It’s not a question of whether you CAN turn the motorcycle without your hands. We all know you CAN. The question is, is it an EFFECTIVE way to control the bike, and the answer to that is absolutely not.
The problem with “body english” is that it becomes decreasingly effective as speed increases. If you’re going 25mph, a body lean to the left will move the bike quite a bit (depending on the bike of course). At 40mph it won’t do much. At 60mph, it won’t do anything. For this reason, “weighting” the pegs, shifting your body weight, etc. are not valid bike control techniques. If you want rapid and controlled change of direction at any speed, you need to provide counter-steering input to the bars. Period.
If thinking about weighting the peg helps you counter steer, that’s a different story. I can’t speak to that.
Important peeve: counter-steering WILL get you faster changes in direction, if you provide adequate steering inputs. Take the extreme case as proof. Seasoned racers typically go from vertical to knee on the ground in about 1-1.5 seconds. First, you could never make this rapid change using “body english” at any speed above 15mph, let alone at 90mph. Second, despite hanging off their bikes like crazy people, racers make all steering inputs using the bars! If you watch them, they position their body to the side immediately BEFORE the turn, then counter-steer to drop the bike into the turn and get that knee down. Hanging off has nothing to do with the rate at which they turn, and input to the bars has everything to do with it.
Anal-retentive peeve: counter-steering is, by definition, the act of providing opposite input on the handlebars. If you were trying to suggest that, because the front wheel turns one way as the bike leans the opposite way regardless of turning methodology, you are counter-steering whenever you turn the bike, I see what you’re getting at. However, your use of a specifically defined term is misleading in that context. If you want to be clear, I wouldn’t use “counter-steer” to refer to anything other than the phenomenon of “push-left-to-go-left.”
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