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Tips For Motorcycle Safety

More than half of all motorcycle accidents involve riders with less than 5 months or 500 miles of experience. The USC Hurt Report found that two-thirds of all motorcycle accidents involved riders who were unlicensed, or riding a borrowed motorcycle, or riding for their first 12 months. I cannot overemphasize that a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course is excellent preparation. If you have less than 5000 miles experience or haven't ridden in 10 years or more, go to their web site, find a class near you, and take it. It's very easy to get over confident with your riding abilities after a couple months. Don't. Motorcycles are reasonably safe to ride, but very dangerous to learn.

Today, anyone with $8000 can buy a motorcycle that goes 150 mph or faster. It's also true than anyone with $150 can buy a gun that will blow their head clean off. For an inexperienced rider, there are a lot of similarities here.

If you haven't ridden a bike before, I recommend you get a used bike, 500ccs or less, and ride it for a year. You are going to tip over a few times. If you tip over on a new Harley or Japanese sport bike, you're likely to do several hundred dollars of damage, and likely will need help picking the bike up. If you tip over on a new Ducati, I think you should be scourged. I've trained 38 people how to ride bikes. Every one said "I'm not going to fall down, I'm going to be careful." Every one fell down. It's not about you. "Pride Goethe before the fall."

Most of what there is to know about riding motorcycles can be learned at slow speeds, where falls are only embarrassing. A good exercise on a street bike is to find an empty parking lot and practice riding in circles until you can hold your handlebars against the stops and turn an entire circle without moving the handlebars. You steer the bike with your hips and the throttle, clutch, and rear brake. This exercise will teach you a lot about balance and throttle control, two critical skills on a street bike.

Another good exercise is to place your front tire on the top of a curb, and leave the rear tire in the street. This exercise is easiest if the rain gutter is a bit wet. Now, ride. Go about 5-10mph. Practice until you can keep your feet on the pegs and go for as long as you wish. This exercise is best done on a bike that weighs less than 350 pounds. This exercise will teach you balance and how to handle a bike that's not going straight.

Riding in the dirt is excellent preparation. You learn how to handle a bike in uncertain traction, and you get to fall down where there's no traffic waiting to run you over. Kenny Roberts, 3 time world champion, trains himself and other riders on a small dirt track on Honda XR100s. They wet down the track and practice sliding either or both wheels. Any falls are at 15mph, from a height of 2 feet.

On a dirt bike, find a loose surface and practice driving with the front brake locked. Ride at 5-10mph. Great for balance and learning not to fall down just because your front wheel is skidding.

Good bikes for 1st time riders include: Honda 250 or 450 Nighthawk or Rebel; Suzuki 250 intruder, or DR200, 250, 350, 400; Kawasaki GPZ250 or 500.
 Yamaha XT250 or 350. All of these bikes can be bought used for $1000 to $2000.

Really poor choices for 1st time riders:
Any Honda CBR. 
Any Yamaha YZR, R1 or R6. 
Any Kawasaki ZZR or ZX or Ninja. 
Any Suzuki GSX, GSXR, TL, or Hayabusa. 
Any sport bike with 600ccs or more.

 Any of these bikes will pop wheelies at 60mph and has a top speed in excess of 150mph.

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