When I was on a bike, I made sure not to pass near to a car’s back bumper. The driver might not have seen me there, and decide to do a lane change into me.
The thing I’ve seen on this board is that you’ll drop or lay down your first bike. I wouldn’t buy a new one.
Well in all honesty statistics say people are 3000 percent more likely to die riding a motorcycle then driving a car. Not sure about cats.
There’s been a lot of great advice in this thread. Once again, we fight ignorance (in case you were wondering).
I’ll add a couple I haven’t seen in the preceding responses.
Motorcycle questions like this come up at least once per month. Do a search for them and you’ll find tons of advice and info.
While I was taking my MSF course, the instructor mentioned a report – something like the S.K.I.D. report or such – from the National Transportation Safety Board (Or was it the National Highway Statistical… – it’s the research institute at the University of Illinois). During that course, the results of a duplicate of the research had been published, so naturally he brought our attention to it. The news media basically reported that the statistics hadn’t really changed in the decades between the first and second reports – which was a bad thing. Our instructor noted this before emphasizing that the researcher(s) found that in about 80% of the multi-operator incidents* (motorcyclist plus one or more other car or motorcycle (or horse, or bus, or 18-wheeler, or pedestrian or…) the motorcyclist(s) could have done something to avoid that problem. That didn’t mean the incident was the motorcyclist’s fault, but that foresight and training and experience could have provided the motorcyclists a more appropriate action to take; lack of that training or experience (or even just not seeing it coming soon enough, which ultimately comes down to training and experience) resulted in the motorcyclist(s)’ participation in (rather than avoidance of) the incident.
So, as our instructor concluded, Experience comes with time and training is why you’re taking this course. SIPDE can save your ass.
And you know what SIPDE means by now.
My boss happens to ride. In fact he’s touring every weekend. When I was hired, all of the guys on the team were also motorcycle riders, just by coincidence. When I was introduced and chatting with the team, I mentioned I was planning on replacing my helmet and asked what they used. One of them gave me a phrase that I still live by: If you’ve got a $50 head, feel free to put a $50 helmet on it.
In fact, I live by that for all my gear: I’ve only got this body; it needs to be protected (ATGATT) as well as I can afford to do so. And, quite frankly, I’ve lived off noodles for a month in order to afford the better gear. For me, that was deerskin. Deerskin gloves, for sure – and they’re relatively cheap. But deerskin pants and jacket as well, if you can find them#. Why deerskin? The jacket worn for the stunts in the Indiana Jones movies is deerskin. Cowhide can’t hold a candle to that kind of abrasion- and puncture- resistance and Denim would shred like wet Kleenex under those conditions. It’s cooler (breathes better) than cowhide, and only metal holds up better – and who wants to ride in a suit of plate armor?
People drive cars. Horses, including iron horses, are ridden. The difference? The guy sitting in the saddle is never fully in control. A live horse will sometimes second-guess or just obstinately oppose the rider’s wishes. An iron horse can also act in unexpected ways – particularly on slippery or infirm surfaces (gravel, sand, etc.).
And here’s a weird one from my MSF instructor, who happened to be a retired CHP Motorcycle officer: Do NOT use polarized sunglasses when riding. Some Speed/O displays will show you odd stuff when you put on polarized glasses, but that’s not the important issue. Polarized lenses are designed to filter out glare, and they’ll do their job and make you comfortable if you wear them while you’re riding or driving. But there are things on the road that a motorcyclist needs to avoid (consciously or instinctively) that only show up when a polarized filter isn’t blocking the glare: Puddles of anti-freeze, trails of brake fluid, and fresh drips of old black oil come to mind. The shiny ‘surface’ of a hot black road shows up – except where a patch of dirt extends from the edge of the road into curve of the hairpin turn where someone before you cut it just slightly too tight. Lacking sight of that odd distinction, you’d be tempted to crank the throttle and hug that curve – not knowing that the patch of dirt on that inner curve is going to make you low-side into a tree trunk…
As a side-comment to +1 a response up above: anyone who buys into the “Loud Pipes Save Lives” slogan lacks a 6th-grader’s understanding of the physics of sound.
And, borrowing from another thread…
Feel free to mumble these to yourself inside your helmet:
“Relax, rider. Roads are not Racetracks.”
“I’m just commuting, not competing.”
–G!
Billy Biker had the right-of-way.
Calvin Cager didn’t see it that way.
In fact, when Billy hit the horizontal wall
Calvin never even saw him at all
Now Calvin’s hurting, deep in debt
But Billy feels nothing. He’s just dead.
