Followup to this threadthat I started a while ago.
So, I took the MSF’s basic road safety course and had a blast. I had such a good time, in fact, that I jumped in with both feet and bought a bike*this week. I rode it from the seller’s place to my place with no apparent problems, and I’m looking forward to riding more. Which brings me to my next question:
What do you wish someone had told you fairly early on WRT to riding, bike ownership, maintenance, etc.? The chance to learn from someone else’s experience is always welcome. Thanks.
*Of course I bought a helmet first. Do you even need to ask?
Well what everyone told me to do was not to do it.
What I wish Id done is listened. Man I was lucky.
Worth a read. Its more than them not seeing you - they are trying to kill you. They will wait till they think you have no chance to stop. OK seriously they just dont see you, but practically speaking it helps to look at it like that.
Have your headlight on at all times, wear as much dayglo as you can possibly stick on you, and a lot more than just a helmet gearwise.
Practically speaking, the most I can offer is have it under shelter wherever possible, make sure you keep the chain in good condition.
Remember, cars have blind spots. When riding in a lane beside a car, watch the front tire of the car for any indication that the car is about to change lanes. That will be your first indication that you’re about to have company in your lane. Your horn will be worthless, you’ll have to avoid him.
As to regular maintenance. This is really stupid, it’s not limited to motorcycles, and you may already know it. But when it happened to me, the thought never crossed my mind. And because it’s so stupid, I thought I’d swallow my embarrassment and mention it in hopes that someone may benefit. Namely: if you have a battery that needs water, make sure to check the level every so often and refill as necessary.
My bike died on the road and I walked it the mile or so home. Looked it over and couldn’t find anything wrong. Leaving it sit for a few days (taking the bus), I would go out to look at it periodically, never finding anything wrong. Last time before calling the shop – I was a poor student at the time and really didn’t have money to blow – paying closer attention, I happened to notice the water level was way low, filled it up, and was good to go.
Look through the corners, not right in front of you. You go where you look, so look at where you want to go, not at what you want to avoid. This still catches me out on occasion. Target fixation is powerful. Never outride your sight distance; be able to stop on the road you can see, even if you’ve been on the same road a thousand times.
Learn how to brake hard and practice it at least once a season, preferably more.
The throttle is your friend, learn how to use it.
Cross winds and deer can kill you quicker than a drunk in a Camaro. I’m dead damn serious. These days its Mother Nature putting the highest number of my friends in the ground rather than careless humans - something I never would have expected. The one I was actually there for - I-79 northbound and a guy on a Virago just in front of me. This freaky side wind hit low, basically at road level. I shut the throttle and turned into it - I guess he didn’t. Went off the road at 65-70mph. Didn’t make it. Another close friend was killed, and his girlfriend severly injured, when he struck a deer (or was struck by the deer).
I was warned that if I did it long enough I was going to be attending funerals. But cars, debris on the road, and stuff like that was always the reason given.
Having a girlfriend riding pillion will keep you from doing stupid things like pretending you’re Valentino Rossi. Most of the time, anyway.
A friend of ours got into a serious accident and his helmet, which has a little snap clasp on the strap, flew clean off. Helmets with a strap that you thread through two loops and secure with a snap button are more secure, or so I’ve heard.
I wish someone had told me, as a rider not a driver, NOT to help the driver turn by leaning counter…wish I’d been told that BEFORE I helped my first boyfriend lay down a cycle that way. (No damage, but bruised ego. )
-Dark causes mechanical failure. It must, as 5 of of the 6 times I have had to fix a bike on the road happened in the dark. After the second time I learned to always carry a reliable light. Modern headband LED types are excellent.
-Buy David Hough’s books. Keep reading it until staying in your lane in left curves is easy, then read the other stuff.
-Always be improving. I know many airplane pilots and every single one of them can tell you some aspect of flying that they are working on doing better. Very few automobile drivers do this, and not enough motorcyclists.
-On every ride, dress as if you knew for a fact that you were going to crash on that ride. It is the only way you can be dressed properly when you crash. Yes, it can be hot and uncomfortable…deal with it.
-Think about where other driver’s blind spots are and never linger there. This often means speeding and slowing in traffic and moving from the left to the right wheel track.
-Nerdy looking riders crash less and survive better than cool looking riders.
Get a video called Ride Like a Pro. Former motorcycle cop instructor. Very good basic instruction.
Don’t use your front brake on gravel or when you’re going slow like in a parking lot.
You know the speed advisory signs they put up before curves on the highway? They’re there for trucks and motorcycles. Heed the speed warning or end up in the ditch or off the cliff.
