Riding Skills - Please read

Well I'm rather afraid that I'm a rather old fashioned fart.

I don't lean in, I don't get my knee down, I don't push or pull, I don't even weight my pegs, I don't press down on my pegs. I don't drop my shoulder, I don't transfer weight anywhere ... I just sit there and ride the feckin' thing :)

Saw Giles' comments on this.
I am very similar, thouugh an absolute bastard for countersteering. I was a biker from I was 16 until I was 32, and gave it up because I realised I was going to kill myself.
I motocrossed from I was 19 till I was 25, bought the wrong bike - a Husqvarna 400 5 speed and that was the end of my motocross career.
At the ripe old age of 50, I decided I was no longer as mad as I had been, so started back at the biking again. My years at motocross bear heavily upon me. I always ride bold upright. And, of course, use the back brake excessively - a motocross habit I cannot cure myself of. I have had 4 "offs" in the last 16 years, all brought about by too much rear brake. For me the cure is ABS. Since I started on BMWs, this has resolved the problem.
I still ride hard, but not as crazy as in my youth.
Principal lessons learned:
Assume you have not been spotted by any car driver, ever.
Never overtake if there is a slot on the right hand side of the road. (Left hand in Europe) Fo sure the driver you are abut to overtake will try and turn into it.
I agree with others: you never stop learning.
My wife has the "fear" gene. She has not been on the back of a bike for 30 years.
When we are going somewher in a car, and I am driving, every 30 secs or so she starts shouting about the the impending accdents we are about to have.
My favourite reply ( in the company of others) is to say: "I don't know how I survive without accidents when you are not in the car!"
Myke
 
Ha ha .... contrary to my quote above Myke, I do use counter steer when in the twisties, or got the corner all wrong and it's tighter than what I thought :eek:

:beerjug:
 
Ha ha .... contrary to my quote above Myke, I do use counter steer when in the twisties, or got the corner all wrong and it's tighter than what I thought :eek:

:beerjug:

It's not the only thing that tightens at that stage! :eek:
 
Oooo Blimey ..... :D

We should do more on here! And there's so much we could do. I don't have a fancy GoPro, but maybe I should invest in one. The scope for little snippets on commentary, brakes and gears, acceleration sense ... you name it. So yes, should do more!
I can't see why people sneer at training either. Some spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds on fancy carbon this and Ackra that (yes I have a fancy end-can :D) but it won't make yer quicker / safer / smoother / better ... Training will though. Good training will stick with you for life too!

I'll make it my new years resolution ..... :thumb2

Hi Giles,

Where do you stand on the 'noisy pipes save lives' argument? :confused:

JR
 
Ooooooo blimey ...... errrrrrr .....

Seen any of the TT footage of the electric bikes doing 100mph and sounding like the sliding doors on Star Treck ?? :D So yes, I would buy an argument that a silent bike like that is pretty dangerous - I could see the scenario of a pedestrian walking out in town not realising there was a bike coming ..

But do I buy the sort of Harley / power ranger stance that they're now safer 'cos they've taken their baffles out and people can hear them coming?? Ummmmmmmm .... nah, not really! Look at that 'ouch' video in this section of the car pulling out infront of the biker? If he had a noisey aftermarket can would it have saved him??

I do have a Remus full system on my GS, and it sounds lovely (baffles in obviously ..) but by and large I see noisey bikes as a complete pain in the arse, and only contribute to peoples prejudice of 'bikers'. I live just off a pretty good biking road, Wednesday evening and all weekend in the summer I can hear the Blades and Gixxers about three miles away :blast

I'd rather survive by good planning and observation skills than by being bloody noisey .... :D

:beerjug:
 
I'd rather survive by good planning and observation skills than by being bloody noisey .... :D

:beerjug:

We saw a sign on Deals Gap similar to this:D
PosseRide10GatlinburgTN217.jpg
 
I have to agree with you about the really noisy bikes, they border on being just plain anti-social.
When I had my Harley Fat Boy a couple of years ago, I replaced the stock cans with a Remus system too. The sales chap said that the baffles were easy to remove and I would really enjoy the extra noise - "it would make my ears bleed". So, curiosity took over and when I got the thing home I broke the welds on one pipe and fired her up. For just a few brief moments it was indeed very, very loud. I put the baffle back in and left well alone for ever more, amen! Far too loud for anyone's benefit :rob

But the other extreme, silent but deadly bikes might well become an issue once the technology becomes more commercially viable, and we see (but not hear) more of them on our roads :D
 
I understand that they're engineering 'noise' into the electric bikes to make them safer ... :thumb2
 
I agree. The most popular comments I've heard are:
- I don't want to wear a hi-viz vest
- They ride too slow
- I've been riding xx years and never had an accident
- they think too much of themselves
Actually, reading that back, I agree with 3/4 comments ;)
Shame. I'm normally a sucker for any sort of 'advanced' bike training, but I'd have to agree. So much hinges on the personalities and dynamics of an IAM group, and I ended up quite disillusioned by mine. Most of the observers, I'm sure, are good and fair in their critique. Some (one, anyway) not so. That said, I probably joined for the 'wrong' reasons. Yes, for the improvement in riding skills, but mainly to give me the opportunity to ride in company, somewhere more interesting than the daily commute! I wasn't particularly interested in the advanced test itself - which was probably just as well, as I seem to remember an important part of the log was to record lengthy B-road rides other than those we did with the IAM. I suppose I could have fibbed and filled in details for fictitious rides, and I'm sure some people did, but I didn't see the point.

