Countersteering

A motorcycle is turned by steering the front wheel into the curve until the forces of gravity and inertia balance out. Exactly how far you lean and how far you turn the front wheel are determined by both the radius of the corner and how fast you're moving. (Anybody who can ride a bicycle can do the above without even thinking about it. The hard part is using words to describe something that most of us do instinctively.) Which brings us to countersteering, which is how we all get into corners, but is a technique that almost nobody ever actually practices.

To see countersteering at work, simply proceed down a straight -and traffic free- stretch of road and steer ever so gently to the LEFT....Yikes! The bike suddenly tried to turn right, didn't it! In fact, if you neglected the part about steering left ever so gently, you probably scared the shit out of yourself. So now you know how we get into corners: We overbalance the bike and steer it out from under us at the same time; only steering into the corner once the lean angle has been established. The trick is to do this quickly, precisely, consistently, and, above all, smoothly. And the way we gain that ability is to practice it over and over and over again until it happens without thinking.

But start out by practicing and thinking about what you're doing at the same time, preferably in an empty parking lot. Set up a slow wide turn, and practice tightening it by steering slightly to the outside to drop more of your weight on the inside of the corner; you will find that you can then steer further to the inside and turn more tightly. (And you'd better know how to tighten up a corner before you get into a decreasing radius curve on a two lane highway at a high rate of knots. You would have a limited future as a hood ornament.)

Things like weighting the footpegs and hanging off the bike to maintain a better contact patch are techniques that must wait until you can get into and out of corners consistently, safely, and again, smoothly, every time.

IanJ produced a short video which helps to explain countersteering for the visual learner.