Seat Time

T84A said:
Understand that the folks that claim they need no formal training are also the ones who have self-determined that they are accomplished riders. It's like rating your own performance. I could easily give myself a 10 if I wanted to.

Also, where are you getting this info about education level and insurance rates? I have never heard of it.
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That's the problem. You apparently have very little education outside of Keith Code Books. Go talk to an insurance broker. You have made it so I have little interest in educating you. If you read through the posts carefully you will see that you have claimed yourself to be a better rider than me. You never met me or saw me ride. From what level of ignorance could such a claim be made. You even went so far as to ban me from riding in Maryland. If I knew I could own a state with just a high school diploma I wouldn't have wasted the next 13 years of my life.

At what point did I tell anyone I didn't read motorcycle books, journals, or other educational material? At what point did I say I didn't take training? Read through the posts again. When did I say I knew it all? I took the time to give a perspective on riding. You were always free to tell us what worked for you. Reading another members experience and telling them your way is so superior smacks or arrogance and ignorance.

So go look it up. Education does correlate with safe driving. Though there are little statistics on motorcycles a twenty something like yourself on a supersport is always going to pay more insurance than a 50 something like me with many years on the road. So while T84A thinks time in the saddle is useless the insurance industry and underwriters think otherwise. This my friend is the only objective view of your riding skills. When you go tell your insurance agent you read Keith Code I assure you there won't be a discount.
 
Adrenaline Junkie said:
I agree with everything Cobalt said here except the 14 words about not learning from a video or a book. You can learn a lot from a video or a book, but it wont do you any good unless you make it habit with lots of seat time.

I've been riding since 1978. I'm not the best. I'm not the worst. I have learned a lot of stuff without taking a riding class. I learned a lot of that by reading. I learned a lot more by falling down. The more things you can learn through training, be it reading, video, school, osmosis, whatever, it beats the falling down technique. Personally, I think everyone should start on a small dirt bike because some falling down is almost inevitable. Having said that, any chance you get to learn something without falling down you should take.

I think a lot about my riding. I read everything I can find that doesn't cost a fortune. Here is where I will probably differ from a lot of people. When I read something, be it from Kieth Code, King Kenny, Malcolm Smith or some other legend, I evaluate it. I don't just say, "Kenny Roberts hung off so I must need to hang off". I rarely hang off the side of my bike riding a public road. It's just not the right thing to do. A lot of the instruction out there should be labeled TRACK ONLY, but its not so people don't know. On public roads, the curve in the road is there for some reason other than making the road a more exciting motorcycle ride. It's usually there to go around a mountain or something. It is almost impossible to see through a mountain so you should slow down until you can see around the mountain. If you are hanging off the inside as you go around the mountain you have to go much further around the outcropping before you get a clear line of sight down the road. I often ride around blind turns leaning off the wrong side of the bike because it allows me to see further down the road. I've never read or seen this technique in any training book and assume it isn't taught in any classes. For all I know, it is wrong, but I like it. Of course, some corners go around the inside of a gouge in a mountain and you have an excellent line of sight. I try to blister the tires in these corners.

I also slow down and stand up before cresting a rise in the road.
If I realize I'm into a corner to hot, I lay my big toe on the brake pedal and leave the throttle and front brake alone. I don't want to upset the chassis.
I ride with the balls of my feet on the pegs, not my arches.
The list is long and I'll bet it is wrong in places. I'm not too smart or too good to need training, I've just never had the time and the money at the same time. I would love to attend Cornerspin, Dirt Training for Road Riding, but it hasn't happened yet.

All the training in the world won't do you any good if you don't combine it with seat time but seat time by itself can't make you Malcolm Smith...........unless of course you actually are Malcolm Smith.:tup:
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Brilliant! This is what I have been saying. Read and evaluate for yourself what is useful. God did not write these books and very little in the motorcycle literature is double blind placebo controlled peer reviewed information. It is, on the other hand, substantially anecdotal. Thank you for this thoughtful post!
 
