Brakes! - Train your brain! - Teaching granny to suck eggs!

Originally Posted by sv4me

I didn't know the Queen rode a bike

Well it is normally your dads bike

[dizzyblonde]

You should both know why I rant in these sort of threads.
No amount of analysis, and what ifs about a cow in a road, and how you can improve to avoid it.......will stop the inevitable happening.

Now for the rest of the forum who don't know why I rant, and a very very real kick in the head reality.

I have spent SEVEN years of my life riding motorcycles alongside partners who have battled to stay alive in a hospital ward for months, and I have had to live for seven years with the consequences and after effects of those accidents. I am grateful I wasn't anywhere near them when it happened. I watch while my loved ones crawl up stairs, cry on floors in pain, fall over when things give way, hips smashed to pieces, replaced, rods through femurs forever, calves none existent, skin directly on bone with nowt inbetween, just plastic surgery to hold it together, no replacement ever a chance, hands smashed so they can't write.
I've been a punch bag for emotional and mental torture because of motorcycling. JEEZ the list is endless!
My previous relationship broke down because of someone so wrapped in the world of pain, he had no time for anyone but himself.........and I stood there by his side every day for five years.
Many, many of the people in these threads who overcook corners, analyse til they are blue in the face, can ever,ever begin to imagine what it is like to be smashed up by something 'in the way' or 'coming out from the side' or 'blatantly didn't see you and crashed head on'.
For seven years, I have visited friends in hospital, watch their first steps, when they were told they would lose their legs, ridden with friends who have only got one leg.


Ask yourself, do you want a life like this? Will anyone ever heed my words to bloody well slow the feck down......no they won't, because all they see is some dumb blonde with a couple of bikes, who seems to know fck all.........I'll tell you now, I'll likely to know more than some will ever know, and I hope it never happens to you,

SO, to clarify, slow down, stop analaysing. There are no gurus out there but yourselves.

Sorry folks. safety on a motorbike, is my utmost priority. Its the love of my life, and to think I was thinking of hanging my boots up because of others jibes, when in fact I'm probably the most level headed biker out there........for all the wrong reasons.

You can never lead a life on the road, by analysis over and over, about techniques, because one day, all those will go out of the window, you could do everything right for a million years, and it takes one incident for all the practise to go out of the window. how on earth can people learn off someone who has had fifteen offs in a couple of years, or one like me who has had one off and killed a deer in seven? You can't, you can only teach yourself to LIVE, and stay living.

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

There have been too many crashes lately, and the roads haven't really started getting horrible yet, so it's going to get worse. A fair few of those recent crashes have been directly attributed to misuse of the front brake! When it comes to your front brake YOU MUST TEACH your brain to react in a certain way. Instinctive human reactions have no place being anywhere near your front brake lever. You NEED TO OVER-RIDE YOUR INSTINCT!

SNIP

If anyone can post up any reading, youtube videos, etc, which we can see 'here and now' on the internet, which helps explain this, please do so.

Can I just add some more things here please.

Instinct tells you that you're going into a corner a bit too hot and that's when panic sets in, as Ralph has said you need to retrain your brain in some respects. In a large number of cases you aren't actually going in hotter than your bike and tyres can cope with - you need to learn roughly where those limits are before you decide you want to ride faster or in a group where a progressive pace may be the norm. Obviously the only way you can learn the levels of grip you have are when you run out of it, so I wouldn't recommend taking that route, but you can learn to push on a little bit harder so you know what still is safe and then back off to where you're comfortable.

Your tyres and handling are usually far far better than you are, so when you think you're not going to make it round a corner, generally you can if you're not panicking and liable to do something that will change the dynamic of the bike - by this I mean sitting the bike upright, braking, or rapid throttling off. Try and hold the bike steady through the corner on a neutral throttle or decelerate gently - don't slam it shut because that causes weight transfer as well as sharp engine braking and you'll end up testing your armour. Try to learn how to countersteer to get the bike leant over quicker and above all don't sit the bike upright unless it's to take advantage of a sliproad or somewhere safe where you can brake in a straight line.

Much is spouted by the 2" chicken strip owners about how it doesn't matter if you don't lean the bike over a long way... ignore them, they are idiots who talk out of their ar5es. When you need to crank the bike over because you've inadvertently gone into a bend a little too fast, it's a damn good idea to have the skills and balls to be able to do so safely. Being the proud owner of huge chicken strips will not help you get out of this situation - learn how to lean your bike and use the full width of the tyre tread. You've paid for the whole tread width not just the centre strip and Messrs Dunlop, Bridgestone, Michelin etc have developed their tyres with that much tread width for a reason, that being because your bike is capable of using it. You don't have to take advantage of the full tread width on every ride, but having the skills and confidence to use it when needed is well worth having.

