This is and example of what I meant in my first post. You're passing off bad information. If you come into a corner too hot and need to take some speed off you can feather your brakes to scrub off a little speed and you will not "eat the pavement". If you are in a curve and have to stop for some unexpected emergency you can brake and stand your bike up (straighten up) at the same time. When you stand your bike up you're going tobe going straight ahead. You need to be aware of that.

 

Ok, another Noob here but I have to chime in. I had zero, zip, zilch, nada experience. I just finished (about a week and a half ago) the Riders Edge Course at Meredith Harley Davidson. I am Retiring from the Air Force and an 07 Wide Glide was my retirement gift. Ok, so the course was AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME...did I mention it was AWESOME????? DO NOT PRACTICE until you take the course. It was phenominal. I hate seeing people say it is "parking lot instruction" cause that is BS. I asked my instructors because I was concerned that I had never ridden faster than 25mph through the course, they stated, "just wait until you ride your bike, anyone can control a bike at speed" boy were they right. It is the slow speed manuvers and curving that they teach. I learned to control my speed before entering a turn, NEVER BRAKE during a turn (two people including my wife learned this the hard way and ate pavement) and look where you want to go. Keep eyes and head up...learned swerving, braking...they taught us from the ground up. It was AWESOME (not sure if I mentioned that or not) Bottom line is they give you the tools and the best advise in the world. The last thing they said was to ride within your comfort zone at all times, that is NEVER do somthing you are not comfortable with. For me, they reccomended back roads and parking lots. That is what I have done. I have no problems except turning from a dead stop. Specifically right turns. So that is what I am going to practice. I practice all the techniks they taught us every time I ride. And yea I practice the swerving and panic breaking too. Yes I am riding my new Wide Glide. I am just carefull and always ALWAYS maintain Situational Awareness. Now experienced riders can flame me all they want. I put alot of stock in this course and salute all MSF instructors for what they do. It is the dumb asses that go out and ride out of their comfort zone and do stuff they are un familiar with that crash and give bikers a bad name. For instance, I would not ride my bike on a mountain road with hair pin turns right now cause it isnt in my comfort zone. I will ALWAYS know where I am riding BEFORE I get on my bike. I am familiar with the roads and traffic patterns. While I learn I ride, I will bein places I am comfortable with and can hanlde (OMG, could this possibly be my COMFORT ZONE?!?!?!) Anyway I just touched on a few things they taught me. They teach from the ground up as if you had zero riding experience. It should be LAW that all take that course before ever riding.

Just my 2 cents

SJRACER

 

We had to do that in my MSF class, just so we would know what the bike would do.

 

eheh. This is better than Comedy Channel.

Carry on.

 

All you need to know right now is to identify three sounds:
1) thump, thump, thump (a single riding by)
2) potato, potato, potato (a Harleyriding by)
3) thunka, thunka, thunka (a LifeFlight chopper landing to pick up my buddy who thought a little practice before the MSF course was a good idea!)

Enjoy the learning experience.

 

Whooda, I don't agree with this a bit; there are definitely techniques used for braking in a corner. Think about it, you encounter an obstacle in a corner (a deer for ***** and grins), are you just going to plow into the deer without trying to scrub off speed? If you're hot in a corner and encounter the scenario, based on your post, you have no options. What happens if you encounter a decreasing radius corner?

When cornering, what you've done is reduced the contact patch used to keep the bike on the road and when you brake in a corner you're utilizing a piece of that contact patch for braking and thus reducing the patch available to keep the bike cornering. With that said, you can still effectively brake through a corner if you're light on the brakes (had to do it too many times to count when encountering a reducing radius corner).

With all that said, the MSF actually teaches you how to brake in a corner; bring the bike back upright and apply braking. Keep in mind, you're gonna be going straight at this point, but you're still braking.

 

I can say that I certainly got a lot out of the MSF Course I took.

Do I still make mistakes??? You Bet. I've only been riding since the end of April.

Do I learn from those mistakes??? I would certainly hope so. Sometimes I do stupid things, like cutting a corner a bit tight making a left turn, which causes me to go into the the empty on-coming turn lane a bit, but I'm working on that kind of stuff (I don't do that where there's a car there... maybe I need to imagine there's a car there every time). I'm Much better than I was 2 months ago.

I do my best to learn something each time I ride. My ride this morning was only practice for my ride this evening. I look at Each ride that way, the last one was practice for the next one.

I learned some really good, valuable things and most importantly I learned how to ride the RIGHT way, not the way my "experienced" friends were trying to tell me how to do it. I learned to ride defensively in the MSF course, I learned to turn my head and look where I'm going (because they're right... your bike really Does go where you look), and I think the course was worth every second and every penny I paid.

I was really glad to be able to take the course, and would recommend that anyone just starting out take it.

 

I am sure the MSF course has some great information. I have to say that I take exception to the belief only people that have taken the course "ride the right way". I have owned and ridden bikes for 40 years some of those years I did not even own a 4 wheeler. If Ihad not been doing things the right way, I would be dead, simple fact.

 

The MSF course will give you in several days what it would take someone several months if not years to learn. No one connected to MSF tells a graduate of the course that they're ready to go out and conquer the highway. They have simply been given alot of basic informationand now need to exercise their own discipline by practicing the basics over and over until they become proficient at them.

I rode from the early 40's to around 1996 with no instructions other than what my father gave me. In 1996 I enrolled in the ERC course put on by MSF. The instructor asked what we wanted to get out of the course. I responded that I wanted to find out what I had been doing wrong for all those years. Like Calwoodbutcher I was still living, kicking and had never been involved in an accident on the road. Non-the-less the ERC course was an eye opener for me. I did learn some things I had been doing wrong and I was impressed enough that I went on to become a MSF instructor.

 

Granted, back then there was no special provision for motorcycles on the DL. When one obtained their learners permit for a drivers license (15 1/2 years) you had to have a licensed driver with you to operate a car. You could legally operate a motorycle just as if you were licensed. Times have changed. If I were just starting out now an MSF class would be the ticket.