2Wheeltips

If you want to have a chance of becoming a good biker, you need to start with the type of bike you are on. Remember: it’s your FIRST bike and you are a NOVICE. You don’t have the skills yet to handle high end motorcycles.....yet. Just like your first car, it wasn’t the biggest baddest machine in the dealership so why should your first bike be? Here are some common mistakes you need to avoid:

Don’t get the biggest or baddest thing out there. It’s a very common mistake. If you do, this is what usually happens:

• It’s too heavy for you and you drop it constantly, causing hundreds if not thousands of dollars in damage.

• The power of the bike intimidates and scares you. You finally decide it is not for you because there is no way you can tame all that power. This usually happens when you release the clutch too quickly and the bike either pops a wheelie or lunges violently forward. Most of the time, these bikes are back on the market in under 4 months.

• You get into an accident and get hurt. You break your foot, leg or collarbone. If it’s really bad, you may lose part of a leg, arm or hand. if you didn’t have on protective clothing, you need skin grafts and are permanently scarred. Everyone tells you that motorcycles are dangerous and you are going to kill yourself. You decide that it isn’t for you and give up. The bike gets sold (if it wasn’t totaled in the accident) usually for a big loss.

• You manage to hang on but you are not really having a good time. How can you when you are trying to manage something that is outside your abilities? You don’t look forward to riding and the bike sits in your garage most days. Down the road, the bike gets sold, again usually for a big loss.

Your first bike should be something you can ride, have fun on, and use to improve your skills without intimidating you. This will not be a 2000 cc custom chopper, 1000 cc sportbike or a 800lb cruiser. It will not. So get over it.

It will probably be a 250cc - 750cc cruiser, or a 250cc - 500cc sport bike or a 400cc - 600cc standard motorcycle. Many newbies get on big bikes and crash them in the dealership parking lot....they don’t even make it to the street.

You will keep your first bike between 6 - 18 months before you are ready to move on. You can always sell it to another new rider.

Make sure the bike fits!! Now that you know not to get the biggest thing in the dealer, you need to make sure the one you get fits you. Here are some basics:

• Make sure you can put your feet flat on the ground with a few inches of bend in your knees. If you are on a bike where you can barely put your feet on the ground, that is not good!! Why? Because not all real roads are level or smooth; that only happens in the BRC.
  
  You will come to a stop on roads where one side is higher than the other. If you can not put your feet down flat to stabilize the bike, it WILL tip over and you WILL drop it. Also, you WILL come to intersections where there will be oil, sand, rocks or other slippery stuff on the ground. WHEN  your foot slips you need to have enough leverage to keep your bike up. Also when parking and maneuvering your bike, how can you move it if you can't get your feet on the ground?

• Make sure you can comfortably reach and operate all of the controls within a comfortable riding position. No way you can improve your skills if you can’t get to the controls!! 

• Make sure all the controls are adjusted to fit you before you leave the dealership. That includes the right foot brake, the left foot shift lever, the right hand brake, the left hand clutch lever, and the handlebars. The dealer should do this for you. 

• Make sure the bike is not too heavy! Even if you go with a small engine, you still need to have the strength to manage the bike. You need to do this to park it, turn it around and maneuver it. If you can’t get if off the side stand, you are headed for trouble down the road. You should either find a bike you can handle OR hit the gym to increase your strength.

• You need to be comfortable on the bike. If the seating position is bad, or you feel cramped into a small space, maybe it’s not the bike for you. Likewise, if you feel stretched out or your body position doesn’t feel right, again....it may not be for the bike for you.

If you follow some of these basic tips when selecting a bike, you will avoid many pitfalls and set yourself up to becoming a better biker

I will probably get in trouble for writing this but it is something that has been on my mind for a while.....long distance endurance motorcycle riding. I'm not talking about an all day  400 - 500 mile ride with plenty of stops. I'm talking about extreme rides of 1000 miles or more everyday for a week!!

One guy I run into occasionally is a big endurance motorcyclist and even holds the world record for crossing North America. He rode from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Key West, Florida in 86 hours!!

The first question that comes to my mind is why would anyone want to do that? I wouldn't drive that many miles in my car let alone on a motorcycle. My ass is sore and I'm tired after a 250+ mile day of winding roads, so there is no way I'd enjoy riding that many miles in 3 1/2 days. The second question that comes to mind is how safe can this be?

We all know that riding a bike takes a lot out of you physically. In addition to operating the controls, you have to watch the road, stay out of the way of cars and look out for animals. After an hour or so of riding, your brain gets fuzzy and it's time to take a break.

To finish any of the endurance rides, you need to ride fast for many hours while you are tired. And this is where I think a rider can make a mistake and end up crashing or worse.....

I was out on a short ride the other day with some friends. I was leading the pack since I was introducing some new roads. Once we got going, I noticed that one of my friends kept tailgating me....and at some points even passing me! He almost ran into me a few times because he could not see my turn signal in time.  It shocked me because everyone knows (at least I thought) tailgating another motorcycle is a no-no and you do not pass other motorcycles when riding in a group. If you do, you will cause a crash if the rider in front of you swerves to avoid a pot hole or brakes suddenly because traffic slowed down. Youtube.com is full of motorcycle crashes that highlight this point.

So the next time you go out for a group ride, make sure you keep our distance and never pass a bike in front of you unless the rider signals you to do so.

Just got an email today on the dwindling number of motorcycles the big three Japanese manufacturers (Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki) are shipping to the US. In April, they shipped just 4900 motorcycles!! I recently heard that Suzuki is not shipping ANY 2010 sportbikes to the US. You can read the details here:  http://www.powersportsbusiness.com/output.cfm?id=2537965

Do you ever wonder what motorcycle helmets look like AFTER they have been tested by Snell?  Well, we did....  So, we contacted Snell and they were kind enough to send us half of what was left of a half helmet after they smashed it during testing. 









