How to know your limits

So some guy outside my office is using the break in the snowy weather to get some riding in. It got me in a contemplative mood. Your input is appreciated.

This was my first year riding, and I thouroughly enjoyed it. However, half way through the summer I had a fall. I had just come out of construction and was turning left onto another street too fast. I was probably going about 25kph. The bike was fine (just needed a new signal and some other cosmetic fixes), and despite it being July I had every square inch of my body covered so I came away from it with just a skinned knee. It was a good lesson in humility, and I'm happy that nothing terrible came from my first fall (and I'm determined to have it be my only one).

I've been riding a bunch since (until I had to put it away for the winter), but I'm finding I'm much more timid about the corners I take and doing every turn and adjustment more slowly. I see the good side of this, but am also very consious that I don't want to be riding scared, and I want to be confident in my bike and my ability to react quickly if necessary. How can I teach myself how far my bike can go in a corner, or how quickly I can jerk the wheel if necessary to avoid an obstacle, etc, without actually going to far and dropping it again?

 

My $0.02 which is less than that Canadian...

I'm also a newer rider on the street. Some dirt experiance. Like anything else you have to practice what you want to be able to do. With more practice you should be able to feel and sense trouble. Start simple and work up. Take classes if affordable and available.

And riding scared isn't terrible. It'll keep you alert which you should be.

 

Try leaning into the corners, rather than steering around them. Use your thighs againts the tank rather than turn the handlebars.

Years ago, I had a favourite corner on the way to work where I tried to get the footrest on the ground. The faster I went, the further I could lean. Going around a corner is more fun than going in a straight line!

 

My XJ is the first bike I've had in more than 30 years. Had the same feelings. More time in the saddle cures this. Healthy respect is what I shoot for...

skillet

 

I would highly recommend taking a rider's safety course to re-educate yourself and gain the needed confidence to roll through corners with ease. Immersion is the best way to face your fears and if so, it may well be in a controlled environment under guidance from the pros.
Good luck with your efforts.

 

+1 on taking a rider safety course. the skills you will learn are invaluable, and you will never forget them. also you have to be confident in your bike and in yourself. most people will never outride the capability of their bike so its important to have a base set of skills to know how to ride properly and practice. if you dont feel confident riding in the streets yet, find a nice empty parking lot to practice your cornering and emergency stops. Find out where they teach motorcycle safety classes in your area, you can usually use their training course after theyre closed (its just a bunch of lines painted on the pavement)

 

+1 on the rider safety courses as well but if finding time or cash is a struggle there are some good (and bad) training videos on YouTube as well. Find some cones or markers an empty space and practice.

Edit: Aarrghhh I've just wasted an hour of my life looking at YouTube videos. Found this guy who's kinda fun.

Capt Crash look for his 60 second training videos. Love "The Voices" video on their home page.

 

Education is always a good thing and the same applies with motorcycles. Take the safety course. Then apply what you have learned. I recently had a conversation with a high performance riding school instructor. He told me the learning occurs in the classroom. The track time applies what you have learned. As in all things, skill comes with practice. One bit of advice. Remember to look through the corner. Don't ride off your front fender.

 

Im with everyone else, go through a riding program such as the MSFhttp://www.msf-usa.org/, they will help you build the basic skills and confidence needed to safely ride a motorcycle. I actually took this course to get my motorcycle license because i had no prior experience riding. Afterwards i am confident in my riding skills. Best thing about this program is that it is free. Yamasarus made another good point, you will find that by looking through the turn, you will naturally maneuver the bike better

 

Sorry Mark; but this is bad advice. The handlebar is how we control the bike, not only the steering but the lean angle. Most of us don't even realize it (I didn't for the first 20 years or so of the 44 I've been riding on the street.)

Above about 30mph or so (depends on the bike) gentle pressure away from you on the right handlebar (in effect turning the bar to the left) will cause the bike to lean AND turn right. Push on the left bar (actually steering right) and you lean/turn left.

It's called countersteering; you do it without realizing it; and once you DO realize it and learn to use the CONTROL it provides you can dodge a skunk at 60 without breaking a sweat.

