Riding Practices I’ve Unlearned
Thursday, June 11th, 2020
Getting ready to head out on a day of riding.
When I got my first bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, my friend John, who had ridden motorcycles off and on his whole life, gave me a bit of advice: Don’t use the front brake or you’ll go flying over the handlebars.
I was a novice so I believed him but after awhile I learned better. In case anyone out there still believes this you should know that more than half of your braking ability comes from your front brake. Not to use it is absurd. If you shouldn’t use it, why do they put one on the bike?
Sure, you have to use it properly. You don’t want to use it hard on loose gravel because that’s a sure way to go down. I learned that on my own. And then I relearned it. On some bikes you have to use that front brake very judiciously. I was test riding a KTM 1190 Adventure some years ago and that thing had such a terrific front brake that if you were going fast and hit it hard you very well could go over the handlebars. The KTM guys warned us before we went out about not hitting that brake too hard.
But do use the front brake; that’s what it’s there for.
Another practice I had to unlearn was the way I was leaning my bike on curves. Nowadays, for fun, I lean way off the bike even on easy curves just to see how upright I can keep the bike through the curve. But early on, I found it very comfortable to lean the bike way over while I continued sitting pretty much upright. A totally bad idea.
Somewhere along the way I learned about traction and how the more the bike is leaned, the more available traction is used. And the more it is used, the less you have left in case you need to lean even further.
So what do you do? You lean your body to the inside of the curve, out away from the bike, to counterbalance so the bike can be kept as upright as possible. When those racers lean so far out that their knees are gliding along the track surface on their knee pucks it’s pretty clear that their bikes are leaned over really far, too. But think what would happen if they didn’t have the benefit of their counterbalancing lean. Can you say low-side?
There must be other bad practices that I have learned to overcome, although those are the two that come readily to mind. Anyone out there have any of their own to offer?
Biker Quote for Today
Learn to do counter-intuitive things that may some day save your butt.
