No Body Steering Bike of the California Superbike School

You should take a look at the No BS Bike [0, 1]. It's a motorcycle with a second set of handlebars fixed to the frame. They don't connect to the forks; they don't rotate. Riders are challenged to hold on to these bars and lean the bike as they're underway. At speeds faster than 20mph or so, leaning has a negligible effect on the bike's lean and direction. You can do some very limited steering this way, but the amount of effort you put into it for the meager return quickly convinces riders that handlebar input it the way to control bike direction. When you were shifting your weight, were your arms attached to the handlebars? It's impossible to isolate your shifting of body weight from the related pushing or pulling on the bars if you're stabilizing your upper body through the handlebars. [0] [link] [1] [this video]

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on the subject. You can eventually turn the bike by just leaning over. But it's painfully slow compared to counter steering. California Super Bike school demonstrates[1] how sluggish body lean turning is compared to the speed and precision counter steering offers. What's more that counter steering is also less effort. Greg Widmar (Motojitsu) demonstrates it perfectly[2] with a 1 finger counter steer demo on a 550lbs motorcycle moving at 80mph; he barely has to push the handle bar to drastically turn the motorcycle. Contrast to all the muscle and energy necessary to move your upper body around and hold it in position as seen in the Calfornia school's demo. [1] [this video] [2] [link]