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Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well?
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Practice going the slowest you possibly can and keeping your balance while feathering the clutch and brake, making counter turns and proper uturns. I'm talking waiting for a short red light and never putting your feet down slow.
I urge you to get the book i linked below, basically it goes over everything you are experiencing and why.
Yo, thanks for suggesting a book. Rarely see people talk about Motorocycle book on this sub. I also wanna shout out Proficient Motorcycling. Kinda dog shit, but I got it for $1 at a Goodwill and it has some really cool picture and statistic breakdowns.
The Hurt Report, discussed in In David Hough's book Proficient Motorcycling does a good job explaining the dangers and risks of riding a motorcycle. Just knowing the statistics will make you a safer rider.
I believe 70% of all fatalities were due to accidents causes on a intersection where the car on the other side was making a left turn. Just knowing that and understand what to look for will improve your odds.
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It's worth reading it,
125cc will get you there.
Motorcycles may seem like toys, but they are dangerous in the hands of people who do not know how to use them.
Since you have a few years before getting a bigger bike,
<strong>buy and read this book</strong>
Sounds though you still have the mindset that you are responsible for your driving and they are responsible for theirs...On a bike this is shit. You are responsible for your self and any other traffic. You have to assume they WILL cut you off they WILL not see you etc. It's a part of a defensive strategy. I would suggest a good book on motorcycle safety: https://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
Again, I am not saying I don't run into issues or that I am the perfect rider or that I never have road rage. None of that. But I do now realize that If I don't account for bad drivers ACTIVELY I will eat dirt one day. KNOW that cars are out to get you and just maybe you can prevent it. Just my take on it.
In addition to the stuff of varying usefulness I posted below, here's my standard recommendation to anyone that rides, especially to people subject to the "conventional wisdom" of a long time rider who may or may not know his shit.
Buy and read this book, Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well by David Hough.
I think you're on the right track, rent a manual transmission bike to see how you like it. Better yet, rent a different bike every weekend and see how you like and dislike different features of each. If riding instructors aren't commonly available, I highly recommend this book as the next best thing:
New to the club? - buy this and read it. Trust me, it'll greatly favorably increase your odds and make you a much safer rider. I re-read it every few years to refresh my habits.
Make it your business to be safe on the bike and never lose your head. The world is scary, both on and off the bike, so ride defensively within your comfort zone.
Could also see about doing more classes at MSF. Or read some into the activity, I bought Proficient Motorcycling to read in my spare time when I first got my bike 10 or so years ago? I never finished it but it seems like a decent enough resource.
You'll want to read about it from someplace like here for a proper description. Essentially, it describes matching the speed or revs of the engine when switching into a new gear. When done correctly a proper change in gearing will occur smoothly with no lurch in the bike. If done improperly, you will feel the bike sort of throw itself forward on a downshift, let's say. In the case of a downshift, which took me a long time to realize, you want to blip the throttle while shifting to match the higher rev of the lower gear. Some really badass bikes do this for you. Most do not.
Not really sure why you're being downvoted because you asked an extremely important question with an attempt to learn...
For the longest time, I've misunderstood counter steering entirely. As said above, you push one way, you go that way... But it's not as simple as that.
It's important to note the difference between steering and leaning. You push right, causing the tire to point left. Due to the curvature of the tire, the contact point where the tire greets the asphalt shifts, resulting in a lean opposite to the direction you steered.
Here's what really blew my mind that I'd been doing all along. If you pull right, the tire points right, shifting the contact patch from tire to asphalt, resulting in a left lean.
You can try that out next time you ride on a straight road. So long as you aren't yanking on the handle bars, you'll just drift one way or the other.
I'd highly recommend this book. The pictures may all be outdated, but all the crucial skills and scenarios are always relevant. http://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
Newer rider here, maybe my advice will help. If you are really worried about being seen/embarrassed, wake up super early this weekend like 5am, and go find a parking lot and practice. Do some u-turns, some loops, some of the more fun stuff you remember from your Rider course, on slow turns really work on your clutch control. But don't sit in the lot forever, get out on the road after 30-45 minutes or so. At that time of day, there won't be too many cars and you can limit yourself to neighborhoods if you're still worried about going on main roads. Neighborhoods have stop signs and if there is no traffic you can work on starting and stopping and left and right turns.
