I don't know, I understand the advice and I guess that's probably one of the reasons Loop (https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/) is not on the App Store. If they had turned their project into another data-logging platform we wouldn't have commercial closed loop systems.
Thanks for the link. Yep - exactly, they took a leap, but importantly didn't release a full product / package on the App Store, or charge for features. This falls much more into a grey area, but is clearly DIY, and demonstrates demand/need for the commercial / regulated systems.
Especially when the problematic features are charged for, it gives the recommendations / suggestions an air of legitimacy which could be dangerous.
A lot of the research from Loop and AndroidAPS is used in commercial closed loop platforms; many of the people working for these open source utilities also work for medical companies.
So you either get lucky and your doctor can prescribe you a commercial loop, or you compile one from source.
No, not in any instance that I have experienced or been aware of. Salary means "you need to be here 'enough'". Most of the time, enough = 40 hours + whatever extra is needed to not fall behind. Occasionally it means nearly 40 hours if you don't work at a "butts in seats" type place.
It also often means you need to be available in some capacity 24/7.
That's a great question. In the US salaried employees are exempt from overtime. Generally, the idea is that you are to work as much as is needed, hence the generally higher pay. There is no set amount of work per the employment contract (in general). You could work very little during slower periods, or a lot during higher demand times.
In Germany there is a hard upper cap at 48 hours/week for any normal employee (like pretty much everyone working at Twitter would be). Up to 60 hours/week can be legal if the average in four months isn’t above 48 hours/week (so this is to allow for temporary bursts in the workload, but beforehand or afterwards hours have to be reduced even below 48 hours to reach the 48 hour/week average).
Overtime doesn’t necessarily have to be paid, though this has to be explicitly specified in the employment contract (including the exact number of unpaid additional hours that can be demanded by the employer).
All of this doesn’t mean that many employees – especially those in smaller companies without workers councils or union support – won’t work more than 48 hours/week. That still happens in Germany. But at least no one can demand it from you and hardly anyone would be able to as brazenly just put that in writing.
It does, mostly because Europe is not a country. In Spain you can't drive until you're 18 and they'll take your license away if you're found to blame, even though not forever.
There are a few variants on how to do a closed loop system. OpenAPS is phone agnostic and everything runs on a RaspberryPi.
I myself use Loop. It's an iOS app that uses a RF-to-BT bridge to talk with the pump and intercepts the CGM reading from the official Dexcom app (there are forks that support different methods, being the Dexcom source the "official" one). The bridge is the size of a 9V battery, I never stopped to see which processor uses but it's probably 8 bit.
Each system support different pumps, sometimes people want to use one but are stuck with a different one to be able to use their pumps.
What ISF does your kid have that a single unit will kill him/her? A single unit is barely noticeable on the graph for me.
I've been using Loop for a few weeks now and the improvements in quality of life are so huge that any concerns I had about safety went away. Reading the docs, which are a great example on how documentation should be written, helped a lot with that too.
The typical level of sensitivity is absolutely in range for a single unit to produce a catastrophic event.
It sounds like you may have a low sensitivity factor. The usual starting point for estimating this, along with using the "1800 rule", puts typical sensitivity around a drop of 50 points in blood sugar for every unit of insulin. This based on a weight around 65-70 kilos and 0.5 units/day/kilo.
Of course it depends on other details too, even time of day. (My wife, who uses a medtronic pump, clocks in at right about this level but is less sensitive in mornings and more so later on. her pump is programmed for these time-dependent sensitivity fluctuations )
This level of sensitivity absolutely has lethal potential with a single-unit swing. If you're in the low end of normal at 75 points and take another unit dropping it to 25, this is plenty low to cause a person to pass out and thereby be unable to take corrective action, with lethal consequences, especially if the pump is still delivering a basal dose inching levels even lower.
You might argue that careful people shouldn't encounter this situation, and you'd be right. But it still can and does happen, meaning a hobbyist setup that gets something even a little bit wrong has that same potential.
