This is my chopper.

April 15, 2008 8:38 AM

Whats the average Motorcycle Learning Curve?

So I just bought my first bike (Buell Blast 500) and I spent two hours driving in circles around my parking lot. (WEEEEEeee!). The thought of being so close to pavement and pain does terrify me but I am not scared off yet.

Whats the average learning curve to go from riding a bike to riding a motorcyle on the streets? How long does it take to get comfortable? Right now turning really scares me because I'm not used to leaning yet but I guess that balance will come with experience.

Can anyone recommend any stuff I should do to speed up my experience on the bike so I can get comfortable with it quicker? Exercises I should practice in the parking lot? I'm scared that while I could do simple turns and whatnot, if I ever had to make an evasive manuever I'd screw up and die.

I'm not really a speed demon at all, I just want to be as comfortable and experienced as possible by the time I hit the road.

Any and all advice is welcome! I promise I'm taking the beginner motorcycle safety class next month but all the slots were taken for the time being!

posted by JakeTimberlake to grab bag (18 comments total)

Best would probably be to park the bike until you take the course, because you are probably picking up a set of bad habits as you teach yourself. But I can totally understand how you have a new bike, it's sunny outside, and there is no way in hell you aren't going to ride it.

So I would suggest focusing on low speed control and handling. First and maybe second gear only, set up courses with "cones" (rocks, shoes, coke bottles, anything works), and weave your way through without touching the cones and without touching your feet down. Start easy -- big figure eights -- and then make things harder by making the courses smaller, tighter curves, etc. Set up courses where you have to stop before a turn, turn onto a precise path, etc. Set up cones to imitate doing a u-turn on a narrow street, and get good at doing them with your feet on the pegs (bring a tape-measure, or just pace off a narrow street -- it is surprisingly little space, especially with parked cars around).

If the parking lot has painted lines, you can use those to zigzag around, too. Keep your eyes up (you go where you look on a motorcycle), use both brakes, learn how to work the clutch to keep control at slow speeds. Wear your helmet -- every so often someone gets killed falling over in a parking lot. Don't let that be you. And make sure to spend equal time going clockwise and counterclockwise -- everyone has a direction that they are more confident in turns; you have to practice both to get comfortable.

The fast stuff is easy, compared to going slow. A lot of riders simply can't go slow without dragging their feet and wobbling all over the place; this is your chance to get good at something that is vitally important (few things are more embarrassing than dropping a bike at zero miles an hour in front of an audience) but that most people can't do to save their life.

And use the next month to make sure you own good riding gear, head to toe. Your gear is all that is between you and the very rough pavement in a slide, so don't wear flip-flops, tank-top, and short shorts, please. Make sure it fits, is appropriate for your climate (waterproof, or ventilated, or whatever), and so on. You can spend thousands on the ultra-good stuff, but you can also get perfectly adequate gear for not much money by looking at second hand gear, close-outs, and discount places like New Enough. At a minimum, gloves, jacket, helmet, boots; motorcycle pants are better than jeans; armored gear is better than unarmored; full-face helmet is better than a 3/4 or beanie helmet. Don't ride without something over your eyes that is rated for impacts -- the face shield on a helmet, or goggles, or sunglasses with the right kind of lenses. A bee or piece of gravel at 70mph will do bad things to your eyeball.
posted by Forktine at 9:00 AM on April 15, 2008 [3 favorites]

Congrats on your bike! Yes, take the safety classes which will make you feel moderately more confident and let you know common mistakes that new motorcyclists make. Make sure you are wearing good gear - from a good helmet to pants, boots, gloves and jacket. Once you've been around people on bikes a lot you realize a few things including

1. most people have some "I fell off my bike" accident at some point in their lives
2. good gear can protect you from a lot of minor scrapes and "my laces caught on the foot pegs" messups
3. other people are often your biggest risk factor, you see this reflected in motorcycle insurance rates.
4. fancy bodywork is the biggest reason insurance for bikes costs anything at all because that stuff is a bitch to repair/replace

So, I'd suggest getting on the road as soon as possible BUT try to do it someplace where you can mostly get used to turning, using signals, shifting up and down and wearing your gear before you have to deal with all the curveballs that traffic will send your way. The Motorcycle Safety Institute has a library that has some good getting started pamplets that should be good to read for when you're done riding for the day.
posted by jessamyn at 9:02 AM on April 15, 2008

Other than the safety class, parking lot riding is a good place to start. I also recommend the book "Proficient Motorcycling" by David L. Hough.

