I completely understand how countersteering gets the bike leaned over. It's what I perceive next that puzzles me. I've read descriptions of countersteering which say that, once the bike is leaned over, you then steer into the bend to track round it (i.e. you point the front wheel left).
I'm not entirely convinced. What I feel when I focus on it, is that I apply pressure to the left bar to initiate the lean, but if in the turn I ease off the pressure, the bike will want to sit up. So it feels to me like I need to hold the bike in the turn/leaned over, by maintaining some pressure on the left bar (in a left turn). To come out of the bend onto a straight, I ease off that left bar pressure (maybe a slight right bar pressure). The bike sits up and we are heading straight again.
So while in a left bend, I'm holding it in with left pressure - so the front wheel is in effect pointing ever-so-slightly out of the turn. If you look at the ultra-slomo shots of Rossi et al in a bend, it looks to me as if they still have countersteer on. I always thought it was an optical illusion. But is it?
So my question is... If I am correct in that the front wheel is not pointing into the turn, what makes a leaned-over bike track round the bend? Is it the different tyre profiles front and back? Does the narrower front tyre take a smaller radius route than the fatter rear tyre?
Can you tell it's cold and raining here?