I don't recall off the top of my head, but keep in mind he weighs roughly 50lb. As I mentioned in other comments, Tandem's coming out with their equivalent of Loop (called "ControlIQ") in the 2nd half of this year, so I'd obviously prefer a supported solution. Plus, it's unlikely the school system is going to be willing to have anything to do with a non-official system.
I've tried to like Fusion 360, but the login screen the first time you boot it up turns me off. It's also slow as hell on a top of the line iMac, and that's with very small projects.
I like OpenSCAD a lot, but being productive there outside of very simple (squarish) designs is hard.
That's countersteering [1]. I find it very hard to explain but it's something that most people on a bicycle (at speed) or a motorcycle (again, at speed) do naturally.
I'd like to especially highlight your 'at speed' point here. It's often claimed that _all_ steering on a bike requires countersteering, but that is false. Countersteering allows rapid change of direction, but if you're going in a straight line, then lean left and gently steer left (or just lean left and allowing the front wheel to steer itself), you _will_ go left, no countersteering required.
Motorcycle courses put a lot of emphasis on countersteering because motorcycles go much faster and weight a lot more than a bike so you need to familiarize yourself with the effect from the get go unlike regular bikes where you generally start by going very slowly and the low bike-to-meat weight ratio means that it's relatively easy to steer by leaning with your body as you mention. As soon as you go over, say, 20km/h it's critical to learn how to countersteer properly if you want to keep control.
Try turning on a 200kg motorcycle going at 100km/h by simply leaning on it, you'll be disappointed... See for instance https://youtu.be/8_5Z3jyO2pA?t=2m24s . Later on the video they show that letting go of the handles and leaning with your body also works but only because it actually causes the bike to countersteer "on its own".
Yep. It is even more pronounced on a race track with long sweeping turns, even higher speeds, and nothing else in the world to worry about# (like traffic). The faster that front wheel spins, the more it wants to keep on doing that just as before (gyro).
You will be physically pushing the left hand and pulling your right to set the bike up for a left turn, not just "thinking" it - so as to speak. Of course it is entirely intuitive, until perhaps you stop to think about what actions you are taking, and then realise yeah that's countersteering all right.
#) It's been a few years for me now and I only got a few ride days in after also completing Superbike Cornering School lessons, but I found the art of riding my (then) 600cc GSXR motorcycle on a high speed circuit (Phillip Island) extremely meditative - and exhilarating, especially after learning the function of the knee sliders to assist with controlling lean.
If you lean left, front wheel will "do" countersteering itself (same as noted). Since gyroscopic effect on bike is not so big and speed, mass is not bigger than rider it is not noticable. For motorbike you cannot just lean hence need for explicit countersteering because of much higher forces involved.
So I think it is correct to say that countersteering is always required.
>If you lean left, front wheel will "do" countersteering itself (same as noted).
I am not sure. If you lean left, then the handle bar ll slightly turn left automatically.
In actual countersteering, it greatly helps only because it helps to quickly initiate a tilt in the required direction. For example, if you want to go to left, then turn the handle bar to the right, which causes the front wheel to slight start to offset in the right, which in turn causes the whole bike to tilt to left, and once it start to tilt to the left, then the normal process of turning is applied...
It's always countersteering. Doesn't even matter if your hands are on the bars (really).
When you lean to (your) left, the center of mass of you+bike goes left of the plane of the wheels, this causes the front wheel to rotate away (i.e. right) from the motion slightly which causes you to bank left and the front wheel comes around to meet it until you are in equilibrium again.
Countersteering doesn't "help", it's just unavoidable. Being aware of it helps you have better control. At very low velocities the effect is so minor you probably can't notice (and steering angles are large).
Why does it cause the front wheel to rotate away (right) ?
Answer is : "it's complicated" , which is why this subject causes confusion. There are many arguments about the exact dynamics (combinations of gyroscopic effects, torques, center-of-mass motion), but empirically it is pretty clear that two wheeled vehicles like bikes/motorcycles do not turn without counter-steer.