Try it.

 

I am rider also. I was uncomfortable on the bike at first. I took a motorcycle safety test and got my license. I can honestly say that it gave me a lot of insight and I finished the class with confidence. Best of all it was free in PA.

 

this is why a good set of skills learned from a professional is absolutely necessary. here's the handbook for the motorcycle safety foundation basic rider course. this teaches you core riding technique and safety and gives you a good set of skills to go out and practice. this is the course i took, im pretty sure they have this in canada

http://www.msf-usa.org/CurriculumMateri ... ok2009.pdf

 

Hey your right down the road from me. I also took the class in order to receive my license. I would seriously recommend anyone new to riding or one that hasnt ridden in many years to sign up for the safety course. As an added bonus it gives you insurance breaks and allows you to ride on military bases

 

The course is the best thing you can do. I learned a lot in mine both times and the one thing that stands out in my mind is LOOK LEAN ROLL. Look in to the corner and all the way not in frount of you , lean in to the courner and roll on the gas DONT pin it just roll. I went in to my course thinking I know it all and after look lean roll I can go in to them a lot better, faster and 1000 times smoother and if you get that down look in to the Fast school at shanonville . You get a bike a suit and a track you learn a lot for the track but it works on the sreet just keep the raceing on the track.

 

Try these guys out. Ontario Motorcycle Safety Association. I took my M2 and M2 exit to my M class. They are a great bunch of guys and girls. Find them on the web www.rideomsa.com
They are highly recommended by me and one of co workers. They are not far from you.

 

Great advice. While you can steer a light bike by leaning it's a bad habit to develop. The response is much crisper if you counter steer. When you need to avoid an obstacle in the road you want counter steering to be your habit.

Get on a touring bike with a passenger and full luggage you can lean all day to little effect.

Like any rear wheel drive vehicle you want to enter your turn at minimum speed and accelerate through it. Trying to slow through a turn is a recipe for disaster.

 

Hi prock,

the best advice is to take the driving course. Not being on a bike for 40 years and letting my license expire. I too took the training right here in Guelph.
But even now, when spring comes (and it will .. LOL) takes a week to get to used to riding again. Better take it slow, than rush into it.
You don't lean when you are going slow. Counter steering is the way !!

Here is the sight, that supplied the bike and the skills, that I took.

http://www.ridertraining.ca/

 

Thanks for all the replies.

I took the an M1 exit course from Sheraton and they taught all the basic counter steering and safety stuff. I can't imaging people not taking a course. Apparently there's lots of people in Ontario who just renew their M1 every three months when it expires... weird.

I get the countersteering, looking through turns, etc. What I'm really still trying to figure out is feeling secure when I quickly maneuver my bike at 30-50kph, and 50kph+. After my fall I was always feeling as though if I went into a turn too hard or quickly steered to avoid an obstacle the wheels would give out. I see bikers leaning right over going around corners, but my 83 maxim 750 isn't exactly a sports bike.

It sounds like the best thing is just more experience. I'm just also trying to figure out what my bike should be able to handle.

 

it sounds like a problem you have is confidence in your bike. you dont feel like your bike is capable of doing something and you're riding more tenderly because of it. do you know any more experienced riders? ask one of them to ride your bike while you watch and show you how far it can lean without going down. while your xj isnt a sports bike youll be surprised how far it will lean. once you see in person what your bike is capable of it may help alleviate some of the uncertainty you have in riding it.

 

That's a good idea. Thanks.

 

Just won't wimp out about the bike like a buddy of mine did. Bought a brand new Honda Shadow in 2008, put about 1000 miles on it then took a little slip on some sand. Hasn't ridden it since other than parking it in another one of our buddy's garage. It's sat there collecting dust for over a year now (but he still makes payments on it, the fool).

Remember that physics make the bike want to stay upright. You'll feel more comfortable as you ride more, better to be "riding scared" than be cocky like a lot of the fools out there.

 

Assuming your Max has half way decent tires you should be able to lean over far enough to drag hard things on the pavement and ruin your boots.

