New crash study.

[Berries]

No, have never seen one in the flesh as they say. I am willing to be enlightened but following distance, speed, road position and being ready for anything seems to cover most bases.


And before cassina uses my post above to say I agree with her about training I should point out that I see great value in training when you start riding, when you step up to your first non L plate bike and when you are coming back to riding after a lot of years off. Even a change in bike style might be worth some tutorage. I rode a Harley once and am just glad it ran out of petrol after 40km before I got to the curvy bits as that sack of shit was going to be heading towards a fence in the Manuka Gorge.

[Bass]

I don't profess to know everything but perhaps I do have a closed mind as I cannot see what I could learn from someone else that would make me a safer rider. I am fully aware of the consequences of getting it wrong so ride accordingly. 95% of the time anyway. It's that 5% that will catch you out and no amount of training will help there. But that 5% is why I have a GSXR rather than a GN.

The thing is that you have just admitted that you don't know what you don't know.
I started back into this motorcycling thing, slowly and cautiously. I actually worked out a lot of this stuff for myself (like you), but went and did the Riderskills (one on one) advanced course anyway.
The truth is that I didn't learn as much as I expected or on the topics I expected. However, what I did learn were absolute diamonds and some of the exercises I still do regularly- e.g. self training ideas that I would never have dreamed up on my own.

IMHO your comment about being ready for anything does pretty much cover it. However, it's the various different ways in which you can make yourself ready that I hadn't really thought about or understood what "ready" really means.

Lastly, I discovered that there are riding skills and there are road craft skills - the two are only loosely connected. However, riding skills may become really important if you screw up on your road craft skills.

[pritch]

And before cassina uses my post above to say I agree with her about training I should point out that I see great value in training when you start riding, when you step up to your first non L plate bike and when you are coming back to riding after a lot of years off. Even a change in bike style might be worth some tutorage. I rode a Harley once and am just glad it ran out of petrol after 40km before I got to the curvy bits as that sack of shit was going to be heading towards a fence in the Manuka Gorge.

On the other hand I feel that should an emergency arise it's probably better trying to recall something reasonably recent than to be dredging back through the cobwebs of long unused memory banks. And if you've been riding more than a few years there will be cobwebs.

When the first Ride Forever course came to town I paid to go. The local Honda dealer said, "It's not for you."
I told him that I was supporting it because it was new and revision doesn't hurt, besides I might learn something.

A lot of effort had been put into the course, the Honda dealer made all his staff available to help. The guy that was running it though was "My way or the highway" and accepted no advice from anyone. I don't know who they get to help now, but I know who they don't.

After all the theory and some riding around a Kart track it was out to the open road - and a couple of people fell off for no explicable reason. This despite a very slow pace way below the speed limit.

There was a bag of sponsors goodies given out at the end and there was a prize worth significant money.

I won't go to another and I hope for the sake of the programme that they have a different organiser.

[Zedder]

No, have never seen one in the flesh as they say. I am willing to be enlightened but following distance, speed, road position and being ready for anything seems to cover most bases.


And before cassina uses my post above to say I agree with her about training I should point out that I see great value in training when you start riding, when you step up to your first non L plate bike and when you are coming back to riding after a lot of years off. Even a change in bike style might be worth some tutorage. I rode a Harley once and am just glad it ran out of petrol after 40km before I got to the curvy bits as that sack of shit was going to be heading towards a fence in the Manuka Gorge.

"It's a fair cop" as they say...

[caseye]

HEY? you guys hear that?
Couldn't possibly be, dead isn't she?

[nzspokes]

I wish to stress again that I did not go to a riding school when I learnt because they were not around in the mid 70s. If they were not around today many of the supporters of riding schools on here may not have taken up motorcycling in the first place as it would have been too dangerous to attempt on their own.
I got a reply when I said I took a fall on a wet road when learning that if I had gone to a riding school I may not have fallen and to my surprise they said wet road handling/braking is not taught in riding schools today but maybe it was just the school they went to.

I learned in the 80s. So what. Doesn't mean you you know what you are doing.

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Tapatalk

[Moi]

I wish to stress again that I did not go to a riding school when I learnt because they were not around in the mid 70s...