Not at all complicated. A bike is made so that the front wheel will turn in the same direction as the bike is leaned. This has a simple stabilising effect. Bike leans right, front wheel turns right, increased centrifugal force from the sharper turn will unlean the bike to the left.
If I'm in contact with the top of my bike and not steering the bars, I can either push the top of the bike left or right. I push the top of the bike to the left. The bike and I have separate moments of intertia around longitudinal axis. Without any other forces involved (just my bum and the top of the bike pushing each other), the bottom of the bike i.e. the contact patch would move to the right. However, there's friction between the tyres and the ground meaning that doesn't happen. Instead, the ground pushes the bottom of the wheels to the left. This means the only external force on the union of rider and bike is from the ground pointing leftwards. This pushes the COG to the left.
While the motion of the top of the bike may cause some countersteering in the front wheel if left free, you can resist this by pushing the right side of the handlebars i.e. steering left. So we now have a bike tilting to the left, with the front wheel pointing forwards, and the COG to the left of the contact patches. The front wheel can be gently pushed to point left.
That is bullshit. If I just lean to the left, the bike does not "react" by leaning to the right. If I lean to the left without touching the handle bars, the cycle ll start turning to the left.
With counter steering, it can be made much quicker and in a much responsive fashion.
The point is that the wheel, which is free, will turn to the right first. The bike will lean to the left as this takes the two wheels out of line. The wheel will follow to the left.
There is nothing magical about countersteering, it’s just the way cornering works with bikes.
Don’t believe me? Set up an angle indicator and video it.
A bike is standing straight, completely still, with the front wheels completely straight. According to you, if I lean this stationary bike, to left, you are saying the front wheel will turn to right, right?
The part you are missing is the gyroscopic procession from the wheels. When you try turning the wheel to the left, you create a force that is 90 degrees to force.
If you just turn the handlebars (which would cause the bike to lean in the direction of the turn), you will end up creating a force at the top of the wheel in the opposite direction of your tilt. (e.g. the force will be at 12 o'clock)
If you just lean in the direction you'd like to turn, the wheel will turn in the opposite direction of the lean. (e.g. there will be an opposite force at 9 o'clock)
In order to turn you must always briefly steer in the opposite direction you'd like to turn, so that you may lean in the direction you'd like to turn, which will allow you to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn without upsetting the bike.
I learned this fact about 2 years ago and I've been hyper-aware of the fact ever since. Try as I might, it's literally impossible to steer a bike without counter-steering.
The fact that you absolutely must counter-steer to turn is one of the reason why inexperienced bike riders tend to fall over when they need to steer in an emergency, because they just twist the handlebars, which catapults them off the other side.
Knowing this also helped me finally learn to ride a bike with no handlebars, since you have to lean opposite the direction you'd like the wheel to go.
It's timing dependent. Turning right and momentum 'pushes' your body to the left, but with the correct timing you end up countering that force while keeping the bike absolutely vertical.
PS: Picture how a car turns, the wheels are vertical and you can you can turn without counter steering just fine but the weight externally offset. The difference with a bike / motorcycle is just how difficult it is to balance.
It is not timing it is balance of mass and conservation of energy. Car has totally different mass distribution. So energy conservation is also different.
The only time you steer left to go left is if you're going so slowly that the only reason the bike doesn't fall over is because of your near-superhuman balance. That is to say, when you're practically at a standstill. Anywhere approaching walking pace or above, if you try to turn left by steering left, you'll fall off the right hand side before you make any appreciable turn.
That's the issue; how do you lean left to start with? If the human-bicycle system has its center of gravity over the wheel line, shifting your weight relative to the bike doesn't move the center of gravity - you lean one way, the bike leans the other, and you end up in the same overall position. The only way to initiate a lean to the left is to countersteer to the right.
You are. I proved this to myself once by applying pressure to the handlebars using only the palm of my hands on the backside of each handle. Even at very slow speeds, I could not for the life of me turn left by applying pressure only to the right bar (to turn the front wheel to the left). No amount of leaning helped. To lean the bike, I needed to create some external force to push it over. Leaning my own body to the left just made the bike lean to the right.