If you don't think you can learn these things alone, get yourselves some advanced rider training. Be honest and frank with your instructor and tell him what you hope to achieve by the end of your course and make sure he's teaching you what you want to learn.

Good riders are not born, they are taught. The lessons you took to get a licence did not teach you to ride a bike, they only taught you to pass a test.

Nice one Lozzo. Agree with all of that.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by daddyjob

I am planning to do a days ride out with the Police force, and look into doing an IAM's course too

Trackdays and instruction in an off-road environment can be very beneficial to expand the skills in a safe and controlled way.
Not to mention being really good fun.

Originally Posted by Lozzo

You don't have to take advantage of the full tread width on every ride, but having the skills and confidence to use it when needed is well worth having.

See above, I'm fairly sure you'd agree.

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

SO, to clarify, slow down, stop analaysing. There are no gurus out there but yourselves.

An interesting fact for you is that the vast majority of KSI's in the "overcooked a bend" group in a government study of fatal crashes DID NOT overcook the bend. They panicked in a situation where the bike could have easily made the bend and died.

Your advice I'm sure is well intentioned but is misguided. And in a thread about learning, saying "don't learn", is unwelcome.
Learn from others mistakes, to wait to make your own is frankly retarded.


Ride your bike, learn to use as much of it's capabilities as possible and have the sense to only use as much as is safe at the time.

mmmm not so sure about the locking of the front statement unless its wet.

Adrian Cotes him of BSB fame taught me and demonstrated that if you are braking in a straight line there is no way to lock the front wheel up no matter how hard you brake.

After that lesson I can get the rear end in the air and my eyes popping out of my head with the sheer force of braking and the front will not lock up.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Trackdays and instruction in an off-road environment can be very beneficial to expand the skills in a safe and controlled way.
Not to mention being really good fun.



See above, I'm fairly sure you'd agree.

Whilst I agree that trackdays are a great way of pushing your personal limits and learning how far you can push a bike without falling off, I didn't want my post to come across as an 'everyone should learn to be a racer' type of response. There are on-road courses that can teach similar things without the need to get on a track.

I understand that for some people just riding their bike in a safe controlled manner is all they want from biking, so for them doing a trackday and being amongst a load of gung-ho loonies may put them way out of their depth and they won't learn anything at all - in some cases it may even scare them into using the bike less than thay did before, and I've seen that happen in the past.

It all depends on the rider and what they want from motorcycling

and to backup the lean instead of panic statement, If you lean, bottle out and hit the brake your bike will stand up and instead of going round the corner you will be going straight and a probable collision.

If you lean more and slide off the lowside you have a greater chance of sliding unscathed.

Spot on Loz in my idea of riding. I`m still a novice and learning all the time. I`ve run into corners too fast... No I havent, my experience tells me I have but in reality, I`m only riding the bike to around 60% of its ability and i am nowhere near a real incident. Since doing my 1st ride on a track I have found that even grinding large corners off my pegs getting the bike thrown over isnt a point where I feel something is going to go. Now that I know how far the bike will go i have far more confidence. Too fast I think, I doubt it really, There is plenty more tyre to go before the real worry arrives.

If the bike is constantly being ridden at 905 of its ability then the margin for error decreases as 105 isnt much to play with at speed when the grey matter has to do computing overtime to sort out a potential cockup I totally agree that knowing what the bikes capabilities are helps so much if avoidance is required in one form or another.

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Your advice I'm sure is well intentioned but is misguided. And in a thread about learning, saying "don't learn", is unwelcome.
Learn from others mistakes, to wait to make your own is frankly retarded.


Ride your bike, learn to use as much of it's capabilities as possible and have the sense to only use as much as is safe at the time.

Its not advice.
A lot of folk these days fall off, with no consequence apart from a bit of grass burn on their pants. They get back on, and a few months down the line, do the same. Its not because they haven't learned its because they have gone over and over so much in their heads, that they actually go back out and do it all again, they come on here and ask what has gone wrong, and everyone analyses it for them. Then they have a complete overload of info, try it out for themselves, which quite frankly is confusing, then a few months down the line they're here again, wondering what they did wrong.....one day, analysing will go completely wrong, for the worse.

Its well intentioned...yes, misguided ...no......purely because my post is a frank illustration of what goes wrong later in life, when it goes wrong on the road......for some, its a fable, it'll never happen to them, for others, they read it, and if for one second it just gets in there, makes em slow down and give themselves time to think on the road, its helped keep someone safe.

I don't want to see anymore friends die, I don't want to see any of those close to me, live how I live, or my loved ones live, I don't want to see my friends with limbs missing anymore............I want them all to be safe. BUT.......sometimes its not me thats going lalalalalalaala fingers in ears not listening......its actually them.