Hola mi amigos!
Being a motorcycle rider coach for some time you develop an eye for details of peoples
riding.
And sometimes , when you see a rider on a street – you just can tell that he’s a
beginner, it’s practically written all over him!
And today I want to show you 7 mistakes, which are signs of new unexperienced rider.
Of course, there are much more than 7 mistakes which beginner riders tend to make, but these
7 are just Perfecto!
Also I’ll show you the way to correct these mistakes, just in case you need it.
You know, you may need it for a friend, not for yourself.
So, without further ado – let’s start!
First mistake today – is awkward mount or dismount.
Sometimes you can spot an unexperienced rider just from looking at him mounting and dismounting
his bike.
If you see him struggle like this – he most certainly just has too little experience on
a bike and he hasn’t figured it out yet.
Usually, this problem goes away by itself, but if you have a tall bike or if you ride
with a top case – you can have this awkward dismount forever
But don’t worry!
I have a pretty good tip for you.
If you have a trouble mounting on bike the regular way – because it’s tall, or whatever
– you can mount not from the ground, as usual, but from the footpeg, like this.
As you can see – this way you can have plenty of clearance for your leg, even on a tall
bike, even with the top case.
Furthermore, you can mount and dismount your bike this way from the right side too.
Sometimes it can be more convenient, for example if it’s rainy day and rubber on your footpegs
become slick.
Left footpeg is tilted a bit downwards, so it can be slippery when wet.
Right footpeg is facing a bit upwards, so your foot will slip towards the bike, which
is actually not a problem.
When mounting the bike from a footpeg, especially from the right side – make sure you keep
the weight of your body above the bike.
Not to the side – or your bike will start to tip over.
Just do this: turn the handlebars away from you, apply the front brake, put your foot
on the footpeg and move your body close to the bike, above it.
And now just stand up on the peg and swing the leg over the bike.
Once you get used to it – it’ll be a piece of cake.
I think we all can agree that this looks way better than this.
Second mistake will be putting landing gear down.
If you see a rider doing this, coming to a stop light, or the same thing taking off – you
can tell that this guy has absolute zero trust in his riding abilities.
People even ride like this in turns and intersections.
Footwear companies must love these guys!
The thing is – as soon as your bike starts moving, it stabilizes itself.
You don’t need to actively do anything to keep it upright, just relax and let the bike
ride.
Certainly, don’t stick out your feet, they won’t do you any good in this situation.
Once you are moving – you are moving, put your feet on the footpegs and don’t worry,
you’ll be fine.
Dangling feet are simply an invitation to hurt them, just don’t do it, it’s unnecessary,
it’s dangerous and it looks pretty silly.
If you want to feel more comfortable at slower speeds – just spend half an hour on a parking
lot doing some of our slow speed exercises.
You’ll never put your landing gear down ever again on moving bike.
Here is the slow race exercise for example, as you can see if you know how to operate
your throttle, clutch and rear brake – you don’t really need to put your feet down
when going pretty slow.
There is just no need for that.
The next mistake I like to call the bicycle rider, because it looks like a person rides
a bicycle, not a motorcycle.
What’s wrong here?
The arms are wrong.
If you see a rider sitting on bike like this, with his arms absolutely straight, like he
rides a bicycle – this guy is most certainly taught himself to ride and have never went
through any type of actual training.
But why this bicycle straight arms are bad?
For several reasons.
First if you ride like this you significantly reduce the ability of a front wheel to make
self-steering.
And if your front wheel is not steering itself – your bike becomes much less stable.
Just as an example – look at this.
As you can see, I cranked up the idle speed here, and I don’t need any steering at all,
bike is perfectly stable by itself.
By putting unnecessary weight on your handlebars, you really make your bike handle much worse.
Second thing – with straight arms like this you can’t turn the handlebars effectively.
You kinda push them from above this way, it’s just not as effective and convenient as pushing
the handlebars this way.
And third – when you are putting your weight on the handlebars like you do on a bicycle
– you will much more likely have numb hands from vibration and constant tension.
So!
Try to sit this way!
Make sure your arms are bent and loose, make sure you are not putting any of your weight
on them.
You can sit closer to the tank if you want.
And look how easy I can turn the handlebars now!
This will greatly help in any situation when you need extra maneuverability from your bike.
This I see all the time.
When a rider puts his feet on the footpegs like this he most certainly just hasn’t
leaned his bike enough yet.
When you start really leaning your bike – you’ll quickly notice that you start to grind your
boots against the pavement.
And sometimes if you unlucky – you can catch something like a curb with your toe.
It’ll be quite an ouch even if you are in good motorcycle boots.
Next mistake which you can often see with new riders – is total fear of a front brake.
Again, it happens mostly with self-taught riders who dropped their bike couple of times
because they grabbed the handful of front brake.
Now they are afraid to even touch the front brake and use only the rear.
Problem is that under braking the weight of your bike goes to the front wheel.
So, by using you rear brake only you end up with maybe 30% of stopping power at best.
Emergency braking from rear brake fanboys usually look like this.
This is no bueno at all!
What I believe any rider should do is to practice really efficient, aggressive braking from
time to time.
During such a braking you apply the front brake in a smooth and progressive way.
By the way, I made a pretty detailed video about braking not so long ago, so if you haven’t
watched it yet – it’s pretty good time to do it!
I’ll leave the link in the description for you, don’t forget to check it out!
Another way you can spot a beginner rider on the road is this.
Notice how he rides right in the middle of the lane behind the vehicle.
I don’t know, maybe he’s trying to get better gas mileage by slipstreaming the car
in front, but more likely he’s just unexperienced rider.
Riding like this is bad for two reasons.
First – because you are going right behind the vehicle dead center in your lane – you
can’t see what’s going on down the road.
And if suddenly this vehicle starts braking – you probably won’t be able to swerve
it from any side.
Second thing is that the car in front can go over a pothole or some rubbish, and it
will go between the car’s wheels and right under the bike behind the car.
It’s much better to go a little bit more to the side of the lane, like this, to where
the car wheel tracks are.
This way you can see much further down the road, and you won’t get any surprises from
under the car in front of you.
And last distinct mistake which you can see quite a lot from beginner riders – is this
awkward turning process, which often called fifty-pencing.
This happens as a combination of two reasons – first a rider who does this often doesn’t
know how exactly countersteering works.
He tries to steer through the turn, but bike keeps going straight.
And yes, I’ve got a detailed video on countersteering as well.
In case you missed it – check it out!
Second reason for fifty-pencing – is wrong vision technique.
Usually, as a rule of thumb, when you are going through the turn you should look as
far into the turn as you can.
And usually when you do that you lean into the turn once, then go through the turn and
start to unlean when you see the exit.
But if you don’t look into the turn far enough, you can end up going from one point
of the turn to another, constantly readjusting your lean angle.
This can be also a cause for this fifty-pencing behavior.
Ok, enough with mistakes for today.
Tell me in the comments which mistakes you usually spot with new riders.
And maybe you still remember some mistakes you made when you were a beginner.
Thank you for watching, see you next time!
Adios!