I've seen the same claim from a lot of people who seemed to have thought about it a lot: that you always countersteer on a two-wheeled vehicle, but you only do so consciously if you're riding a very fast vehicle or you want to turn extremely quickly. (A deliberate countersteer is taught in some bicycle safety classes as an "emergency quick turn".)
This is counterintuitive to me as a regular cyclist, but I realize that most of my cycling skills are completely unconscious, so I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to describe exactly what I'm doing on my bike.
That's what I used to think until I started taking motorbike lessons.
At first I was having a hard time turning, because this whole counter-steering thing didn't come naturally to me and I would try to turn the handlebars to the left if I wanted to go left, but the bike would go the other way witch was pretty scary.
I then internalised this and the next time I rode a bike I tried this out, and indeed, this is how it works. If I turned the handlebars left at any considerable speed, the bike would lean to the right and start turning right, with the handlebars going right. It would go a slight bit left at the very beginning, but then it would go all the way right.
When I think about it, at slow speeds (say below 25 km/h - 15 mph) I only turn the handlebars and lean the bike. However, I can lean the bike at those speeds, so no counter-steering is required. I first lean the bike and then turn the bars.
However, it's very difficult to have it lean any useful amount at speed. And this is where counter-steering is useful.
Granted, this is way more noticeable on a motorbike that on a bicycle. Maybe the weight of the wheels and of the whole bike has something to do with it. If I lean a 10 kg bike but stay upright on it, the centre of gravity doesn't move much. However, on a 300 kg motorcycle, it moves quite a bit more.
Some people seem to describe this difference as unconscious countersteering versus deliberate countersteering, that is, that the difference isn't really whether you're countersteering or not, but whether the countersteer is large enough that you have to do it "on purpose".
By leaning and letting the front wheel steer itself, you can turn with hands off the handlebar. When I used a bike to go to the train station, I'd often bike without touching the handlebar for parts of the ride, including the turns. Yes, I was young and stupid.
Maybe I am still young and stupid, but I cycle a lot and as often without hands on as the situation allows... It is just much more comfortable this way.
Bu yes, also more dangerous, so in difficult trafic I usually don't do it
It's true, but in all the years of my childhood when I did this (and I rode and turned no-handed often), I never once had an accident when my hands were off the handlebars. Your warning is still useful, I think, but I also think good judgment goes a long way here.
I've introduced confusion here by talking about leaning left. I should have said 'shift your weight such that the bike leans left'. See my other comment for a fuller explanation.
> It's often claimed that _all_ steering on a bike requires countersteering, but that is false.
Sounds like you've never ridden a motorcycle? It's obvious on a motorcycle that you counter-steer all the way through a turn.
If you analyze bike steering more carefully, you will also find that you're always counter-steering. But the definition of counter-steering might be different than you think.
You have to think about the front wheel's turn angle in relation to your turning radius. If you're riding in a right turn circle, then your wheel position will be turned right and not changing. In order to change that turning radius, you will always steer in the opposite direction of your desired direction relative to where your steering is at steady state.
So counter steering doesn't mean that if you are turning right your wheel is left of center. Counter steering means that to turn more right, you need to steer left of where you were. When making small adjustments, your steer might be right of center at all times even though you go from a right turn to a sharper right turn.
In other words, it's the delta of your steering angle that is always counter, not the position of your steering angle.
Does that make sense?
One easy way to understand why you're always counter-steering was given in the video: a bike is physically equivalent to an inverted pendulum. In order to move the pendulum in a given direction, you always have to move the base the other way, at all times. This is true on a bike too.
> Sounds like you've never ridden a motorcycle? It's obvious on a motorcycle that you counter-steer all the way through a turn.
Once the turn has been initiated and you are in the turn, I don't believe you continue to counter-steer.
I think instead that once in a turn you feel a force trying to continue the front wheel deeper into the turn and you must maintain a counter force to prevent that. It seems unlikely that the front wheel is actually angled out away from the turn.
> Once the turn has been initiated and you are in the turn, I don't believe you continue to counter-steer.
