Here’s a fun fact for you:
You don’t know how to ride a bicycle.
Your body knows. But you don’t.
Don’t believe me?
Alright, let’s play a game to test it then, shall we?
Imagine you’re riding a bicycle. You’re currently cycling straight ahead on a flat road. No curves, no hills, no nothing.
So what are you physically doing?
Well, your feet are on the pedals, pedaling away, and your hands are on the steering wheel stabilizing (although the bike does most of the stabilizing on its own—but let’s ignore that for now).
So far so good.
Now, 20 meters in front of you there’s a curve to the right coming up.
Ok so you'll want to make a right.
But how?
I’m serious. Think about it. Put your hands in front of you as if you’re actually on a bike right now. What movement do your hands make in order for you to turn right?
Did you think about your answer?
…
If you answered something along the lines of, “I just turn the steering wheel to the right” then you, my friend, would’ve crashed and clearly don’t know how to ride a bike. At least not mentally.
I’m sure you would’ve made the turn just fine in practice.
But only because your body knows what to do.
See, there’s a lot of forces at play here. But to keep it simple. When cycling your body and your bike are moving at the same speed straight ahead and your center of gravity (of your body) is right above the bike, meaning you’ll stay upright just fine.
Now what happens if you suddenly steer to the right, just like that?
Well, then the bike will steer to the right (that’s true enough) but your body still hasn’t adapted yet. It want’s to keep moving straight ahead, at this point your center of gravity is off and you’ll fall.
In order for your body to adapt (and make the turn correctly) you have to do something called “counter-steering”.
Aka, you have to, ever so slightly, turn left FIRST before turning right.
This makes it so your body will start “falling” to the right, after which you’re able to actually turn your steering wheel to the right, so that the bike will catch your body as it’s “falling”, and successfully make the turn.
Yes, this is how turning works on a bike. This is a fact. No this is not made up. There’s actual science behind it. And yes you can quickly verify this yourself by simply googling “countersteering” and reading the wikipedia page that comes up.
In fact, here it is:
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“To negotiate a turn successfully, the combined center of mass of the rider and the single-track vehicle must first be leaned in the direction of the turn, and steering briefly in the opposite direction causes that lean” — Wikipedia
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Why am I telling you this?
Well simply because it’s a phenomenal thing to realize. Ask this to all of your friends or colleagues. I can guarantee almost nobody will actively know this.
And yet, I’m pretty sure almost everyone will make that turn correctly (all the while constantly “counter-steering” in the process.
It's the simple fact that your brain & body work together in such spectacular and almost magical ways, sometimes (read: often) even beyond human comprehension (for now at least).
At the end of the day, “knowing” something isn't nearly as important as having experienced something.
You can read all you want about counter steering. It won't help you turn your bike until your body (not your mind) figured it out through first-hand experience (that mean by trial and error).
Bottom line?
You “learn” by doing, wether you mentally realize it or not.
So if you want to improve, let's say, your email writing skills? Then writing an email every single day quite possibly the best thing you could do (there's nothing even close to the amount of improvement you'll see)
And to help get started doing just that, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/