Good luck, and be safe.
posted by Echidna882003 at 9:04 AM on April 15, 2008

When I bought my bike, I was too embarrassed to admit I'd never, ever ridden one. I knew how to drive a manual shift car, and a friend had given me a brief motorcycle tutorial over the phone. Armed with that, I drove the bike off the lot, practiced shifting gears in the alley behind the store, and after about 15 minutes, drove home in busy city traffic.

Three years of riding later, I had a serious accident, and there was a one-unconscious-night learning curve to "I'll never ride a motorcycle again as long as I live."

Hopefully, YMMV. Be careful.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 10:05 AM on April 15, 2008

Yes, you are a speed demon. You just don't know it yet. And any rider who tells you they aren't is living in denial. This from a non-speed demon. :)

Practice being smooth. Smooth braking, smooth turning, etc. And the class will give you more confidence in your abilities and thus the progression to speed demon.

Get used to being in traffic. This can start even when driving your car: pay attention to the way other drivers drive. That person with their cell phone to their ear. Are they about to move into your lane? Is the car up ahead turning left, even though the aren't signaling?

Control comes quickly, it's the mental game that takes awhile.
posted by grefo at 10:31 AM on April 15, 2008

Oh, this question could easily have been me this time last year. I bought the exact same bike you did, never having been on a motorcycle before, and was terrified. Even after taking the class, I was still pretty terrified. The learning curve is pretty short though, and I'd guess you'll start feeling pretty comfortable after a month or two of riding, like I did.

The safety class focuses heavily on low-speed control, so I'll second the recommendation to focus on that. Get comfortable feathering the clutch in first gear and maintaining throttle control to ride smoothly at very low speeds, be able to turn in circles tightly without touching your foot down or falling over (shift your weight against the turn to do this at low speeds), and you'll ace the class and be much more comfortable. Riding at higher speeds is cake compared to that stuff, and if you're comfortable maneuvering the bike, you'll be comfortable easing into curves and leaning. You have a lot more stability at higher speeds.

Have fun! The blast is a great little bike and it's easy to control. The more time you spend on the bike, the more comfortable you'll feel.
posted by booknerd at 10:54 AM on April 15, 2008

Burn tank after tank of gas and practice, practice, practice. It takes a while to get wholly comfortable riding and you will continue to find new situations where your skillset will be forced to expand.

Some don'ts:
Don't take anyone for a ride until you have very solid riding skills.
Don't ever, ever, ever drink and ride.
Don't ever assume that car coming at you has seen you.
Don't get complacent because complacency leads to eating bumpers for dinner.
Don't go riding in shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers.

Do have lots of fun, do ride within your skill level and welcome to the two wheel universe!
posted by fenriq at 11:33 AM on April 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

I did the bulk of my learning sans license, or even permit, in the early 90s.

First was tooling around West LA at night. Took a couple of hours to get to the point where things were going into "automatic" mode and I could concentrate on my environment and not what my feet and hands were doing.

But the crucial, technical point of riding is clutch control, knowing how and when to slip the clutch for slower-speed maneuvering. I didn't really grok that until I started riding in Japan.

After failing their rather stringent rider exam twice (fell off "the bridge" -- a 12" wide plank that you have to go about 3MPH on for about 30 seconds) I decided to take matters into my own hands and just ride until I learned. 100 miles later, somewhere down in the mountains of Izu, bike & rider became One and my learning curve was solidly begun. (I had to learn the hard way -- experience -- that the rear loses cornering grip during braking -- luckily the bike was used and the resulting "low-side" didn't do too much damage).

The hardest part of the MSF road course is the conework -- being able to weave and turn at slow speeds.
posted by tachikaze at 11:39 AM on April 15, 2008

I had an afternoon of formal training... that was basically riding round a car-park, clutch control, breaking etc... after that I was able to ride home on my own. The next two days were a Sunday and a bank holiday and I road around near deserted streets for most of those two days. After that I was able to ride to work the next morning through normal traffic.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:07 PM on April 15, 2008

I'd add emergency braking practice to your parking lot work, especially in the rain or just as it's started raining. Get up to at least 20mph and try to stop on a line. But take a course. It'll not only teach you what you don't know, it'll also give you an important glimpse of the things you still won't know afterwards, or that you don't do well, or will always need to practice or be aware of. It's also a good time to read The Hurt Study, an examination of 3600 motorcycle accidents to determine how/why they happened.