Sounds like you haven't ridden a motorcycle? In a hard right turn, you will need to keep constant pushing pressure on the right handle (steering left) in order to stay in the turn.
And maybe you didn't follow the rest of my comment? Counter-steering doesn't mean your wheel is left of center during a right turn. It's referring to a change in turning radius. At all times. Yes, your wheel might be turned right during the stable lean angle of a right turn (or it might not) but "counter steering" is referring to when you change your turning radius. You always steer the opposite direction that you were steering before. If you're in a right turn and want to turn sharper, you steer the wheel left of wherever it is. If you're in a right turn and want to straighten out, you steer the wheel right of wherever it is. It doesn't matter where the wheel is, all that matters is which direction the change happens.
If you're in a stable lean with a constant turning radius, then your steering isn't changing, so I guess perhaps technically you're not counter-steering, because you're not steering? This is more confusing than clarifying, and not always true anyway. It's better to realize that the "counter" in counter steering is referring to the derivative, not the absolute value. It's referring to the change in steering, not the angle the wheel is turned.
> It seems unlikely that the front wheel is actually angled out away from the turn.
You might want to google gp moto pictures before making claims, you can find tons of images of racers in the middle of the turn with the wheel angled outward. For example: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dtCD63fKw58/maxresdefault.jpg
> In a hard right turn, you will need to keep constant pushing pressure on the right handle (steering left) in order to stay in the turn.
This is not usually true (though sometimes is at slower speeds.) Bike geometry and speed changes how this works a good bit [1][2]. Tracking my old 600cc, I'd need positive at slower speeds, but would need to steer into the turn once I had a good lean angle at anything 60mph+.
> You might want to google gp moto pictures before making claims, you can find tons of images of racers in the middle of the turn with the wheel angled outward. For example: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dtCD63fKw58/maxresdefault.jpg
This is really uneccessarily condescending again. Also, that really looks a rider deepening lean as he rounds the apex. I'm thinking that wheel's not staying at that angle for long.
I encourage you to check the tone of your comments. Being rude to folks, especially while being wrong while doing it really brings down a community, and I hate seeing that happen on HN.
> Repeating this is so unnecessarily condescending.
I didn't mean it to be condescending, it's an honest question. People commenting don't seem to have the experience to back up their comments. I know for a fact that a hard turn on a motorcycle sometimes requires obvious counter-steering even during the stable middle of a turn, because I've done a lot of riding. I agree that bike geometry and speed changes things, but you've just validated what I said with your experience.
> I'm thinking that wheel's not staying at that angle for long.
Your assumption is incorrect, you can see it more clearly if you watch videos. The extreme counter-steer during moto races happens all the way through a turn, and then it happens in the other direction in order to end the turn. The part you and the parent comment missed is the bike forces try to un-lean when moving forward, and it becomes very apparent at higher speeds, so constant counter-steering is necessary.
> I encourage you to check the tone of your comments. Being rude to folks, especially while being wrong
I know it can be very hard to understand someone's tone, but it's equally wise to check your assumptions and your own tone. I was simply trying to make my point clear precisely because it appeared the comment above didn't understand what I said the first time.
You've claimed I'm wrong, but I don't believe I am, and I've provided evidence for my case. From my point of view, pushing back on that without evidence is rude, as is arguing against my first sentence apparently without reading the rest of the clarifying explanation.
BTW, what you didn't see is that I upvoted @JKCalhoun for engaging in the discussion.
It really is a form of not-at-all-subtle trolling. If you feel like you're talking to a wall on the internet, the correct move is to stop interacting with a waste of time.
Or don't repeat yourself, because the text is static, and it's not required. You put it there once, and it's still there. Forum sliding with spammy garbage doesn't make friends. Saying the same thing a different way still amounts to an internet fight, but it's arguing without trolling.