I’ve heard this before, but it’s one of those bits of motorcycling folk wisdom that doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. You can contrive situations in which polarized lenses work against you, but for the most part they’re massively useful when driving and riding. They hugely reduce rider fatigue without obscuring your vision as much as other types of sunglasses, and the reduction in direct glare helps you see the road surface better not to mention being able to see in/through car windows better.
With the the automotive chemicals on the road situation, mayyybe the polarized lenses will work against you if the road is dry and there’s a Dick Dastardly style pool of oil on the road, but oil on the road is more commonly hazardous when the road is wet. In that situation, with no polarizers you can’t distinguish the wet road glare from the oil slick glare. If you do have them they cancel out the glare from the water but you can still see the double refraction (i.e. the swirly rainbow stuff) from the oil. They actually make oil slicks quite conspicuous; back in the early days of offshore drilling oil companies would use polarized sunglasses to spot natural oil seeps from aircraft.
Granted, yes, some older LCD displays were oriented horizontally and would go black with polarized sunglasses, but most of the newer ones don’t. Some windshields and helmet face shields have optical issues with polarizers too, but I usually just avoid that by bringing my shades with me helmet shopping (and, er, not having a bike with a useful windshield.)
I’m going to disagree as well. I currently don’t wear polarized sunglasses when I ride because I bought a helmet with an integral sun visor. But I do know that I felt like I had a better read on the road surface with polarization as opposed to not having it.
The only real downside I experienced was that the polarization of my glasses combined badly with the Fog City insert in my helmet. Everything had this disorienting hyper-3d effect.
Just wanted to say it’s been a hell of a work week, so I can’t post much, but I’m grateful for all the feedback I’m getting. Since I couldn’t make the on-cycle courses this past week due to the unfortunate car tire problem, I’m probably gonna go by Iron Pony and look at helmets (so I don’t have to borrow a crappy fitting one) for this up-coming week’s attempt at training. Might look at jackets with armor as well while I’m at it.
Honestly, the biggest fear for me in the hands-on training is the mental seperation of the clutch lever, gear shift pedal, and braking mechanisms (with MSF recommending getting into the habit of using both if available). I can drive a stick shift car but something scares me about the differences with a motorcycle.
If it helps, I found learning to ride a motorcycle, dividing responsibilities up across all four limbs, much easier than learning to drive a stick shift car. I am a huge proponent of taking the MSF classes, but I’ll tell you that I started riding about 2.5 seconds after I bought my first bike, and about a month before I took the class. I had to ride to class and park my bike far enough away that no one would notice.
One thing I was going to mention is that if you’re pretty sure what bike you’re going to get, you could just take the BRC2 instead of doing the BRC1 again. The BRC2 is basically just the riding portions of the BRC1 but on your own bike. At least in my state, they’ll still give you the piece of paper to waive the DMV riding test. When I took the BRC2 there were definitely people in the class who’d just bought bikes and skipped the BRC1 and the instructors seemed okay with it.
No one else has mentioned this, I think, therefore I will. Learn how to stop quickly! Practice grabbing a handful of brake, find out what the bike does before you get into a situation where you must stop right away. Practice braking just using the front brake, and then just using the rear brake, and compare. Then practice using both.
If you can commute using mass transit, you should. It is safer, less stressful, and cheaper. Riding during commute hours exposes you to drivers who are eating, putting on makeup, hung over, pissed off, and in a hurry.
And always remember that you are invisible!
Well, that didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. Finally got re-enrolled for the BRC, get through the first night no problems again, and hey, no tire blowout on the way to the Day 2 training grounds this morning. Even get there early, only to fail within the first 2 hours. I don’t honestly know how I feel about it right now. Numb, I guess. The instructor was nice enough to pass on a phone # to call to “reschedule saying you weren’t feeling good” so I didn’t lose out on the $50, but truthfully, I don’t know if I’ll take him up on that or not.
I guess I have some thinking to do. The funny thing is, there were moments where I felt like I had it, like “this IS fun”, then all of a sudden I see the “stop” cone and my brain just fell apart, grabbing the right brake too hard, right leg missing the rear brake altogether, left hand clutching for dear life in front of 11 strangers. At least I didn’t drop the bike, or crash, and this was literally my first time ever on a motorcycle. Thanks for all the advice, though, whether I decide motorcycling is for me or not. At the very least, it’s been an interesting learning experience, I guess.
Oh man, that’s terrible news, I’m sorry to hear this. My advice of limited usefulness is to to give up, but definitely do some hard thinking.