As for the learning curve, I took an MSF course and was shocked at how little training you need to get legal on a bike in the U.S. I spent about 5-6 afternoons after the course practicing in a parking lot like you (and dropping the bike, and wiping out and learning how to pick the bike up). I felt even less ready than before the safety class, but figured I needed to take the plunge and get out into traffic. I did fine and continued to ride a lot locally in stop-and-go city traffic, which is pretty good practice. (Hardest was the embarrassment Forktine mentions of dropping the bike several times at 0mph--I'm petite and my bike outweighs me by more than 300lb. It took a long trip up to Canada to really feel comfortable on the bike: 4-7 hours in the seat, constantly changing weather/road/traffic conditions, the aloneness of being in your helmet and figuring out ways to stay alert, beginning to notice and respect your literal and mental blind spots.
posted by cocoagirl at 12:29 PM on April 15, 2008

Please, please, please take a motorcycle safety course. They often have a long wait, but it's a valuable experience. You learn the basics, and it's even a good refresher for seasoned riders. Not saying you'll come out a primo rider, but you will be aware of common mistakes, threats, and how to handle stressful situations.

Wear proper gear, as others have noted. Accidents are likely, but you can take measures that can contribute a bit to making the difference between the aw, dammit! wreck and a life disrupting/ending disaster. Be responsible for the sake of your brain and spine, fellow travelers, and your family.

And... find some folks to ride with. It's fun and you can learn from their experiences.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2008

I taught myself (took the course a year later) and the biggest challenge I had was learning low-speed balance and to feather the clutch in order to accelerate smoothly and maintain control through very-low-speed turns. That's what I'd work on.

The first time I dropped my bike was when I was pulling away from a stop sign and a pedestrian stepped out in front of me from a blind corner. Alarmed, I pulled in the clutch (right), neglected to release the throttle (wrong), heard the engine revving up and thought 'OMG, that's bad -- undo the last thing you did!!' (also wrong). I let go of the clutch and the revved-up motor practically shot the bike out from underneath me. Fortunately the pedestrian was unharmed.

The second time I dropped my bike (did I mention I paid $200 for this bike? It was so ugly that dropping it enhanced its appearance), I attempted a U-turn in a 2-lane side street. I knew that I needed to go so slowly that I'd stall the engine if the clutch were fully engaged. I was no good at feathering the clutch yet, so I just pulled the lever all the way in, leaned into the turn and hoped my momentum would carry me through. It didn't. I dropped the bike on the double-yellow at 0 MPH. Yes, it was mortifying.

Beyond that...

Remember to look well ahead and to look through turns; don't get fixated on the road immediately in front of you.

When you're in multi-lane traffic, try to maintain an escape route to one side or the other in case the bozo next to you decides to come into your lane.

Remember that railroad tracks, manhole covers and paint get slippery when wet.

Remember that the gravel that accumulates in turns and intersections is always slippery.

Don't ride when you've had the least bit of alcohol. If you feel too tired to ride, you are.

That's about all I remember. It's been 8 years since I stopped riding.
posted by jon1270 at 2:13 PM on April 15, 2008

All good advice so far, but here is a tidbit that seems to surprise some people:

As you're tooling along in a straight line and decide you want to turn left, you put a bit of pressure on the left handlebar. This turns the wheel slightly to the right (imperceptibly) which creates an imbalance, causing the bike to "fall over" to the left (into the turn). Trying to actually turn the handlebars into a turn will result in a much more frustrating experience. That, and bring the bike upright before you brake, not after.

Please note that this applies to normal speeds, not the slow parking lot putter. In those slow speed situations you actually need to turn the handlebars a bit.

Final note: I've owned my bike for over five years now with no drops and no accidents. The only thing that has probably kept me alive is that I am still petrified of it to this day.
posted by mbatch at 2:22 PM on April 15, 2008

mbatch gives good advice. A lot of beginning riders don't realise that you actually push the handlebars in the opposite direction to the way you want to go. If you try and turn them in the same direction, then the bike falls over! A lot of us do this naturally when we "lean" the bike to turn, but knowing the trick does help you to turn better by doing in consciously.

Also, I want to reiterate a point made up thread, which is "keep your head up and LOOK where you want to go". My instructor pushed this a lot and it really does help, especially with those slow turns and u-turns! Once you get really confident, you can try setting up two cones and doing figure 8's around them. This is where you really need to work on the looking in the right direction part.