Since you are new here, you should know that the HN guidelines recommend assuming good faith at all times. They also suggest avoiding flame bait, which is what accusing someone of trolling is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You've mis-read my motives and this situation, perhaps @jaxwerk's suggestion that I was being condescending was enough to convince you it was true, however that comment is making an incorrect assumption. I didn't feel like I was talking to a wall, I asked the same question of a different person, a person who after I asked the first time, suggested that motorcycles tend to lean into a turn when turning. If you've ridden a motorcycle and know how to counter-steer, you'd know that motorcycles tend to right themselves while turning and that you have to keep counter-steering in order to maintain the turn.
My question was honest. I know from experience that the question of whether someone has ridden a motorcycle is very important when discussing counter-steering. Many people who've only ridden bicycles don't believe counter-steering exists at first. The people who understand counter-steering are the people who've taken a motorcycle safety course and/or learned about motorcycle racing and/or experimented while riding. It's much, much easier to feel & understand counter-steering on a motorcycle than a bike, and it's far, far more important.
Well, my description isn't amazing or as clear as it could be. ;) There should be a way to explain this without technical vocabulary.
How about this? If you sit still on a moving bike, and you don't try to lean, bike steering changes your lean. While you are turning your wheel further to the left, your lean to the right is increasing (your right side turning radius is decreasing).
That's it. That works for negative angles and negative lean, meaning if you're steering right and leaning right, then you start moving your wheel to the right, your left lean increases because your right lean decreases.
And it's always true. No matter where you start, you could be already turning left or right, steering more to the left always sharpens your turn to the right.
Does that make any more sense? I really do want to find a better way to describe counter steering so it becomes more intuitive and easier to understand.
Counter steer happens at all speeds at all times on a two-wheel vehicle, it's just hard to notice at slow speeds, and confusing because you do steer right during the stable lean angle portion of a right turn, as depicted in the first image in that Wikipedia article.
I think counter-steering is misunderstood since people assume it means that if you're turning right then your steering has to be left of center. But counter-steering is referring to the direction of change, the steering delta, not the absolute steering angle. You always steer in the opposite relative direction from what you'd do in a car. This is still true on a bicycle at 1mph.
I'm no physicist, but it seems the intuitive reason countersteering works is because when you turn, e.g. left, your center of mass also moves left because you need to lean left in order to turn. So if you turn left on your own this will move your center of mass left. And if you turn too sharply left your center of mass will be so far out that you will fall over. So turning right very quickly before turning left means that your center of mass suddenly shifts massively right, and therefore you get some extra time turning left while your center of mass is still busy shifting from right to left?
I used to ride a bike with no hands. I was still able to countersteer! If I leaned to the left, the bike would lean to the right, the steering wheel would go right, then I could lean to the right into the turn.
The best way I've found to experience this is to first learn to ride with no hands. This works best at speed. You actually steer by shifting your weight, but the easiest way to learn is is to grip the seat with your thighs and think about turning the bike by trying to turn the seat.
Once you can stabilize a no-hands ride, try pushing on the handlebar with one finger. You will find the the bike turns in the opposite direction of what you would naively expect. The harder you push, the tighter the turn will be in the "wrong" direction.
Not fan of the term "countersteering". If you changed the mechanical direction that the handlebars rotated the front wheel I doubt anyone would bother to call it "prosteering".
A better way to think about this is that bikes turn by banking. The method of controlling the angle of bank does not map in a simple way to the direction of turn.
> The method of controlling the angle of bank does not map in a simple way to the direction of turn.
Sure it does! (Unless by "simple" you're ruling out derivatives). If your wheel angle is moving right, then your bank angle is increasing left (or IOW, your left turn is becoming sharper, left turn radius is decreasing). While your wheel angle is moving left, your bank angle is increasing right. Whenever you stop moving the wheel, your bank angle will stop changing and you will be in a constant radius turn.
> I doubt anyone would bother to call it "prosteering".
Not sure I understand this objection... there's no rule about symmetric or consistent prefixes. Lots of things called X have a counter-X (see also anti-X). Examples: counter-intuitive, counter-insurgency, counter-strike, counter-reformation, counter-current, etc.