Put something loose or slippery under the tires and it's an entirely different game.

You have to be watching (ahead, not while turning) for loose material always. Especially need to be aware at driveways, dirt/gravel side streets etc. This is another reason most of us prefer to use the left portion of the lane - all that crap tends to end up along the curb.

 

I'd recommend a really good book called Proficient Motorcycling by David L. Hough, It goes in depth into riding tecniques, safety, motorcycle dynamics, etc.., explains counter-steering pretty well, a good addition to a training course.

 

Not very much i can add to this except in your first post you mentioned something about jerking the handlebars to avoid something. It is a very bad idea to just jerk the handlebars and hope because by doing that you are removing your weight from the center of gravity of the bike and then you cannot manuver effectively. Lean into your turns.

Also, if i am coming up to a corner and the suggested speed is 45 mph, then i know i can easily add 10 mph to that for my bike and have no trouble managing the corner. In fact, there are some twisties by my house that have a suggested speed of 45 mph, and on a dry day with good conditions my 550 will do 65-70 comfortably, so that just goes to show you what these bikes are capable of. Start out slow and work your way up. Good luck and dont let your fear rule your life.

 

The most important (IMO) is to not panic while riding. Teh best way to not panic is to learn. Take the training course then find a big empty parking lot and practice for several hours. I find a parking lot each spring (and when I get new tires to scrub them in) it helps build your confidence in your bike.

Good luck and safe riding.

 

Nothing against a little schooling...just makes
me wonder how us old timers managed to live past
50 having NO nifty riding courses when we started.
Here's how we learned:
Get on,ask questions,start slow and ride!
Some of the lucky ones had parents that said "SURE!"
when they asked for a mini-bike.
the rest of us RODE. Sometimes you go down-so what?
Ask 90% of riders who have dropped a bike and the
first thing they ask-no matter how bad the crash- is "hows
my bike!? That should say it all.

 

Well - thats me told!
got it wrong again!

 

One of the biggest problems I had and a lot of people have is trusting the tires. A person would think, if having never ridden a bike or studied the physics involved, that the more you lean, the easier it will be for you to fall down.
As long as your tires will grip the road, and as long as you balnce speed with counter steering, that bike is virtually impossible to tip over.
Have you ever dropped a penny into one of those big cones at the mall or at a museum, etc... You drop it in a slot and watch it spiral down the cone til it reaches the bottom and falls into the hole?
A bike uses the same principal... only the road if flat and the tires are rounded. The more you counter steer, the more you will lean. And the more you lean the more you will turn.

My advice would definitely be to take advantage of a safety course. But in the mean time, Get out on a not very busy street or, better yet, an empty parking lot.
Get used to counter steering and feeling the lean of the bike matched with the amount of throttle you are using to maintain stability.
Start out with big curves and circles and figure 8s and as you get the hang of it, start making those circles and turns smaller, use more pressure in the countersteering and get used to the feeling of leaning the bike.

Some things to remember... trust physics not to take your bike out from under you. That means keep your feet on the pegs and your knees against the tank.
You are trying to make yourself adept at riding the public streets and roadways. No wheelies and knee dragging and only do what is necessary for public cruising and riding. There is a point where those tires will slip and also a point where you max out your ground clearance.

Just practice leaning and countersteering. You want to feel it as a fluid motion. It'll become as second nature as steering a car around a corner.

Where protective gear. Practice from a stop and while moving.

Easy does it.

 

Nope- - still backwards !

I played with mini-bikes for 2 years before finding out about counter-steering the first corner at speed on the street- - I damn near went into oncoming traffic !! It was a slight bend to the right, I turned right and went left !!

Months later someone explained counter-steering to me and Dad (I was 13).

 

Timetoride... just realized you live in Fla. Haha. I need to practice my counter steering RIGHT NOW. Can I come live with you?

 

One of my daughters lives in Coco. I wanna go counter-steer there :wink: ...

skillet

 

Coco = Cocoa Beach ?? My favorite, because you can still drink in public there. Bring cans, the fine for a glass bottle is $125 EACH !!
Come on down and ride !!