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Comment by deepGem | Hacker News Reader

The counterintuitive turn is more pronounced in motorcycles. You are literally pushing against the turn as you lean into the turn, and to lean in you have to turn out. Even more pronounced in sport motorcycles. Maintaining the centre of gravity during a lean at those speeds is a lot of fun to master. It’s one of those heart racing moments, literally no room for error.

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Indeed, if you want to make fast turns at speed on a motorbike the trick is to first push/pull the bars in the oppositive direction - that gets the bike leaning over and then the bars come back and take the natural position for the turn. It's amazing how quickly even a big, heavy bike (e.g. BMW tourer) willl lean over with the right technique. At very highspeeds it takes quite a bit of muscle too.

I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic course a very long time ago. One of the instructors brought his Honda Goldwing to the course just to help us get over the fear of falling over by showing that even a massive heavy motorcycle could go through all the tight turns without any problem.

I have to say, that course was some of the most fun I've ever had!

One of the best decisions in my life was to take this course. I started riding a Buell after this and boy what a thrill it was to lean this bike in the Pacific Northwest hilly roads.

Yes. On a motorcycle at high speed you have to actively maintain force on the wheel towards the outside of the turn to keep in the turn. If you stop the bike will straighten up.

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