Google up "countersteering". Pick up a copy of Keith Code's "Twist of the Wrist" books.

 

It's called countersteering and your turn the bars in the opposite direction that you want to lean into.

So if you are leaning the bike into a right hand corner you tuen the bars slightly to the left, this allows the bike the fall over and lean into the turn. If you try to turn the bars in the direction that you are turning it causes the bike to stand up in mid-corner and you will drift wide.

 

I believe the front wheel acts as a huge gyroscope, and when you turn the wheel one direction, the bike trys to compensate by leaning the opposite direction. It's actualy the rear wheel that turns you, all the front wheel does is lean the bike over. This is why you can watches racers wheely out of turns while the bike is still turning.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Let me do a bit of correcting....

So gyros are in effect, but mainly to slow your steering more than to cause it to happen.
You'll note that you can countersteer fast at very low speed (even though gyros are very weak). The key is that turning the wheel in one direction sends the front of the bike to the side, but momentum is still going straight forward. This means that the direction of the bike and the center of gravity are offset and the bike tries to fall on its side. Luckily, once you stop counter-steering the offset of the front wheel causes the front tire to turn into the corner, which then settles the bike again and everything stabilizes.

As for turning, you get some of it from the camber of the rear wheel when leaned over, but the front helps point the bike some as well (you can tell this mostly if you try to countersteer a little bit while mid-corner -- the bike resists and tries to run wide a bit). You can also see this if you push the front too hard into a corner, the front will push and you will run wide. If all your turning force came from the rear, the front tire would be relatively irrelevant and losing the front wouldn't happen.

 

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2002.web.dir/Sarah_Carter/countersteer.html

Basically when you apply a force to a rotating mass the resultant force is actually felt 90 degrees in the direction of rotation from the where the force was applied. Something like that as I recall from gyroscopic precession groundschool days.

 

i think the easiet way to explain to him is to have him sit on the bike and press on either side of the bar... if you press the right bar the wheel will turn to the left but will lean to the right and vice versa

 

What's to explain, turn the clip ons this way and the bike goes this way etc...