PowerDrift, I ride my motorcycle, I love it, but my back hurts...
This is one of the most common questions we get...
And that's what we're going to talk about today on The PowerDrift Podcast...
Welcome to PowerDrift, please do subscribe if you haven't, and do hit the bell notification icon...
So that, when we have these podcasts, you get notified automatically...
So, backache and motorcycles seem to go together hand in hand like the best of friends...
And honestly, it shouldn't be like that...
And the first part of the process of solving it is...
I'm going to assume that all of you are healthy individuals with no undiagnosed back issues...
Because obviously, if that is the underlying issue then going to a doctor, getting it diagnosed and fixed...
And therapy is the solution for that really...
That's where your journey begins...
But, assuming you're healthy, the chances that your motorcycle is hurting you is because the motorcycle doesn't fit you correctly...
Or that you're not sitting on the motorcycle correctly...
And honestly, they're really really easy to solve and in most cases, they're free solutions...
So, let's start with the motorcycle...
Now, if you notice the levers on your motorcycle...
You'll notice that there are nuts and bolts at the back which allow you to loosen the levers and move them up and down...
But most of us never do...
But what you should be doing is when you're taking delivery of the machine...
You should already have adjusted the levers so that, they fall to your fingers naturally...
So that you don't create strain points. So, for example, if I were to ride constantly like this...
This angle here will generate a strain point here and eventually, my forearms will hurt...
What should happen, is that your finger should fall on the lever in a straight line, this is the least strenuous way to ride the motorcycle...
Similarly, if I'm riding a motorcycle and my hands go to the handlebar in a diagonal, like this or like this...
I'm wasting effort...
What the handlebar is supposed to do is move only in the horizontal plane so if your forearm is horizontal...
You just spend less energy steering your motorcycle, and that's one more place to get comfort back from the motorcycle...
So, the first thing you want to check if your back is hurting on the motorcycle...
Is does your motorcycle fit you? And chances are it doesn't...
Because a manufacturer designs a motorcycle for many people and they try to get the best compromise possible...
But that means it can be improved upon for your specific case...
So, the first thing to do, adjust the handlebar, adjust the levers...
In theory, you could also adjust the seat and the footpeg position...
Although, these are more expensive solutions...
But don't knock hard seats!
I know that KTM, for example, gets a lot of criticism for having plywood hard seats...
But I tell you this, hard seats work better on the long run they work better over long distances...
But like the motorcycle, they have a run-in period...
So, give yourself 3000-4000 kilometers because your butt and the seat have to make friends...
Soft seats are very good for short distances...
So, if you're primarily riding in the city a soft seat will do you good...
The FZX, for example, we just wrote that if you haven't checked the video, go check it out...
That seat, for example, is very soft, it'll be really nice to ride around in the city...
But I promise you, take a 200 kilometer trip on that motorcycle...
It will hurt you...
And it's just the fact that you're sinking into the form and the support that your body is getting from the seat is changing in time...
And that causes aches and pains...
Similarly, footpegs, on the KTMs again...
The footpegs are set back, that's the same case with the R15 for example...
But the FZX has footpegs set forward...
The Meteor is even more forward, and your body's natural configuration will push you towards one of these configurations...
Now, if you're riding a sport naked, obviously, you want your feet under your butt...
And that's the sporty tuck that we want to sit in...
But that may not be something that your body is ready to handle and in that case think about changing it...
But I warn you, seats are cheap but footpegs can be quite expensive to replace and move around...
Now, when you talk about the seat, do remember that the seat consists of foam and the cover over the top...
And changing the cover, or adding a seat cover is not really going to change anything...
You have to attack the foam itself and I would always suggest, go towards the harder side rather than the softer side...
But, most of the time, unfortunately, it's never the equipment, it's usually the rider who's causing the problems for themselves...
Most people think of the handlebar as a place to hold on to the motorcycle with and honestly, it's not...
The handlebar is a steering instrument and that means it's a finely tuned finely balanced instrument...
Which you hold very very delicately...
Firmly enough so your hand doesn't get knocked off but with no more force than that...
But what most of us do, is we lock onto the handlebars and we tense up...
And that's the first sign of trouble, because, now your shoulder muscles are tense, your back is tense...
And that's not a good way to ride a motorcycle...
At the racetrack, what we tell our students is that what you want to think about is your belt as the dividing line...