It's really easy to forget what you learned in your MSF course when you first start riding because of the excitement (anxiety in your case it appears) but if there is one thing you need to remember it's always look where you want the bike to go! Pick up this book and start reading it. I wouldn't waste money on another course, if you passed it the first time you really just need to refocus on what you learned. Hopefully the book will help you with some of that and also educate you more so you can get over you fear. Slowly build up every time you go out, it's not a race, but don't overthink it.
Edit: Maybe invest in some frame sliders, may help ease your worries a bit about dropping your bike, but hopefully won't happen again.
Everything in that warning is true, but IMO, Hill Country is a great place for a novice to practice their technique. He needs to be careful, of course, but a rider who learns out there won't get into the habit of out-riding his sightlines.
Maybe you could pair the Butler Map with a copy of Hough's Proficient Motorcycling, which is a great manual for riding safely in real-world situations.
Great advice.
Just be aware- what is taught in the basic rider course is the most basic elementary stuff. It's also not really everything you need to know- it's just enough to give you a fighting chance of not being killed immediately, and hopefully gives you a solid starting point to improve your skills.
It takes conscious effort to learn riding techniques, and it takes continuous practice to improve. Simply putting on miles without understanding that you need to put focused effort into improving will get you miles under your belt without developing superior skills. Staying alive on the street is a combination of riding skill and observation & planning skills. Some of this you can learn from books, I recommend David L. Hough's books "Proficient Motorcycling" and "Mastering the Ride: More Proficient Motorcycling", and also his "Street Strategies: A Survival Guide for Motorcyclists" book.
And there are many others who have written good books on riding, but those are the ones I own. When my wife and later our kids decided to ride, those are the books I strongly recommended to them.
Take more formal instruction after you have a little experience on the street. The MSF advanced rider course, or a dirt bike school, a police motor office course, anything with a pro instructor. Track days can be good too, if there is good instruction and coaching available. Right now, you don't really know what you don't know.
https://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
Excellent book, read it, your bike is like a scooter, pretend your invisible and give everyone lots of room.
Read the book / take the class:
https://www.totalcontroltraining.net/riding-courses/advanced-riding-clinic
Total Control is a bridge between street and track riding.
Also:
https://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
Proficient Motorcycling is a great read. It's a must have on the shelf for every street rider.
Track riding is tons of fun. BUT, without GOOD instruction, it's not going to help your skills. IMHO, you should read the above two books first. (Total Control is also a book, as well as a class.)
When you sign up for a track day (did I mention, TONS of fun?) try to sign up with an org with good training. For pure street-to-track training, you could not to better than Tony's Track Days:
https://www.tonystrackdays.com/
They are oriented towards street riders who want to learn track riding craft. (As opposed to riders who just want to go fast and do their own thing.)
Whomever you sign up with, many offer training for a small additional fee.
This kind of terrain is really tricky for a street bike and there's a lot of instincts here that can screw you up. The main thing from what I've read is to have a decent speed (like 30mph is about right), and not to give any sudden input to your brakes, steering, leaning and throttle. You want to maintain course smoothly through it and ride it out. Some people even go 40 mph because there's a funny thing where a higher velocity tends to make the gravel stay put more and you don't lose as much traction. Imagine riding through sand at 5 mph versus 25 mph on a bicycle. One starts sinking in and you'd be fighting the sand hard, the other might mostly glide across. I think that's the same concept, where velocity can actually ensure a bit more traction across the terrain.
Don't grab brakes when you start sliding across. Ease through it, and maybe even throttle it a bit, very lightly and smoothly. And if the street is tilted a bit, you want to lift up on your bike more to raise the center of mass, maybe even stand on the pegs, and lean the bike so that it's perpendicular to the road, with you more vertical and straight. Your controls to get through dirt/sandy/gravely road are going to be your body mass and leaning and throttle, with you balancing your bike lightly with steering as well. But don't lean on those corners if you notice mud and such. Try to keep the bike perpendicular to the terrain in these cases.