Follow the arrows in the last two photographs and you will see the point of contact on the outside of the helmet and the resulting compression of the interior liner. 


These cross-section photographs allow you to see what we can normally NOT see after a helmet has endured some sort of impact (from hitting the ground when a rider is thrown off a bike in an accident, for example).  "One and it's done" is a clever way to remind ourselves that after one impact, although our helmets may look relatively fine from the outside and even from the inside, the damage from the fall has been done.  The helmet is no good and should not be used again.

I finished watching the video sent to my by a friend (see "Safety, Safety, Safety (part 1)" and I must say the conclusion was very interesting. The man in the video had a few very powerful comments that I want to point out here:

Your attitude towards safety is what matters
It doesn't matter the occupation or activity. The same people riding around ill-dressed are probably the same people who do not wear seat belts, do not use safety glasses around power tools and probably are the ones who use a gas grill indoors.

Others are affected too...
What happens to those who are close to you if you get seriously injured in an accident?  Children, spouse, parents. Who will take care of them?

Recovering from an accident is painful...
It will take months to heal and some injuries are permanent, such as seizures, scars, missing and disfigured fingers and limbs. Also, who will pay for all of your medical bills and your regular bills if you are unable to return to work.

The video helped me see motorcycle gear in a different light. Let's be honest, on a hot day it gets uncomfortable inside a helmet. And a pair of shorts and sandals would feel feel much better than hot boots and jeans. What would feel more uncomfortable would be getting skin grafts or learning to operate a wheelchair with my chin. Looking at it that way, I think I'd rather be hot or not ride at all than to risk going through what the guy in the video when through.

Here is a newspaper article I came across recently about helmet standards. It is from the NY Times and covers the safety of the buckets we all put on our heads. What do you think ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/automobiles/27SNELL.html?_r=1

A 2wheeltips.com friend of mine sent me a DVD on industrial safety. He figured it was something I'd like since one of the goals of 2wheeltips.com is to help riders understand  that shorts, t-shirts and fake helmets will not help you if you fall off your bike. It is not an easy message to tell......because you do want to look good on your bike and A LOT of motorcycle gear is ugly and expensive. I'll be the first to admit, you will not catch me dead in a lime green helmet or one of those ugly green/yellow riding jackets that look like something a crossing guard would wear.

But at the same time, I don't think my riding jacket should cost more than my Cashmere Hugo Boss coat either (if some company comes along and makes good looking riding gear that doesn't cost an arm, they will make out like bandits).

I watched a few minutes of the DVD and it talks about a guy who worked at a oil refinery. He's your typical rough and tumble guy who had worked there for years, knew his job and could do it in his sleep. Long story short, since he knew his job so well, he cut every safety corner in the book. It finally caught up to him when he caused an explosion (by not following safety procedures) and he was almost burned to death.

Watching the DVD, all I could think about was how many riders do the same thing. They've been riding for many years and they've got the whole motorcycle thing figured out.....so they think. They started out using riding gear but somewhere down the road, the t-shirts replaced the jacket, sneakers replaced boots and shorts replaced the jeans.

And then their turn comes.......and they get into a situation where they wish they had had some of that stuff on.

It doesn't have to be a crash either. It could be a nail kicked up by a car that hits your arm at 65mph. Or rocks falling off a construction truck that smack you on the fingers (I've had that happen before). Or even dropping the bike at intersections because the ground was oily and their sneakers slipped(boots can help here). 

All of this stuff happens every single day and riders can avoid twisted ankles, deep cuts and burnt legs if they would just put some clothes on.

By the way, the picture here is from a motorcycle injury....

 

 

I was riding yesterday on a busy road just after rush hour. The traffic was slow and I was minding my own business staying in my lane and watching my following distance.

Then out of no where, an idiot on a sport bike zoomed by and passed me in MY LANE! I'm thinking to myself, what kind of fool would do such a thing? What if I would have moved a bit to avoid a pothole, or a dead animal or even a car battery in the road? He would have hit me and we would have both been hurt.

Unfortunately for him, there was a red light up ahead and I drove right up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and told him he was a complete #$%#$%^&*#@@$! and that he could have killed or hurt both of us. He was in total shock that he was getting lectured in the middle of the highway. From talking to him, I could tell he was a new rider.....perhaps 2 years or so.  After a few more choice words, I moved so he could go and he rode away. At the next intersection, he made a left turn and almost rode off the road.

I know we are all taught to stay out of the way of cars and trucks on the road, but I think we should not forget about idiots like this guy that are on the road. They tailgate in group rides, weave in and out of traffic, speed through intersections and pass too close to other riders. They can get you just as quick as a distracted driver. They are also the ones you read about in the newspapers and see on the 6pm local news.

I took my Yamaha fjr 1300 out for a spin yesterday. I haven't been on it much because it needs tires.....soon. I figure I have 500 miles before the only riding I can safely do will be in a straight line.

Anyway, while riding I noticed the bike didn't have much cornering traction and I could not lean it hot and heavy through the curves without it "drifting." In some curves I could feel the back tire slide out a bit. Even when making quick lane changes, I felt like I was riding on bubble gum or some other gooey substance. I knew immediately it was the tires. I decided to ride less aggressively and finish up the ride at a moderate pace.

So what happens when motorcycle tires need to be replaced? Well...cornering traction suffers...a lot! If you are used to leaning your bike hard and fast through curves, doing it on worn tires may land you in a ditch on the side of the road.  Also you may notice the bike drifting around when changing lanes. And finally, your stopping distance is impacted.

Will I try to get the final 500 miles in? Probably. But I know that I can not ride the bike like I normally do until I replace the tires.