Is there any way you could get in touch with that instructor and buy him a beer or something in exchange for his unofficial assessment of where you stand? I spend a lot of time on another message board that has the participation of several MSF, ORT and CA instructors. I gather that there are three kinds of people that fail out early:
I’m assuming because of the questions you asked that you are not in category 1. If you think you’re in category 2, I’ve seen plenty of new riders say that what helped them after a washout was begging access to a motorcycle and practicing the early lessons of the BBC informally. You know, really internalizing the use of the brakea and clutch in a straight line, under no time pressure. Then going back to the class and blazing through it.
I’ll see if I can find some of the discussion links I’m thinking of.
Would you care to expand on what happened? Were you taking a 2 or 3 day course? I don’t understand how you failed in the first 2 hrs. Unless you were actually taking the final test you were in learning mode. Everybody sucked at something while learning. The test I took involved talking points off the entire series of maneuvers so unless we fell off the bike or hit someone it was an overall score. You’re braking experience doesn’t sound that bad. During the test I hit it hard and the engine was revved up when I came to a stop because I had a death grip on the front brake and throttle. It was far from pretty. They took points off for not getting it in first gear. Nobody told me that sometimes you have to clutch the gears so they will mesh. I pounded repeatedly on the shift lever and it wouldn’t go into first.
Hard braking was the only thing I thought I did well on but I had practiced it on a deserted road ahead of time. I sucked at the slow turns and even put my foot down twice during the test. After 6000 miles I still suck at slow turns but I’m a lot better than I was.
I had problems with night landings while learning to fly. My instructor (also a buddy) was about to give up. I eventually figured it out and now I own that bit of skill. I went from “suck” to “bring on all the crosswinds you got”.
If you want to ride then your temp license gives you a year to practice. I had a whole course laid out in a neighborhood when I first started. Very little traffic and if anyone made me nervous I simply pulled over. I had hills that I would start from a full stop and then stop in the middle of the hill and again launch from a standstill. I did this for hours at a time. It was many weeks before I ventured into real traffic and again I chose my routes so I could bail if I got nervous. My first venture into real traffic was a disaster. I stalled it at a light with traffic behind me and instead of hitting the starter I hit the kill switch. This was after hitting the horn instead of the turn signal. I couldn’t figure out why the bike wouldn’t start and just pushed the bike off the road and waved people around me.
If you really want to ride then buy a used bike and make it your bitch. Hard braking isn’t something to fear, it’s something to conquer. Just remember, any license you get is nothing but a certification to continue to learn on your own.
The MSF instructors have very hard limits on how much time can be spent on each particular exercise. If they have a rider that’s clearly not ready to move on at the end of a particular segment, especially one of the earlier ones on the control basics, they are very likely these days to send that rider home since there’s no opportunity to spend more time on that and the skills are required for the more difficult exercises to come.
To steal from the Disney movie Meet the Robinsons, “From failure you learn, from success, not so much.” I honestly would have been shocked if I didn’t have SOME problems, given my experience. The problem(s) probably best fit with category 2 above. That’s what the instructor seemed to feel after talking (since his advice was to find a beater and practice with it for a few weeks then try again).
When I learn something, I don’t usually learn it right away, and I’m usually more distracted by others also learning it than if I do it alone or one-on-one (bad as this might be to admit, I would have failed pharmacy school if lectures weren’t recorded so I could skip class and watch them at home (without annoying cough guy in the background) at my own pace). If it’s a cerebral pursuit, like pharmacy/medicine, I learn by reading a book or class notes. Then I try to find another book or two or review paper or online lecture (or all of the above) which states it in a different way, and sometimes re-read it all again in a different order until all of a sudden whatever it is I’m learning clicks into place.
The instructor at first thought it was a physical balance issue (I can ride a non-motorized bicycle just fine), but it was not the kind he thought (though even a 250cc bike is a heckuva lot heavier than I thought it would be). I have a tendency to rapidly hyperfocus on things when I’m stressed, treating everything as immediately important or salient, all almost simultaneously, and I think that’s what happened to me. Jumping focus from clutch friction zone (crap too much, crap too little), to throttle (see clutch), to right brake lever, to are my boots even on the footrests, while holding up the rest of the class. I mentally tend to think sequentially instead of all at once in situations like this , which is not long enough for everything to “click”, before it was time for the next drill.
Option 1, I’d argue is out. This is the third time I’ve tried this (the first untintentionally showing up late to class, so booted, the second a tire-blowout on the way to the first day of hands on training), so I’m already $150 bucks out, which honestly doesn’t bother me. Should I continue with this, I’m aware it can be an expensive hobby. Good gear can cost a helluva lot more than that, from my reading/browsing. Option 3, though, is possible. It just may be that my brain can’t handle all of the simultaneous factors I need to ride safely (I can drive stick in a car without problems, but I’m not so sure how well that actually translates to a bike). I’ll re-evaluate when I’m less numbed from the shock of an early failure, maybe giving myself the winter to find a cheap beater to practice on once spring rolls around again.