We were due to move abroad within a year anyway, so I never did (and never will) take the test, but two incidents at consecutive IAM meetings were enough to put me off going back.

The first happened at the debrief after an observed ride (my penultimate observed ride, as things turned out). There had been two of us 'associates' and one observer. The other associate was a youngish lad who had a self-confessed problem with speed. He had been with the IAM group for over a year and didn't seem to be making much progress. His riding, to my unqualified eyes, bordered on outright dangerous - harassing and hooting at an elderly couple on a country lane to move over, swooping and weaving round blind bends with predictable hard braking and the occasional wobble, and the - the best bit - being forced onto a traffic island while trying to squeeze past a bus. When we got back to the centre, the observer did my debrief first. I had only been with IAM for a couple of months and it was, may be, my third observed ride. He went through his rationale, which seemed quite reasonable, and marked up my score. The figures hadn't improved much from the last time, but never mind (they had been quite good to start with).

Then the observer turned to our speed demon. In view of his obvious failings, I thought he was being more than charitable, especially when he marked up the scores as being higher than mine. To say I was disappointed would have been a massive understatement. I was gobsmacked. Never mind, I reasoned, there would always be another observer and another opinion. But, in my mind, the worst of it was that after our speed demon had wandered off to get a coffee, the observer glanced at him, took back my log book, and increased all my scores. I suppose I should have been pleased, but, really?! WTF?!

The second incident involved Roynie rather than me, but resulted in his writing off his bike during an observed ride. I wasn't there so only have his account of what happened but, having been a Job driver himself (4 wheels), suffice to say that he was unimpressed by the observer's riding (and observational) skills.

All that aside, I still rate the Machine Control Day that we spent on the tennis courts of a South London school as worth the subscription by itself.

Oh and, I think, perhaps, someone ought to tell the IAM that this pic from their website doesn't exactly sell their advanced riding skills. :blast
 

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Had a full remus kit on my R1150GS in 2003,took baffles out and for a day big grins :D The other side of that, the noise was very wearing and annoying. Set all the car alarms off when passing on our road. Head down in shame :D baffles back in.
Never had a loud can since.
 
Ha ha .... contrary to my quote above Myke, I do use counter steer when in the twisties, or got the corner all wrong and it's tighter than what I thought :eek:

:beerjug:

Everyone does.

All bikes (including push bike) going more than about 5mph can only steer by counter steering. To lean right the front wheel has to go left blah blah.

All the shoulder dropping and footrests pressure malarkey is just another way to counter steer.

But fairly ineffective on a Saxon/Ttelelever or Hossack/Duolever as the chassis doesn't feed back into the steering like tele forks do.
 
Oooo Blimey ..... :D

We should do more on here! And there's so much we could do. I don't have a fancy GoPro, but maybe I should invest in one. The scope for little snippets on commentary, brakes and gears, acceleration sense ... you name it. So yes, should do more!
I can't see why people sneer at training either. Some spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds on fancy carbon this and Ackra that (yes I have a fancy end-can :D) but it won't make yer quicker / safer / smoother / better ... Training will though. Good training will stick with you for life too!

I'll make it my new years resolution ..... :thumb2

Do you take payment in San Miguel and Tapas :D, could do with some training. The Route Napoleon this September could be the ideal classroom :teacher

ps - I've got a Drift HD if you wanna borrow it
 
I've hardly used the bike since Xmas. But on Sunday was out in the Peak District on little back roads around the Manifold Valley. Avoiding gravel mud potholes etc really showed how counter steering works. A moment of brain fade and you run wide.
 
Do you take payment in San Miguel and Tapas :D, could do with some training. The Route Napoleon this September could be the ideal classroom :teacher

ps - I've got a Drift HD if you wanna borrow it

If you twist MF's arm and get him to buy a road bike (smt? tenere?) then the two of you could have a Rapid Training day on me ... :thumb2
 
Oh and, I think, perhaps, someone ought to tell the IAM that this pic from their website doesn't exactly sell their advanced riding skills. :blast

+1

Both IAM and Rospa need to fix their image as the training really helps to improve your road awareness skills.
I found my IAM training to be invaluable in making me identify all my bad habits, fix them and ultimately keep me alive longer. I was lucky to be trained by the senior observer and he certainly didn't fit the stereotype with his white Ducati 1198 and Termignoni pipes :D

I am strong believer that all training helps, even its only one thing that you learn, it all helps.
As a rider I am constantly trying to learn and refine my riding.

BTW, if you get a chance to go out with Giles on a Rapidtraining day, do it.

I had a great time last with him last year, <del>hooning</del> riding progressively around Kent :augie
 
BTW, if you get a chance to go out with Giles on a Rapidtraining day, do it.

I had a great time last with him last year, <del>hooning</del> riding progressively around Kent :augie
I wish we could! We've both had (separate) days out with an ex-Job instructor and loved every minute. Unfortunately, we always seem to come through the UK in the car these days ...:(
 


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