Everything above the belt is used only to control the motorcycle...
And everything below the belt is used primarily to hold on to the motorcycle...
Which means that everything from your thighs, your knees, the inside of your calf muscles, the ankles...
All of these are engaged in holding you firmly to the motorcycle...
And the more firmly you hold on to the motorcycle the more locked in you will feel...
Which means that the motorcycle and you will feel like you're one unit...
And all the movements that you make, whether it's acceleration-deceleration or turning, will feel like there's one unit making these movements...
And that leaves your upper body free, it's not carrying your weight...
And therefore, you can use your upper body in terms of loading the weight when you're cornering...
You can let your arms relax, and the upper body, all of these muscles, the muscles that usually hurt...
Are then not working so hard and you'll immediately notice two things...
One, you will hurt a lot less even after a long ride, and two. your motorcycle will feel 20-30 kilos lighter when you do it like this...
The caveat, of course...
Of course, there's a caveat...
Is that this is also the more strenuous way to ride a motorcycle, so you will have to learn how to do this...
The first time you do this, your stomach muscles, your abdomen is going to hurt a little bit...
Because suddenly, it's being asked to carry a lot of weight...
Which it is not used to, because now, it has to hold the torso up...
And not in a very stiff way either, because your upper body does move around as you accelerate and decelerate, and that's the normal part of the process...
So, a little bit of fitness goes a long way here...
If you have a strong core, and I promise you...
If you look at the MotoGP riders, some of their strongest muscles are in here...
Holding them up, and allowing them to move around on the motorcycle without creating too much strain for themselves...
But remember, MotoGP guys are at max performance but for 45 minutes at a time, so it's a very different fitness ask...
Compared to you, who might be riding in the city on short trips, or riding highway distances infrequently...
Which means that a little bit of basic fitness especially in your core, will go a long way in making you more comfortable...
Now, once you've got the fitness issues sorted, and honestly, it's just a matter of doing ab exercises two or three times a week...
That's all it takes...
Then comes the question of are there other ways that you're causing the body to hurt you...
And the first thing that comes to mind when I think about it is that are you riding well?
When you're riding well, you're not stressed...
You have a sense that I understand what the environment is like...
I'm plugged into this environment, I understand what's going on, and my reactions flow naturally from that...
But, when you don't know how to ride properly, especially new riders...
What happens to you is you're freaking out a little bit about what's going on...
You're worried that your dog will run across the road or something...
And slowly your body starts to tense up...
And if you don't control this tension, what you're effectively doing is you're holding your muscles in tension for a long time...
And your muscles are not really designed to do that, not unless you've trained them to do that...
Which means that eventually, they will start hurting as well...
So another very useful way to de-stress on the motorcycle is to learn how to ride well...
I would always recommend going to a riding school...
We run one and we do a great job, I think, from the feedback that we get from the students...
And the first thing we tell them, out on the racetrack, is when you're going down the straight...
You want to do the funky chicken, where you want to move your elbows around...
And the reason is if you're tensed up, you cannot actually make this movement...
So it reminds you that you have to loosen up on the motorcycle and remember to breathe...
At the racetrack, breathing is a whole different issue altogether, we'll deal with it in a separate issue of the podcast...
But my point to you is, the better you ride, the less tense you'll be on the motorcycle...
The less tense you are, the less your muscles work, the less they work, the less you will hurt...
So far, we've looked at three ways to reduce aches and pains on a motorcycle...
The first being, adjust your motorcycle to fit you exactly...
Second, use your upper body to control the motorcycle, use the lower body to hold on to the motorcycle...
This is not natural to us, but once you learn how to do it, it's the best way to ride a motorcycle...
And third, learn to ride better, because the better you ride the less tense you are...
The less you will hurt...
So, now let's talk about more free stuff...
Now your motorcycle has something called a preload adjuster, probably at least on the rear suspension...
Right? now...
The complicated way to think about it is to set sag and measure your bodyweight...
And then measure two points on the motorcycle, and all that but I'm going to say...
It's a five or a seven-step adjuster so let's do this...
You take whatever the manufacturer has given you and you start rotating the pre-load ring in any direction you choose...
Make it softer or harder depending on what you think the motorcycle should be feeling like...
And go ride your motorcycle for a week and see if that feels better or worse...
If it feels better, move it one more step in that direction and see if it feels even better until you find a setting that really works for you...