It's okay if you're sliding a bit, but keeping the bike perpendicular and riding through it without sudden changes to throttle and without brakes, you'll probably ride it out.
There's a really good book that goes into detail about road hazards like this... Check out Proficient Motorcycling by David L Hough. There's an entire chapter related to this, teaching you to watch out for slippery white paint, brick and wood when it's wet, mud, dirt from farms, sand, train tracks and edge trap practicing, etc. It goes into real good detail about how to get through gravel and that sort of thing and how your riding style should adapt to it. I'd check it out - I've tried researching this stuff online and there's very little resources. This book had it all.
Yeah, just opened the book and it literally recommends to ride through gravel at 40mph because it provides more predictable traction and the more gyroscopic stability with the faster spinning tire. But it also recommends that in 99% of these cases, if you see this road hazard you should attempt to ride around it, not through it. The first best step is awareness and watching the texture of the road (seeing if the texture changes can be a sign of newly laid gravel or mud or dirt or water), avoiding it, and if you find yourself in it how to ride it out. But you should be trying to ride through it straight without making changes to speed and without leaning (except if it's your body, to keep the bike perpendicular to an unlevel road).
You would enjoy reading Proficient Motorcycling by Hough http://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
VTR250 is good, along with Ninja 250. If a riding class is not available, get a copy of this book and read it:
http://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1889540536
The MSF certificate plus your learner's permit should get you your M1 license without taking the riding test. I took the written test, then took MSF, turned in my certificate, and got my M1. That was back in 2003, so maybe it's different now.
I bought an '03 Ninja 250 new for $3,500 or so, rode it exclusively for a year, and since then it's got occasional miles on it. Mine has 15k miles. I chose to get a new one because I am not a good mechanic and I didn't want to have problems with the bike while I was learning. One big downside to buying new is the engine break-in period. Basically my top speed was 35MPH for 500 miles and 55MPH until 1,000 miles. I was learning though, so I stuck to side streets and it was good to keep it slow. I couldn't commute until I got to 3k miles. At my first fill-up, during the break-in period, I got 92MPG! After I started driving more vigorously my economy dropped to about 65MPG. Now the carbs are a little dirty and I get about 55.
A 250 is absolutely a great beginner bike, and you can stick with that size if you have the temperament for it. I expect there to be a lot of 250's out there cheaper than the one you found, but listings won't pick up until just before spring.
One reason a 250 may not work for you is if you are over 200 pounds. I had to upgrade the rear shock on mine because it was either causing or worsening some lower back pain. The upgrade was from a newer model Ninja, though, so maybe that's not an issue after 2003.
Make sure to budget for gear. I think I spent $1k on gear at the time I got the bike. Also budget for insurance. At the time I got the bike, insurance was much cheaper than for an auto.
A couple good resources:
Ninja250.info forum. Great for learning about how to care for the Ninja 250.
Book: Proficient Motorcycling. It probably covers a lot of what you learned in MSF over again but I was happy to have read it.
>However this is insufficient to keep the bike upright on it's own.
No, it's not... I ride leaning back on my seat with my throttle locked all the time on open highways. Absolutely no input from me. Guess what, it doesn't fall over.
>You are making a thousand minor adjustments and corrections in every mile you put in on two wheels.
If it's windy, then yes, but those inputs aren't for balance... those inputs are for maintaining position on the road... just like you input on a car steering wheel to stay in the right spot on the road... it has absolutely nothing to do with balancing it.
> I did that because I tire of watching them die and it's the quickest way to get the point across.
Then maybe you should stop misinforming them and start teaching them of the actual physics of riding a motorcycle... I'll suggest you read a book called Proficient Motorcycling to get started with the correct understanding of riding.
>First ask yourself what good you are doing.
Helping people understand how to control a bike better by not lying to them and telling them the bike requires balance inputs. Because that seems awfully more dangerous that someone might be concentrating on balancing their bike instead of actually giving it correct inputs.
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