The Counterintuitive Physics of Steering a Bike
And before you ask, no, you can't just lean and turn... Think about every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and what direction the bike must lean if you move your body to one side :).
Comments (2)
You think you can't initiate a turn without counter-steering? Not true, as my kids demonstrate to me daily in our bakfiets. Yes, of course simply leaning your torso to one side will cause the bike to tilt the opposite way, but you are neglecting lateral forces that one can apply against the road through the tires. Most bicycles don't have frictionless tires.
Lateral forces only come from being off balance, not from simply leaning. In order to actually start falling, you must have counter steered (perhaps unintentionally) at least a tiny bit. It's very hard to notice sometimes.