3 day total course, 1 4 hour classroom, 2 6 hour courses on the bikes if things had gone according to plan. Actual skills testing would have occurred Sunday. I could switch gears, start the bike, find the friction zone, power walk the bike, but things spun out of control with very short start/stop exercises (essentially I had two footsteps to get my throttle rolled, clutch at the right point of the friction zone and ride with feet on both pegs for about 15 more feet before stopping with both right front and rear breaks, ending with left leg down first. I can sequentially remember all of this now and even when I was on the bike but not moving, but doing it all in the span of 15-20 seconds,when stressed and I ended up (probably making a rookie mistake) relying too much on the front brake lever most often landing on the right foot. Slow the course down, give me more time and room to get a feel for the bike, and things might have gone differently.
My biggest problem gearwise were my boots. They told us over the ankle was a must. The only over the ankle boots I have are big heavy things with thick soles, thus I couldn’t feel (all that well) when I was was on the footrests or gearshift or not (I tend to wear Vibram Fivefinger barefoot running shoes most places until it gets too cold, otherwise thin-soled shoes, which allows me to feel subtle differences in surface texture). Not a big deal with simple exercises like power walking. Bigger deal when going from a power walk to a speed requiring both feet up on the footrests if you can’t feel the footrests without looking on a bike you aren’t use to (IMO). And yeah, at this point, I might search craigslist (or one of the cycle dealers) for a cheap 250cc bike and just practice a ton in my week(s) off.
Pretty much this. He was graceful about it, suggesting I looked incrediby stressed and not having fun (true to the former, not actually true for the latter–I did enjoy being on the cycle, I just hated how fast we were expected to master these maneuvers), and maybe I should come back another day to try again when my stress levels were under better control.
OK. Only you can know what you’re capable of. Learning this is an autonomic function. It’s literally like walking or riding a bike. If the class environment is freaking you out I understand that. But I would suggest that you don’t buy a used 250. At least not like the ones in class. They SUCK. Seriously, I hated them. I started out and am still currently riding a 4 cylinder Honda 650. It’s a 450 lb bike and it makes a great starter bike. If you can get a motorcycle moving forward and shifting gears on your own then you can learn to ride.
You can keep buying learner’s permits indefinitely. I know people who went years riding this way. You can’t ride at night, or take passengers and you must wear a helmet. Which is where you’re at now anyway.
I will say this, it’s NOT an expensive hobby unless you make it expensive. FLYING is an expensive hobby. But riding a motorcycle is similar in that the autonomic skill is just the basics needed to move the vehicle. You have to be thinking well ahead of a motorcycle to ride it safely. You can get in trouble much faster in a motorcycle than an airplane.
You’re having the same kinds of.problems I did the first time I took the class. Honestly most of the classes offered by e.g. community colleges have way too many students which means they have little time to actually instruct people how to do stuff. Simply barking “clutch control” at me isn’t helping me figure out how to do it. Plus, a 2-day class isn’t nearly enough for a n00b.
I ended up taking a privately run class and passed. Still weak on low speed maneuvers but I’m getting better.
Oh, and if you’re more comfortable starting out with a smaller "starter bike, " then do so and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m very cautious in how I approach things, so I found aa cheap used Yamaha V-Star 250 on Craigslist and spent the summer getting my legs on that. Glad I did, since it madee my transition to a Dyna Switchback that much easier 
To the OP: there is a very good reason for you to go back and re-evaluate your, “I’m a chicken-$#!t,” statement - just go to YouTube and watch a compilation of motorcycle accidents. Unless you are suicidal, I highly recommend getting yourself back into a full-sized car or truck. The bottom line is that no matter how good of a rider you are, you have very little protection in a collision. Let me take you back to that saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger.” Well, NO. I am afraid that when you are riding a motorcycle, whatever doesn’t kill you does not make you stronger - it leaves you severely injured, maimed, and/or disabled for the remainder of your natural life.
or, we could do something like, oh, I don’t know, make it so we don’t just hand out driver’s licenses like they’re Halloween candy. Then we’d make roads safer for all types of vehicles.
but no, that would inconvenience some people, so we just throw up our hands and say “don’t ride a motorcycle because we think it’s our right to be shitty drivers.”
Seriously? You came into this thread to tell someone to quit? That’s you’re solution to helping someone achieve one of their goals in life.
Not everybody wants to read about life’s experiences.
I can’t find the ‘like’ button.