Counter-steering is differentiating from steering. But there's no need to differentiate normal steering from steering, so we don't normally prefix things with "pro", unless you're talking about someone who advocates for something. I think there are a few counter-examples to that in physics though. :)
In motorcycle safety, it's rather important to call out the counter-intuitiveness of counter-steering. People's reflexes tend to do the wrong thing in tight situations where quick steering is needed. If you need to turn right very quickly and haven't learned counter-steering, you can injure yourself by trying to steer right, and many people have.
It's pretty common for riders who haven't learned counter-steering to believe that leaning hard will be sufficient, and/or that body lean is as or more important than steering. But to turn very quickly, knowing about and being able to counter-steer is incredibly important.
Well the aviation people, who also control vehicles that are controlled by banking, don't bother to come up with a special name. When teaching people to fly they first teach how the controls can be used to control the attitude of the vehicle (roll, pitch, yaw are the terms that are used). Then they start a whole new discussion of how various attitudes will affect where the vehicle will end up.
Some things can't really be simplified (and perhaps shouldn't be).
Easiest way to try/prove this is ride without holding handlebars. You can turn corners easily.
Limits (compared to regular turning) are your lowest speed is higher (where you'd lose balance without holding handlebars) and the fact your center of gravity and stability are messed up (can't turn as tightly). And self preservation of course.
You're right, "overrule" is probably too strong a term.
I meant it more as a comparison between anecdotal evidence vs research evidence. I.e., someone saying "I've never seen a fire, I'm not sure why we need to bother with fire drills."
Maybe better would be "why bother getting vaccinations, I've never seen a bacteria in my life."
I've watched the video linked above in the thread and I admit that I was wrong, that I would countersteer when riding a bike, it's just that I don't realize it.
There's just one thing that I don't understand: on a bike, with the hands of the handlebar, I can turn right by leaning right, but I don't understand how leaning right would cause the countersteer left.
It should be recognized that you were willing to admit you were wrong - personally I find nothing in the world harder to do, let alone on the internet. That's awesome.
When your hands are off the handlebar and you "lean right," the handlebars won't visibly "turn left," and if they do it will only be for the briefest moment. It only takes the tiniest countersteer to cause the "lean angle." It has to happen because your handlebars are non-rigid.
Let me know what you think after the video above. IIRC it has the "rolling cup" example, which for me works best.
I watched the video above and another one and I'm getting it a little better. Also another thing is that recently I've been riding a bike rather slowly, at speed where countersteering is not necessary and less visible, as shown in another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C848R9xWrjc). And as for countersteering while the hands off the handlebars, I realise that usually my eyes are on the road, not the handlebars, so I'd easily miss the brief countersteering.
I've done a lot of riding without holding handlebars, so that's how I learned this.
Another limits is that you've got a delay to reach the brakes, which can make it dangerous for others in addition to yourself. And I agree that having your center of gravity moved up really mess up your stability.
Only if you've got a stupid racing bike with only hand brakes. Coaster/foot/back-pedal brakes are standard issue around these parts, and I wouldn't ever want to ride a bike without one.
Depends on how you ride. An adult in the US, you're on a road bike bent over the bars and going 15-20mph. Hands on the brakes at all times. I do a ride every summer with 20,000 like-minded people and if you see even one bike with coaster brakes all week its unusual.
I don't know if all 20,000 people are hard-core. Its just that road bikes are very, very common. Kids bikes might have coaster breaks, sure. But hardly anybody over 15 has one.
Brakes on rear wheels only are relatively ineffective, so I don't understand why you would prefer them. Unless there is such a thing as a front wheel pedal brake, which I have never heard of.
Rim brakes either grip too hard or not enough, and sometimes don't work very well in rain, and need regular maintenance and replacement. Coaster brake supplemented by hand brakes for emergency stops just feels safer and more in control in traffic situations.
It's very easy to try. Go up to speed (20 km/h or so) and press on a handlebar, away from you. You will "turn" to that side even though the handlebars are moving in the opposite direction.
Here's how I explained countersteering to myself: To turn left, I need to lean left. The easiest way to lean left is to pull the bottom of the bike, where the wheels touch the ground, to the right.
