Two ways to teach how to ride motorcycles

[sanjuro]

I noticed a just retired pro mountain bike racer got a dirt bike, and she commented she almost let the battery die for all the time she stalled it out in her driveway.

Last year during a trails event, at the end of the day in the campground, someone offered to teach her how to ride a motorcycle. She was given a 2 minute lesson on how to start a bike and use the clutch, and she quickly was riding around the campground, to the laughter and cheering of her friends.

At the same time, a quiet fellow asked me to teach him how to ride. I showed him the fundamentals in a boring fashion, going over the friction zone and power walking, and he succeeded in learning the first lessons of riding.

These are the lessons I was taught when I took a beginner motorcycle safety class, when I decided to ride motorcycles. I had decades of cycling and racing experience at that point, but unlike my introduction to mountain biking, where I received little training, I could not afford to crash on every other ride until I figured it out. My first crash on a motorcycle could have been my last.

On the other hand, a natural on two wheels could take training shortcuts when they start motorcycling. And expert bikers might encourage it. Many of them needed no beginner lessons, or they learned them in a classic fashion, the hard way as youths.

I wonder if she had a thorough first lesson about motorcycles, she could have mastered the start today.

Without the foundation of the basics, there is a skills gap which has to be bypassed, and that could be a risk. It is over a decade of motorcycling now, and I still depend on those basic lessons even though ride at an expert level now.

 

[GAJ]

When I started in the early 70s as a teen in Belgium the "training" was minimal beyond how to start and shift the motorcycle and where the brakes were.

I rode (and crashed) that 50cc bike without ever really understanding how to control the bike effectively in turns which instantly revealed itself when I got a 750cc moto in 1986 after over 10 years of not riding.

Had that 50cc been a larger bike the crashes would have been far more serious.

I guess tiered licensing in Belgium saved my life and when I got the 750, thankfully, things like CLASS and CSS existed.

 

[tuxumino]

the first motorcycle I bought was in Georgia, well actually Alabama but then rode it to the Georgia DMV, took the written test and the skills test and got my license. No training no gear. I believed that as an American male god had imbued with the ability to operate any vehicle that I could get my hands on. Damn was I wrong.

Trackdaze were my first formal training on how to ride 20 years after that first bike in LA (lower Alabama)

 

[moto-rama]

Late Spring 1967:

I was 15, hanging out at an all night party out by Golf Links Road. At about 130 AM my ride tossed me the keys to his BSA Thunderbolt and said, "I am not going home tonight, take my bike." He winked, as I caught the keys.

I had never ridden a motorcycle but got some basic instruction from my friend. Which was :

"It's 1 down and 3 up, OK?"

He got it back a few days later with 400 hundred miles more on the ODO . Miraculously, I hadn't crashed it and could ride it as well as could be expected.

A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a '59 R50/2.

Not that I recommend doing it that way but it was the Summer of Motorcycle Love.

 

[OldMadBrit]

I was 15 when I got a 150cc Vespa from my auntie (who was a former Mod). I'd been riding bicycles and a 50cc Motobecane moped through the Woods and hills at the back of our house for >10 years so stepping up to a scooter was totally natural. When I was 16 my buddy lent me his Suzuki 250 and off I went. I rode borrowed dirt bikes on every few years but after 19, I didn't have a bike of my own.

Throughout all of this I never even thought about formal lessons.

I also had multiple near-misses, ran wide on corners, hardly used my front brake and couldn't understand that feeling of the bike not wanting to turn.

Then when I was 50, with the house paid off, my daughter graduated and my pension in the bank, I got my first proper Moto - my '99 R1.

My wife insisted that I took advanced training as part of the deal. So at the age of 51 I signed up for Cal Superbike School. I finally learned that bikes counter-steer, the importance of smoothness, how good the front brake is, the amazing grip and lean angle you can actually get and how all the natural human reflexes (like sticking both arms out straight in a panic, target fixation etc.,) can get you killed on a bike.

