Born again bikers!!!
Discussion
I always thought that sentence was rubbish and you never forget how to ride safely etc. Anyhow, mate of mine (really) has not ridden a decent road bike for 15 years. He has an old Armstrong that he potters around on very occasionally.
The other day he was let loose on his bro's R1 for a blast. His response was total shock, the power of it, the noise, nothing like he remembered.
"I can well understand how some people can go crazy on these and crash" was his first comment. Well I always thought a bike only goes as fast as you twist it and the rider is always in control but after listening to mate exlain his experience I may change my mind.
The rider still twists the grip of course, but it's the speed of response and power delivery that can catch people out. That is something as everyday riders
we get used too, although I still go WOW to myself when out on the 916. Glad it wasn't my babe he was out on
The other day he was let loose on his bro's R1 for a blast. His response was total shock, the power of it, the noise, nothing like he remembered.
"I can well understand how some people can go crazy on these and crash" was his first comment. Well I always thought a bike only goes as fast as you twist it and the rider is always in control but after listening to mate exlain his experience I may change my mind.
The rider still twists the grip of course, but it's the speed of response and power delivery that can catch people out. That is something as everyday riders
we get used too, although I still go WOW to myself when out on the 916. Glad it wasn't my babe he was out on
At the other end of the scale I bought some leather trousers from a young guy who passed his test and went out and bought an R6, a couple of his stories scared me silly, he was a statistic waiting to happen, fortunately his girlfriend/wife got pregnant and he had to sell his bike/kit.
At the other end of the scale I bought some leather trousers from a young guy who passed his test and went out and bought an R6, a couple of his stories scared me silly, he was a statistic waiting to happen, fortunately his girlfriend/wife got pregnant and he had to sell his bike/kit.
A "budget" middleweight 600 (Hornet, Fazer etc.) has enough punch to make drivers of fast cars to go "WOW!" initially, and enough to outperform litre bikes of 20 years ago. Modern litre bikes have massive reserves of power in comparison and are extremely punchy and responsive. I'm not surprised your mate was more than a bit shocked, he was dealing with waaaay more power to weight than he has ever had to deal with before.
I'm not really a born again, but I did have a load of little commuter/trailies for quite a few years, before getting on my GSXR750 and definitely couldn't believe the difference between an 84 GSX550 and a 96 GSXR750. First time I nailed it was in 3rd on a DC and I was gobsmacked. Pretty used to it all now though 
TOPTON said:
Well I always thought a bike only goes as fast as you twist it and the rider is always in control but after listening to mate exlain his experience I may change my mind.
I never realy agreed with that view. Well, while the senence is strictly crrect, it is used o justify inexperienced people getting superbikes, as it suggests that it is easy only to potter on them.
What instead tends to happen, though, is that people try outthe full power and speed on a safe bit of road, find the bike is stable and well behaved, and then keep using it. When something goes a bit wrong, ten, at 50mph fster than they can cope, it is too late.
It might be diferent if 130mph felt scary, but it just doesn't on a modern bike, and so it is unresonable to assume that your average young (or born-again) rider is going to be just fine on a GSX-R1000, in most cases.
northernboy said:
It might be diferent if 130mph felt scary, but it just doesn't on a modern bike, and so it is unresonable to assume that your average young (or born-again) rider is going to be just fine on a GSX-R1000, in most cases.
... quite so, but they keep buying 'em. A 600+ supersports bike seems to be de rigeur immediately post-DAS (regardless of how daft you look riding like a newbie on a flash bike).
A mate of mine, who's only ridden a thousand miles in the last decade, is about to but a Hyabusa LOL
... I kid you not 
Edited by SVS on Saturday 19th May 16:10
SVS said:
northernboy said:
It might be diferent if 130mph felt scary, but it just doesn't on a modern bike, and so it is unresonable to assume that your average young (or born-again) rider is going to be just fine on a GSX-R1000, in most cases.
