Originally Posted by tomato coupe

Counter steering is not actually how you steer, but how you initiate a turn. (Once you're turning, you no longer counter steer.) It is very effective, but it isn't the only way to initiate a turn. At low speeds, of course, you just turn the handlebars in the direction you want to go. At high speeds, counter steering has the disadvantage of being rather slow, because it relies on gravity to to get the bike leaning. If you watch good descenders on fast technical descents, they don't counter steer -- they simply force the bike over to initiate a turn -- because it's a much quicker technique.