So having tried both approaches I believe experience is the key but understanding the fundamentals specific to bikes is the key to making that experience useful.

 

[corndog67]

Ride a dirtbike before you ride a streetbike. I've had people argue that the two are nothing alike, but they were wrong, everything applies to the other. On a streetbike, the first time the front tire loses traction, what happens? I'd say some of the time, they crash, maybe most of the time. If you have dirt experience and ride them fairly well, you're expecting the front to slide, or at least, anticipating it, and you adjust, roll with it, and keep on going. No drama, no pucker moments, half the time, you just barely notice, you reflexively took care of it before it happened.

And dirtbikes don't have fairings and other easily damaged parts.

 

[moto-rama]

Late Spring 1967:

I was 15, hanging out at an all night party out by Golf Links Road. At about 130 AM my ride tossed me the keys to his BSA Thunderbolt and said, "I am not going home tonight, take my bike." He winked, as I caught the keys.

I had never ridden a motorcycle but got some basic instruction from my friend. Which was :

"It's 1 down and 3 up, OK?"

He got it back a few days later with 400 hundred miles more on the ODO . Miraculously, I hadn't crashed it and could ride it as well as could be expected.

A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a '59 R50/2.

Not that I recommend doing it that way but it was the Summer of Motorcycle Love.

note:
Let me add that 20 years after that, I signed up for Kieth Code's classes. I took all the available classes in the next year; so even though I was a competent rider, I made some huge leaps. Now I try to think of every ride (and every corner) as an opportunity to practice.

 

[motomania2007]

In my opinion there is no substitute for professional rider training.

Many people will try to learn on their own and they almost always learn very difficult painful lessons.

Self-taught riders typically have substantial gaps in their riding skills. I see this all the time in my intermediate and advanced riding courses.

Learning from a professional motorcycle trainer generally ensures that there are no gaps in the basics. Or at least the basic skills were shown to and attempted by the student.

My first lesson was taught by an 8-year-old. I was six. It didn't go well, I crashed that mini bike about a dozen times over the next hour or so. I managed to learn how to ride in spite of it. I didn't have any professional training until I was 19. I was doing things on a motorcycle mostly by chance not because anyone taught me. When I took that first class at 19 I learned what I was doing and some refinements to some of what I was doing.

A few years later I learned there was a whole other dimension to riding. I was taught by a friend who was very seriously into motorcycling and he had done some road racing. Looking back I can tell you he was a terrible instructor but he did try and he did care and he did teach me some things. But he did not teach me as well as a professional trainer would have.

 

[bobl]

Ah yes, the good old days. You bought a motorcycle, and crashed until you figured it out or you quit. Professional training can save a lot of grief.

 

[bmwbob51]

I love these early day stories. Mine was an Army buddy bought a Kawaski 500 tripple and asked if I wanted to ride it. Having never ridden a motorcycle, I said sure. Rode it ever so slowly to the beach and honest to god a girl I'd never met asked for a ride. Ever so slowly I rode her around the block and when I dropped her of she said "that was the best motorcycle ride she'd ever had". I immediatly bought a used Yamaha R5C 350 and crashed on a regular basis to the point where my 1st sargant said "one more time and it's mine"! 500K miles later no strange girl has asked for a ride!

 

[motomania2007]

I love these early day stories. Mine was an Army buddy bought a Kawaski 500 tripple and asked if I wanted to ride it. Having never ridden a motorcycle, I said sure. Rode it ever so slowly to the beach and honest to god a girl I'd never met asked for a ride. Ever so slowly I rode her around the block and when I dropped her of she said "that was the best motorcycle ride she'd ever had". I immediatly bought a used Yamaha R5C 350 and crashed on a regular basis to the point where my 1st sargant said "one more time and it's mine"! 500K miles later no strange girl has asked for a ride!

I had a S2 (350 triple), when I was 15-16 and it vibrated me silly in very few miles.

That girl you gave a ride to may very likely have been a vibration induced hallucination.