While I'm reiterating, I'll also agree that one of the biggest skills you can learn on a bike is about watching what the other people in cars do ("the cages"). You can do this without even riding your bike, just as you drive around in your car, watching what everyone does and being very observant. I haven't ridden a bike in a couple of years now (the curse of living in a city where I catch the train to work), but I think that the observation I learned from my riding is whats kept me out of accidents in the last few years, since I have learned not to trust anybody else on the road and make sure I keep an eye on what they are doing!
posted by ranglin at 6:00 PM on April 15, 2008

Read this. Alternate of same article.
posted by wilful at 6:27 PM on April 15, 2008

My motorcycle mentor told me that if I was just going to practice in the parking lot and not take a safety course to make sure I filled out my organ donor card. A nurse told me they all called them "donorcycles." Every rider I've ever met has spilled. That's a 100% rate. The only reason they were alive to meet was because that they mitigated the severity of the accident by having some skill.

The larger percent of the accidents had to do with 1) visibility issues - making sure the traffic around you, sees you, and 2) being alert and not outrunning your ability to stop or outrun your headlights.

Alert as in watching for that dirt/gravel/sand on the ramp turn and not turning too tight in the curve and slipping on it, watching right/left of the intersection even when you have the green, stopping slightly left of vehicles at stop lights so traffic slowing behind you doesn't mistake your tail light for the left tail of the car in front of you and hit you, staying out of blind spots, anticipating other's lane changes. Not outrunning your headlights at night so you can avoid a pot-hole without hitting it too hard or over correcting to quickly to miss it and losing control.

That said. Tooling about alert and calm on a country road can be an awesome experience. Enjoy.
posted by Kensational at 6:29 PM on April 15, 2008

Nthing the suggestions to concentrate on low-speed control. Be aware though; as others have pointed out, riding at higher speeds is 'easier' because the bike has more 'stability' - or to put it another way, at higher speeds the bike is much more insistent on going in a straight line! Therefore, when you get out on the road at first, take corners slower than you think you need to, at least until you get comfortable with the increased lean angle that is necessary to get the bike round a corner at higher speed.
posted by primer_dimer at 2:23 AM on April 16, 2008

I was self-taught also, using a large parking lot in the springtime (watch out for sand/dirt in corners, they'll bork your control experiment, especially at the low speeds you'll be travelling at. I did this (figure 8's, circles) until I couldn't bear the boredom. I played with the braking performance on a longer patch, braking hard vs. soft/smooth.

after a couple of hours of this, I finally rolled out of the parking lot and onto the road home.
I found using the roads much easier, because you're not constantly thinking about having to stop/turn within 100 feet.

I rode for 7 years in western mass (which has some jaw-droppingly fantastic roads) using only a learner's permit, because I was warned off by my few biker friends who'd tried and failed, because it consisted of doing very tight figure 8's at near idle without taking your foot off the pegs.

When I moved to new york and bought a new bike, I took a safety class to avoid the DMV, and was VERY happy I did. Besides saving the 10% on my insurance for the first three years (and having my license sent to me) I learned little tips I'd not thought of. (nearly half the class was composed of riders with 5+ years of experience, some of whom just never got a legal license before)

– they confirmed that it's best to start applying rear brakes first, to throw the weight onto the front wheel, then use the front brakes to stop as desired. most braking power is from the front
– when in traffic/intersections, while eye-connection is great, keep an eye on the rims of a car you're trying to judge the behavior of. That will tell you a car's motion quickly, and warn you that they're not stopped, or stopping

plus, they provide the ditchmobiles, so you don't have to worry about your NEW machine getting screwed up should you down it. they've all been downed a hundred times, it makes no difference.

but I resist ever getting too comfortable on the bike (granted, I ride in NYC, which I thought was synonymous with suicide while tooling around the Quabbin in Mass). I've been called a pussy rider by others, because I don't thrill to put my life in the faith that around a bend in the road is more open road. If I cannot see it (or another vehicle travel around it), I assume there's a trunk in the street blocking my way. Here in NYC, I assume a cabbie might see a far across a few lanes, and try to stay out of their blindspots.

I've been riding now for 15+ years, and thank the gods haven't downed the bike (unless you count trying to put it on the centerstand on grass, and having it fall the wrong (unexpected) way into some shrubbery)

Paranoia's your friend while riding. Use it, and enjoy!
posted by Busithoth at 11:38 AM on May 10, 2008