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Balancing and Steering PDF

This document discusses two aspects of motorcycle balance and steering: 1. For low-speed balance, having a low center of gravity, large trail, and small rake angle helps generate an overbalancing moment to keep the motorcycle upright. 2. Countersteering is demonstrated, where applying a large right turn on the handlebars causes the bike to lean left, due to gyroscopic torque from the spinning wheels. Several torques act on the steering, including rider input, gravity, gyroscopic effects, damping, and lateral tire forces.

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Jay
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56 views

Balancing and Steering PDF

This document discusses two aspects of motorcycle balance and steering: 1. For low-speed balance, having a low center of gravity, large trail, and small rake angle helps generate an overbalancing moment to keep the motorcycle upright. 2. Countersteering is demonstrated, where applying a large right turn on the handlebars causes the bike to lean left, due to gyroscopic torque from the spinning wheels. Several torques act on the steering, including rider input, gravity, gyroscopic effects, damping, and lateral tire forces.

Uploaded by

Jay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Balance

Aspect of the balance process, the low speed case

The rearview shows that if the ​CoG is not vertically above the line joining the tire contact patches​, then an
over-balancing moment is generated. However, the plan view shows how the sideways relationship of the
machine center-line and the tire line can be changed by steering from side to side. This is of great
importance to a very low-speed balance.

● A low CoG height helps.


● A large trail changes the position of the tire line more for a given handlebar movement.
● A small rake angle reduces the fall of the steering head when the bars are turned away
from the straight-ahead position, assisting with the balancing process
Steering
A perfect demonstration of the power of gyroscopic reactions, in the absence of any tyre forces.
Note ​that the rider has applied a very large steering angle toward the right hand side but the lean of the bike
has been to the left.This is known as counter-steering.

Torques that act on the steering assembly:


1. Rider input torque.
2. Gravitational torque.
3. Gyroscopic torque. ​This is due to the roll velocity.
4. Damping torque. ​This comes from various sources, not just from the addition of a
steering damper.
5. Tyre torque. ​The lateral tire force acting with the lever-arm of the real trail produces a
torque about the steering axis.

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