds and turns. Thanks for your comments.

>I've asked for a wavier because I want to ride the bike I will be riding on

Didn't I read somewhere recently, maybe even on this forum, that MSF national had issued a memo to chapters that you do NOT need a waiver to ride an MP3 in the course? If someone knows where that is, maybe you could post the link for Vandave. I asked instructors in my chapter about it and they were fuzzy ("uh, yeah I think I heard something about that") and knowing what's actually in that memo could be helpful.