I can only offer one piece of advice when it comes to improving. Seeing as we are humans and cannot multitask on the conscious level we need to do some things instinctively. I find that you need to concentrate on just one thing to change at a time. Do it until it become natural and move on to the next thing.
Practice much like you do for stick and ball sports. Practice games only come after practicing all the basics. Empty parking lots are great for this.
 
Norm said:
Amazing! T84A and I agree on something. This is an author I found very useful. Most of what he has written I even read a second time. If I recall he is a journalist that actually went from writing to racing. The racers didn't take him seriously at first but he became quite good.
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I want to take his YCRS but it is cost prohibitive at this moment.

Check out Lee Parks Total Control Riding too and his courses are much affordable and pretty good.
 
Nick posts on the other board as well. Another good read is The Pace. Its cool to challenge yourself sometimes to ride at "the pace."
 
Norm said:
Brilliant! This is what I have been saying. Read and evaluate for yourself what is useful. God did not write these books and very little in the motorcycle literature is double blind placebo controlled peer reviewed information. It is, on the other hand, substantially anecdotal. Thank you for this thoughtful post!
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Hey Norm, not all research publications that are double blind peer-reviewed make sense either :D
 
Norm said:
That's the problem. You apparently have very little education outside of Keith Code Books. Go talk to an insurance broker. You have made it so I have little interest in educating you. If you read through the posts carefully you will see that you have claimed yourself to be a better rider than me. You never met me or saw me ride. From what level of ignorance could such a claim be made. You even went so far as to ban me from riding in Maryland. If I knew I could own a state with just a high school diploma I wouldn't have wasted the next 13 years of my life.

At what point did I tell anyone I didn't read motorcycle books, journals, or other educational material? At what point did I say I didn't take training? Read through the posts again. When did I say I knew it all? I took the time to give a perspective on riding. You were always free to tell us what worked for you. Reading another members experience and telling them your way is so superior smacks or arrogance and ignorance.

So go look it up. Education does correlate with safe driving. Though there are little statistics on motorcycles a twenty something like yourself on a supersport is always going to pay more insurance than a 50 something like me with many years on the road. So while T84A thinks time in the saddle is useless the insurance industry and underwriters think otherwise. This my friend is the only objective view of your riding skills. When you go tell your insurance agent you read Keith Code I assure you there won't be a discount.
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Hey Norm, having a PhD didn't get me an insurance discount either! But I did get discount for having the MSF BRC and ERC under by belt (ERC was useless IMHO). I wish MSF recognizes Lee Park's ARC as being the low watermark first. BRC is as basic as it can get. In some states I think they do offer the ARC instead of ERC.
 
Education does not equal common sense and common sense has alot to do with rider safety.I know few a people who are extemly book smart who dont make good decisions under pressure even if its a simple task.I think reading books,having dirt time,road time,common sense and natural talent all have an important part in rider safety.all the books in the world wont help if you have no eye hand coordination.But you dont need books to figure out how to enter a curve with alot of seat time.Yes books will tell you how to enter a perfect apex but it wont tell you when your about to get cutoff and how to jump the curb at an angle and ride through the wet grass and keep the bike uprite.
 
So, that's why Rossi is a Doctor!

Valentino_Rossi-1.jpg
 
apparently as long as you practice cutting on people you'll end up a great surgeon one day. it takes both practice and schooling to do this. apparently norm's just naturally gifted with more talent than the rest of us when it comes to riding bikes and we should all just know what we're doing and after years and years of doing something repeatedly we'll become masters of it
 
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Some of these points are just about where you place a bit more emphasis, instruction or practice. Practice with out proper knowledge could work out OK, but is extremely unlikely to result in the maximum potential, and it could cause horrible habits. Instruction with out practice is virtually worthless. :surrender::teeter::box::nothing::retard::stirpot::poke:

:deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse:
 
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jared p said:
apparently as long as you practice cutting on people you'll end up a great surgeon one day. it takes both practice and schooling to do this. apparently norm's just naturally gifted with more talent than the rest of us when it comes to riding bikes and we should all just know what we're doing and after years and years of doing something repeatedly we'll become masters of it
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Finally you get it!
 
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