OK, early to mid seventies, lots of bikes and people coming and going with someone following them or guiding them, Stadium Rd, Western Springs...



... perhaps it was the local knitting circle at their weekly gathering

[pritch]

I would imagine if I had written your post all the riding school supporters on here would say that it was my refusal to change the way I ride and not the school tutor for the attitude I had.
The guys that fell off for no reason would have due to the target fixation effect of riding in a group where the focus can become either on the leader or the rider in front and nothing else.

I was not referring to the organiser's attitude to instruction I had no particular issue with that.

The Honda dealer had a lot of experience in organising training days around the North Island over many years and told me he had offered what he thought was helpful advice on a number of occasions when the event was being planned and set up. None his suggestions were deemed worthy of consideration.

It happened that I was in the first group to the kart track where this genius organiser spent an inordinate amount of time telling us how qualified he was to run the course. I was thinking this is taking up a lot of time but I guess he knows what he's doing. When he finished he announced that the programme was now running late so the emergency braking session was cancelled. WANKER!

As usual your logic is astray. It may be that the second rider fell off because he or she followed another rider off the road, I don't know, but that can't explain the first one. Also riders should know not to fixate of the bike in front, you have to look around or past it. That's fairly basic. Having said that there were some inexperienced riders on the course. Hopefully they learned something.

[nzspokes]

It is quite likely many of the posters maybe you included are not from NZ and us NZers are known as DIYers/do it yourselfers. If there were no riding schools around when you learnt you would not know what you are doing either.

Assumption much? Yes im a Kiwi. No I didn't know what I was doing. Made it up as I went along.

When I returned to riding I made sure I trained as much as I could. I am a much better and safer rider for it.

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[pritch]

It could be said that maybe the dealer was more interested in promoting bike sales than offering riding lessons and that could have been why he did not allow enough time. Your first post I felt did give the impression your lesson was from a qualified riding instructor and not a shop owner. Having said that the owner of the shop that I bought my first bikes off offered a lesson to first time riders in the interest of selling bikes and I had one of his lessons. It was just in a side street near the shop and not out of first gear if I can remember as I had no license at that time. He ran the biggest selling shop in ChCh at the time so his free lessons were a winning sales idea that strangly enough no other dealer took up. Maybe due to the fact there was a risk with it if the unlicensed rider dropped the bike. I guess OSH would never allow motorbike shops to offer such lessons today. So I have in fact had a riding lesson after all. I have never mentioned that in the past as it was not from a school.

I don't know how you got to there. You have misread what I wrote. Surprise!

The prick running the course was not a dealer to my knowledge. I would doubt that he was a "qualified instructor" in the current sense of that phrase. Which might be why he went on and on and on about how qualified he was to run the course.

From memory the course was the first Ride For Life course to come to this area and he was from out of town. The local Honda dealer had offered to assist and had made all his staff available, he had offered suggestions but all had been ignored. He was not happy, his assistance to future courses would have been much curtailed.

What help they get now, or even if the courses are held I couldn't say. Neither of the other dealers in town have ever been much into promoting motorcycling, the Honda dealer has long been the most proactive but he has moved on. One of the others is currently having their closing down sale.

[onearmedbandit]

You did give me the impression that the dealer and the instructor were the same people as you described the person giving the lesson and the dealer as being the organiser. Thats how I got there.

the Honda dealer made all his staff available to help. The guy that was running it though was

See I think this is where a lot of the issues people here have with you are. It's like you either don't read what is written or just modify it in your head to suit what you want.

[caseye]

See I think this is where a lot of the issues people here have with you are. It's like you either don't read what is written or just modify it in your head to suit what you want.

Both!

You are wasting your time.
Nothing good will ever come of her.

[onearmedbandit]

Both!

You are wasting your time.
Nothing good will ever come of her.

That's my failing, I always look for the good in people.

[Zedder]

That's my failing, I always look for the good in people.

Credit to you, but the only good in this one would be in goodbye.

[onearmedbandit]

I am suprised you would waste your time making a coment on something that really is a "non issue" in the big scheme of things.

It was an example of one of the many times you have either assumed incorrectly or just plain misunderstood something. Hardly a non-issue considering so many threads that you participate in turn to shit because of this.