... quite so, but they keep buying 'em. A 600+ supersports bike seems to be de rigeur immediately post-DAS (regardless of how daft you look riding like a newbie on a flash bike).
A mate of mine, who's only ridden a thousand miles in the last decade, is about to but a Hyabusa LOL
... I kid you not Edited by SVS on Saturday 19th May 16:10
I do understand why people do it, but, for many, many years, I have been one of the old buggers aruing that a brand new biker really ought to look at a 50bhp bike, with skinny tyres, and possibly a rear drum brake.
Not only will it maybe save their lives early on, but it will likely teach them a hell of a lot more about grip, lean angles, and braking than the latest superbike will.
I really think that you need to learn to feel what a front wheel breaking away is like, and what it feels like to realise you just can't stop (at 30mph, not 150), before you get on a proper big bike.
Hello Northernboy, you old codger you 
I really think that you need to learn to feel what a front wheel breaking away is like, and what it feels like to realise you just can't stop (at 30mph, not 150), before you get on a proper big bike.
Whilst I would agree with you*, there are more important things to learn in riding a quick bike. Far better to avoid a skid in the first place!! Long-range observation and forward planning are so much more critical as speeds increase. (Also, smoothness and cornering skill both become more important as speed increases.)
However, nearly everyone seems to dive straight into superbike ownership without upgrading their skills through further training. My local dealer offers a free half-day's advanced training to everyone who buys a bike over 500cc. Only 3-4% of people take up the offer.
* Well, I'm not an old bugger, but I learnt this on dirt biking holidays - much fun and a lot safer way to learn!
northernboy said:
I really think that you need to learn to feel what a front wheel breaking away is like, and what it feels like to realise you just can't stop (at 30mph, not 150), before you get on a proper big bike.
Whilst I would agree with you*, there are more important things to learn in riding a quick bike. Far better to avoid a skid in the first place!! Long-range observation and forward planning are so much more critical as speeds increase. (Also, smoothness and cornering skill both become more important as speed increases.)
However, nearly everyone seems to dive straight into superbike ownership without upgrading their skills through further training. My local dealer offers a free half-day's advanced training to everyone who buys a bike over 500cc. Only 3-4% of people take up the offer.
* Well, I'm not an old bugger, but I learnt this on dirt biking holidays - much fun and a lot safer way to learn!
SVS said:
Whilst I would agree with you*, there are more important things to learn in riding a quick bike. Far better to avoid a skid in the first place!! Long-range observation and forward planning are so much more critical as speeds increase. (Also, smoothness and cornering skill both become more important as speed increases.)
Hear hear!
SVS said:
However, nearly everyone seems to dive straight into superbike ownership without upgrading their skills through further training. My local dealer offers a free half-day's advanced training to everyone who buys a bike over 500cc. Only 3-4% of people take up the offer.
It is very sad that most people who purchase a motorbike seem to think that they don’t need any training beyond their DAS. Track days with an occasional bit of advice from the local club racer* seems to be perceived as being the only option for many.
Safe road riding is a skill that takes time and effort to acquire. The more ‘progress’ you make the greater the skill level needs to be and the more time it takes to get to that level of skill. Rather than using artificial restrictions of capacity/performance/bhp on new riders I would say that the answer is improved/extended training with more rigorous testing.
*Absolutely nothing against club racers, they could ride the socks off me on just about any track, but racing is not road riding and there are far too many newbies who simply don’t understand/accept that fact.
black-k1 said:
Safe road riding is a skill that takes time and effort to acquire. The more ‘progress’ you make the greater the skill level needs to be and the more time it takes to get to that level of skill. Rather than using artificial restrictions of capacity/performance/bhp on new riders I would say that the answer is improved/extended training with more rigorous testing.
