Is there some trick to steering a motorcycle?

[palmiera 50]

I bought a motorcycle and a scooter and I've spent a little time riding on public roads and on railroad tracks, and I have a lot of trouble steering. It's hard to keep going straight, even on a flat, direct stretch of road. When I start to drift left or right, and I ever-so-lightly touch the opposite arrow to correct, it goes too far. Especially when going uphill, I tack back and forth like crazy, and sometimes go flying off the road. I've also tried stopping for a couple seconds when I need to straighten out, but my aim is still not accurate.

Is there some trick to steering? Do I need to get a better vehicle? Am I doing something wrong?

[animats 4,109]

You need a different vehicle. Some vehicles in SL are meant for racetracks and oversteer too much for mainland roads.

See my old posting "How to Drive in Second Life".

[Fenimore Hapmouche 102]

In both of my motorcycles I was also able to adjust the steering sensitivity and that helped a lot with this problem I did face just like you now.

Edited February 23 by Fenimore Hapmouche

[palmiera 50]

16 hours ago, animats said:

You need a different vehicle. Some vehicles in SL are meant for racetracks and oversteer too much for mainland roads.

See my old posting "How to Drive in Second Life".

Thanks for the article, animats! I'll try your suggestions today.

[Waialae 13]

In RL you don't steer with the handlebars except in emergencies or at very low speed, because steering with the handlebars is jerky and potentially dangerous (could flip the bike). Instead, you lean your body left or right and allow physics to steer. Problem is, using arrow keys to steer an SL bike is like steering with handlebars. It jerks the bike around and makes it less controllable. Some more recent SL motorcycles allow the rider to adjust the steering sensitivity. That makes turns a little less jerky, but an SL bike will never steer as smoothly as an RL bike. It's just something you get used to with practice.

[OomMisha 31]

On 2/27/2021 at 3:23 PM, Waialae said:

In RL you don't steer with the handlebars except in emergencies or at very low speed, because steering with the handlebars is jerky and potentially dangerous (could flip the bike). Instead, you lean your body left or right and allow physics to steer. Problem is, using arrow keys to steer an SL bike is like steering with handlebars. It jerks the bike around and makes it less controllable. Some more recent SL motorcycles allow the rider to adjust the steering sensitivity. That makes turns a little less jerky, but an SL bike will never steer as smoothly as an RL bike. It's just something you get used to with practice.

As a further explanation, depending on what kind of motorcycle you have, you would need to go into the "config" notecard inside the motorcycle and adjust the sensitivity.  One I had was set to "10" and left/right would send me off the road.  I set it to "3" and it was nice and easy adjusting straightaways, but then full turns are a bit tougher.

 Note that the motorcycle may show as "no mod" in inventory/rezzed, but for at least some motorcycles the config notecard is editable.  Make a backup of the notecard contents just in case.