Wear sturdy boots high enough that they protect your ankles.
A little bit of throttle and a little bit of rear brake while riding the clutch a little bit in the friction zone stabilizes the bike if you’re crawling along at 2 mph in rush hour traffic.
Keep your eyes focused on where you want the bike to go. It will go there.
Don’t follow the car in front so closely that you can’t avoid the pothole that suddenly appears in front of you.
Don’t take a passenger until you have a few thousand miles under your belt and you’ve managed to scare yourself a couple of times.
You may have the right of way, but you’ll still end up in the morgue if the other guy’s an idiot. Don’t expect anyone else to see you or look out for you.
The car about to turn left in front of you? That’s the one that will get you because it doesn’t see you. Cover your brake and back off the throttle when someone’s at an intersection that you’re approaching. You’re invisible. Ride with your highbeam on during the day.
There’s always a deer about to jump out in front of you.
Keep your bike in gear at a red light and watch your mirror for the person about to rear end you. Always leave yourself room and have a plan to get the hell out of the way because someone will try to rear end you at some point.
Don’t wait 14 years before buying the V-max you always wanted. Don’t wait or put off training / tests because increasingly tight legislation will make it harder to do what you want in the future.
You’d think with motorcycles being smaller than cars/trucks, the parts would be cheaper. A little 4" piece of chrome to dress up the brake fluid reservoir, $50. An upgraded seat, $400. Handlebar risers, $150. A new tire with mounting and balancing, $180.
Besides coming in different sizes, helmets come in different shapes. I think someone on the boards said something like “you either have a Shoei head or an Arai head”. The wrong-shaped helmet will have you begging to take it off within a half hour. They’re expensive. Buy carefully!
When you have kids your recreational riding will fall off to practically nil.
You learned the wrong lesson then, especially if your bike has an annoying to reach battery that involves removing the seat and possibly more stuff to get to it. The real lesson is: find out what size battery you have, look up a “maintenance free” battery that doesn’t need water (AGM), buy it and install it and forget about it. Yuasa makes a ton of them, they’ll make one for your bike.
While you’re doing that with your battery, also put in a fuse line for a battery tender. NOT a “trickle charger”, but the kind that will detect the battery level and stop charging when it’s full. A Battery Tender, Jr. costs $30 and is probably all you need (unless you have multiple bikes).
I’m sure you got the ATGATT speech already (“All The Gear, All The Time”), but the reality is, not all gear is equally valuable. The full face helmet is Rule #1. What’s #2? Not an armored jacket in my book (though that’s #3), but ARMORED/PADDED GLOVES, real motorcycle gloves not gardening gloves or winter gloves, especially if like me a large portion of your riding time is local city riding and not on the highway.
The armored jacket, overpants and over-the-ankle boots are all great and important for protection if you come off the bike at high speeds (like those track racers who spill at 100 MPH, roll for a couple hundred feet and then get up), and in general I advise wearing as much gear as practically possible. But the most likely scenario for you as a new rider is that you come off the bike at LOW speeds - hitting a pothole or road joint, swerving badly to avoid a car that comes out at you unexpectedly, pedestrians or kids or dogs or balls jumping/rolling into the street, jumping a curb, etc., etc. And when you do, you will stick out your hands to catch yourself. And if you catch pavement with your bare hands going even just 20 MPH, you will wish you hadn’t for a very long time.
M/C gloves have saved my hands from serious damage twice in 5 years of riding (both times, I came off when swerving to avoid hitting a car that cut me off and clipping the curb). My FF helmet visor and chin guard also saved my face one of those times. My armored jacket saved my chest from getting bruised or scraped up but I know what I would have regretted most: my face and hands. (I got serious road rash on my knee that time, though - no overpants, which I always wear now, or at least over-the-knee leg/shin guards.)
Standard wisdom here, to which I fully subscribe, is to start small and go big. For a beginner, be sure to buy your FIRST bike first, not your last bike. Big engine bikes can get away from you very quickly, especially sport bikes, and big cruisers can be difficult to learn to handle for things like doing tight turns.
A 1200cc V-Max is NOT a beginner bike, and anyone who thinks a beginner bike is just a beginner’s first bike is IMHO a very dangerous person to be dispensing advice to new riders.
(ETA: to avoid being accused of setting you up as a straw man here - I see you actually wrote “don’t wait 14 years”, not “do it today”, in which case I have no problem except you’re maybe focusing on the wrong thing for advice for a new rider?)
Of course the OP said he’d already just bought his first bike so either way this is moot. (What’d you get, cwthree?)
Most of the time, anyway.
(No damage, but bruised ego. )