If you ride a bicycle with wet tires on dry concrete, your tracks will prove that you're constantly steering small amounts back and forth to remain balanced. So a counter-steer is kind of inevitable: if you're turning left now, you were probably turning right a moment ago. Even so, that's somehow different than counter-steering a motorcycle.
I haven't ridden motorcycles nearly as much as bicycles, but my sense is that motorcycle tires/wheels are so much more massive that at normal highway speeds they really do have the gyroscopic effects that everyone mistakenly believes are present in bicycle tires/wheels. When these effects cannot be counteracted by increased steering force, steering requires precession/counter-steer. So there is sort of a progression from low-mass systems that must be steered to stay upright to high-mass systems that must be tilted to steer. It's not clear whether these are really different phenomena, or just two values that have an inverse relation.
Everything you said is right. I'm going to totally geek out here, so forgive me. I don't intend to argue with you at all, just clarifying my own thoughts and explanation.
I would call the back and forth "balancing", and not counter-steering. You go back and forth in order to keep your center of mass positioned, on average, over the line that connects your two contact points with the ground. But I think you're continually counter-steering while you balance! (Unless you are leaning really fast back and forth, but that's not how we ride bikes, right? We steer to balance...)
Counter-steering (in my mind- this is not necessarily generally accepted) is always an instantaneous effect where you steer the front wheel to the left of where it is, in order to turn more right than you're currently turning. I think that you are always counter-steering, even on a bicycle.
My theory is that if you put any inline two wheel vehicle, regardless of motor or mass, into a constant speed, constant radius right turn, then the stationary position will be the front wheel is steering to the right a bit. Now is where counter-steering comes in. In order to increase your turning radius, or straighten out and stop turning, you steer into the turn by pushing forward on the left side of the handlebars. In order to decrease your turning radius, or turn tighter, you push on the right side of the handlebars, thus steering the wheel more left than it currently is. For this second part, your front wheel might be steering right of center the entire time, the critical bit is that you're steering left of where you were in order to tighten your right turn.
I think counter-steering is going on at all times, even while you're swinging back and forth balancing on a bike. In fact on a bike its a lot easier to experience counter-steering when you're coming out of a turn than when you're going into one. I think this is what people mistake for steering right to turn right. You do steer right, but it happens after the turn started, you always turn into the turn in order to straighten out. It just happens so quickly and automatically its hard to notice its there.
What do you think, sound plausible? The implications of this would mean that mass & gyroscopic effects don't have much to say about counter-steering specifically, they just change how much you can turn by leaning vs turn by counter-steering. With bigger bikes, you can't do much by leaning. (I think I'm just repeating what you said here.) But I also think we use a lot more counter-steer than lean on bicycles, and just don't know it!
That's good stuff. It seems a bicycle, or even a motorcycle, might be said to only approach a state of "balance". For any particular path, a different amount of lean is required. If the vehicle and rider had exactly the right amount of lean, the tires could simply travel the path. Since the actual lean is always somewhat "inaccurate", the tires (especially the front) must oscillate around the path. The greater the angular momentum of the tire/wheel, the smaller the required magnitude of oscillation for any particular lean inaccuracy. At some large lean inaccuracy, the required oscillation will exceed the capabilities of the rider and there will be a crash.
As you say, we're repeating each other. Still, I think I understand this topic better now than I did before.
The faster you're going though the more stable you are. That has to be gyroscopic since the physics of the situation is unchanged otherwise. If you look at bicycle racers flying down the hill you'll not discern any balancing movement at all. It's minute. However at slow speed it's easy to feel yourself balancing.
The science museum demo I mentioned is done with small wheels. Even smaller than your average bicycle. The gyroscopic effect is quite significant. Do this at home: Put handles on the side of a bicycle wheel. Spin it (doesn't need to be that fast). Now try to turn it. You'll know what I'm talking about once you've done this experiment.
That said because bicycles are smaller, your mass is larger, and they're typically not going as fast the effect of moving your center of mass e.g. is a lot larger and counter-steering is less noticeable. On a motorcycle there's no way you can't notice it and it was only after I started riding motorcycles that I was more aware of this on the bicycle. Once you go back from your motorcycle to your bicycle you will do this more consciously at speed... I agree with your description of this as some sort of continuum, with less mass, speed and smaller wheels the relative weight of the different effects changes. Clearly on a stationary motorcycle or bicycle counter-steering isn't going to do much :)
And yeah, counter-steering is relative to your lean angle, however at slow speeds if you're leaning then you need the throttle to take you out of the lean otherwise you'll just fall over... At speed it's easy to flick the bike quickly from side to side just by counter-steering both ways...
I don't think either of us understands that experiment. Fortunately, actual engineers have proven that bicycles don't stay upright from gyroscopic effects. [0] [1] If you want to experiment, try riding a bike that can't be turned. You might want to wear a helmet for that one.
Huh? The experiment is about experiencing. Try it, hold a bicycle wheel in your hand while it's spinning and turn it, and then come back. My point was gyroscopic effect are absolutely noticeable at bicycle speed and wheel sizes/mass. Try it out, come back, and tell me what you've felt and what you think is the physics behind it.
I didn't stay bicycles stay upright because of gyroscopic effects. I said they are more stable at speed and that I'm pretty sure that's due to gyroscopic effects because all else is equal. Do you think bicycles and motorcycles are more stable or less stable at speed and why? None of your very interesting links (I did see one of them before) add any relevant information.
A quote from your link supports what I said: "It is almost certain that gyro effects are important at the initial stage of steering manoeuvres."
You say: "the gyroscopic effects that everyone mistakenly believes are present in bicycle tires/wheels."
I haven't ridden motorcycles nearly as much as bicycles, but my sense is that motorcycle tires/wheels are so much more massive that at normal highway speeds they really do have the gyroscopic effects that everyone mistakenly believes are present in bicycle tires/wheels. When these effects cannot be counteracted by increased steering force, steering requires precession/counter-steer. So there is sort of a progression from low-mass systems that must be steered to stay upright to high-mass systems that must be tilted to steer. It's not clear whether these are really different phenomena, or just two values that have an inverse relation.