At one week at a time, it'll take you five to seven weeks to figure out a far better setting for your motorcycle...
And I think that already is a great step forward...
If you're riding with a pillion, the same thing applies once you put the pillion back on...
Ideally, you should be adjusting your preload adjuster so that the motorcycle is in the sweetest part of its suspension travel...
And that will give you additional comfort as well...
The next step that we can think about is how are you riding your motorcycle in terms of how you're carrying your gear...
Now, if you're wearing a backpack, chances are the backpack is also a part of the problem...
Because most of us don't adjust our backpacks...
Because if you look at how the mountaineers or the trekkers use their backpacks...
They wear them high, which means, the maximum dense load tries to sit between your shoulder blades, up high on your back...
But most of us wear our backpacks really loose which means that they actually hang back...
And they fall on the seat and that means that as you're riding your motorcycle...
You're trying to lean forward but the backpack is constantly sort of pulling you back...
And that cannot, that just cannot be a good way to ride a motorcycle...
So the next thing I would suggest is, either adjust your backpack, get a good backpack, or stop using backpacks on motorcycles entirely...
My favorite way to carry cargo and I do this every day is a tail bag...
Tank bags are extremely popular, figure out a solution that works for you...
Spend a little bit of money and save your back...
The final thing is your riding gear...
Remember, when you're wearing protective gear on a motorcycle you do feel better about riding...
Because you do have a sense of I am protected from the environment...
That's one less stress point...
Less stress, less of this stiffening up, the less that you stiffen up, the easier your motorcycle ride will go...
The biggest item in there is probably your helmet...
Now, there is a lot of debate about whether lighter helmets are better than heavier helmets, and the fact is, lighter helmets are better...
But, even a slightly heavy helmet if it's really well balanced on your head...
That can actually do wonders for how comfortable you feel on the motorcycle...
To give you an example, all the Arai helmets that I use, they're not the lightest helmets in the world...
But once you put them on, they're so well balanced...
The center of gravity is so well calculated that you barely notice the weight...
So, would I upgrade to a carbon fiber helmet if I could?
If I had the money? Yes! But you don't need to do it!
If you find a well-balanced heavy helmet, you'd still be doing yourself a favor...
Rather than buying a badly balanced, cheap lightweight helmet...
So, in sum...
Your back issues can be solved, it's not really difficult to do unless you actually have a medical condition...
First thing to do, re-evaluate whether your motorcycle fits you and make all the adjustments needed to make the motorcycle fit you exactly...
It should just be naturally an extension of you, that's the state that you want to get to...
Second, learn to sit correctly on the motorcycle...
It's not like a sofa, you don't plonk your weight and just sort of be...
It is an active riding position...
And you want to use everything below the belt to hold the motorcycle, and your upper body only to control the motorcycle...
Third, learn to ride better...
The more you ride, the more you practice, and the better you get at it...
The less stress you take from it...
The less stress, less tension...
Less tension, less pain!
Next, get rid of your backpack, your backpack is probably causing problems...
Especially if it's a badly fitted backpack...
Third, adjust your suspension...
Now suspension is a bit of a rabbit hole, right?
We've talked about just adjust the preload...
Obviously, there are stages beyond that...
And lastly, think of having a good ride...
Because when you get on the motorcycle in a happy state of mind, planning to have a good ride...
Chances are, all of these factors play a little bit less of a role you're happier on the motorcycle...
And that in itself gives you so much comfort...
And of course, I would never get tired of saying this...
Be a little bit fitter than you are...
The fitter that you are, the better your motorcycle rides will be...
It means, A, you'll be lighter which means there's a little bit more performance...
You'll be stronger, which means you won't be struggling to hold on to the motorcycle...
Struggling to carry your own weight, and all of these are small factors that contribute to a much better riding experience...
Now I suggest, that you try these tips out...
Go ride your motorcycles, and come back and leave us comment...
And tell us, how they work for you...
And if there are other ways that you've attacked your aches and pains, and their solutions that you found...
Do leave us a comment as well...
Thank you so much for watching, this is The PowerDrift Podcast...
If you have other topics in mind that we should be discussing in detail...
Please do not hesitate to leave us a comment, we'll get right on it...
And I do hope that you have hit the subscribe and the bell notification icon buttons...
Because India's best automotive content is right here...
And we'd like you to find this content automatically, every single time...