Borrowing a motorcycle

[mattbell]

I'm going to take a motorcycle safety class in a few weeks, and a friend suggested I get a little time on a real motorcycle before doing the class.  Would anyone be willing to let me ride their motorcycle around an empty parking lot or some backstreets for a little bit?

My only prior experience has been with relatively spare manual-transmission scooters/motorbikes in Southeast Asia. t

Comments

[mhat.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't follow that advice. If you do, don't borrow anything over 250cc.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

I agree. I had a few hours on a motorcycle before my MSF, and not only did it not give me any advantage over already being competent at manual-shift cars, it taught me bad habits I needed to un-learn in order to absorb and pass the class.

(my motorcycle is absolutely unsuitable for beginners, so I can't be of any help to the original question, just offer unwanted advice. :-)

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

OK, advice well taken.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

What bad habits did you learn?

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

Over-reliance on the front brake, which is a trick that can get newbies killed. As you probably know, one then spends a lot of time as an intermediate motorcyclist learning to use the front brake enough. Nonetheless, I approve of the MSF's training bent, as they're not really teaching you to be a skilled motorcyclist, they're teaching you how not to die while you spend the years it takes to be a skilled motorcyclist.

Also, focusing almost exclusively on the area about 3 feet in front of my front wheel, instead of appropriate distance scanning and frequent regard for my mirrors and sides.

I think there were a few others that I can't remember any more.

[savorie.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with anything over 250cc?

[mhat.livejournal.com]

Novice + Torque = Fox style TV

For the most part US bikes go 125cc 250cc 600cc 750cc 1000cc.

Most of the 600cc+ can generally do 0-60 in 3-4 seconds.

That's a really small window of oops for a novice rider.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I think what I had in Asia was 50cc or so. I'm trying to imagine an order of magnitude more power

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

to add to mhat, a recent motorcycle over around 500cc probably has a power-per-weight ratio about the same as a really, really expensive sports car. And learning to ride a motorcycle even as a skilled driver has a lot more in common with learning to drive the first time than with driving a truck for the first time when you've always driven compact cars. You're just learning so many new motions and physical skills at once. Many of my high school friends had accidents in the 2-3 years it takes one to get really proficient at car driving; thankfully, none of them had parents foolish enough to have them learning to drive in a Ferrari, and all of them survived.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Why wouldn't you follow that advice? I'm the friend in question, and I found it stressful to be attempting to learn how to shift and operate the motorcycle, while at the same time trying to learn and pass the course.

I do agree that one shouldn't borrow something more than a 250 cc.

[mhat.livejournal.com]

The AX club I raced with in Austin frequently rented a large stadium parking lot. A lot of people would also use the stadium parking lot to train friends/kids to drive or how to ride a motorcycle. Since it was a huge lot, it was easy for use to be one side and the general public on the other, all using the space happily. Almost ever single event we witnessed someone failing to learn to ride a motorcycle, often resulting in us calling 911 and helping them while we waited for the ambulance.

When I took the MSF class we had a mix, mostly complete novices, one or two with street experience and several with dirt bikes. The dirt bike people were the most skilled, but that's to be expected given (a) practice and (b) practice in a slippery environment. The newbies were generally the second best and the people who had "some street experience", well, one failed on the first day...

[mhat.livejournal.com]

Note, I don't think the MSF class is required per-se, but you shouldn't learn to ride with a 500cc+ motorcycle and in the US it's fairly hard to come by <500cc. The MSF classes tend to have 125cc 4stroke bikes which are basically perfect for a novice. Light enough to pick up, enough to feel fast, but actually quite slow.

Dirt bikes and open fields are a great way to build skills but that's harder to come by and if training goes poorly, well, it's usually a long drive to the ED.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Also, in a class of 6 people, I was 1 of 2 people without at least a month of motorcycle riding experience (the other was a women who was training on a scooter).