Due to being poor rather than any self restraint, I've worked my way up from 50 to 125 to 250, 400, 600 etc etc to R1 (with a year as a London dispatch rider in there somewhere) and back down to my current TDM and consider myself a safe rider and a fast rider. The problem is that I have always considered my a good rider
and this where the problem lies. Me being a cocky little herbert on a 50 or 125 wasn't too bad and although I got in a few scrapes, I came out of it unscathed. Had I done direct access at 19 or 39, with that attitude and a 100+ bhp, 150mph+ bike I'd be very dead now. I see new riders every day on various exotica and it worries me how bad they ride (especially compared to their belief) and how little clue they have about their surroundings
Everyone has to start somewhere and we were all learners once, so I always give them space and am patient, but so many really are so obviously out of their depth. After passing them in traffic, the same wobbling novice will steam past me on a clearer bit of road at 120+ in percieved control.
I say bring in a step up system so everyone is forced to learn slowly and properly. Say 50 - 125 - 400 - 600 - umlimited with at least a year and a minimum mileage on each. There's no substitute for experience.
That's my two penneth
Whilst I appreciate the comments, I disagree with everything that m3psm has just said. Not that it's anything personal, I hasten to add!
Of course I would say this as I have recently passed my test through DAS, jumped on a 600 and then after a few months for various reasons changed over to a litre bike. Yep, I'm that stereotypical B.A.B!
I know I'm an inexperienced rider, I'm more than happy to take advice and instruction, and I don't want to tempt fate, but......
I've spent 20 years driving cars of various levels of performance and clocked up around half a million miles doing so. Thanks partly to a very early interest in driving, and partly to a father and grandfather who were steeped in "Roadcraft", I took to the road with at least a partial understanding of what should be expected of me. I've spent 20 years building up my skill base of anticipation & forward planning, understanding how road systems work and making lots of basic silly mistakes and most important of all, learning from them. Whether I'm wandering through traffic at 30mph on a CG125 or FZ1-S really doesn't make a blind bit of difference, I'll still anticipate hazards and react to them at the same pace.
I quite accept that the litre bike is capable of very high speeds, and accelerates in a manner that no car is ever likely to, but 99% of the time I'm still going to be approaching the same hazards at roughly the same pace as the limit is the road and it's contents, not the vehicle I'm controlling. In fairness, I am nowhere near riding the litre bike to it's "limits", I don't believe any here are (with perhaps one or two exceptions), but I can meter my performance just as easily on the litre bike as I was doing on the 600, and in the meantime benefit from having a more stable bike with better suspension, not forgetting more accessable torque.
Perhaps I'm unusual in that I understand that for the bulk of my riding or driving I am excercising self restraint, but I'm adamant that all the experience and training in the world is useless if the rider involved doesn't actually [u]think.[/u]
Of course I would say this as I have recently passed my test through DAS, jumped on a 600 and then after a few months for various reasons changed over to a litre bike. Yep, I'm that stereotypical B.A.B!
I know I'm an inexperienced rider, I'm more than happy to take advice and instruction, and I don't want to tempt fate, but......
I've spent 20 years driving cars of various levels of performance and clocked up around half a million miles doing so. Thanks partly to a very early interest in driving, and partly to a father and grandfather who were steeped in "Roadcraft", I took to the road with at least a partial understanding of what should be expected of me. I've spent 20 years building up my skill base of anticipation & forward planning, understanding how road systems work and making lots of basic silly mistakes and most important of all, learning from them. Whether I'm wandering through traffic at 30mph on a CG125 or FZ1-S really doesn't make a blind bit of difference, I'll still anticipate hazards and react to them at the same pace.
I quite accept that the litre bike is capable of very high speeds, and accelerates in a manner that no car is ever likely to, but 99% of the time I'm still going to be approaching the same hazards at roughly the same pace as the limit is the road and it's contents, not the vehicle I'm controlling. In fairness, I am nowhere near riding the litre bike to it's "limits", I don't believe any here are (with perhaps one or two exceptions), but I can meter my performance just as easily on the litre bike as I was doing on the 600, and in the meantime benefit from having a more stable bike with better suspension, not forgetting more accessable torque.
Perhaps I'm unusual in that I understand that for the bulk of my riding or driving I am excercising self restraint, but I'm adamant that all the experience and training in the world is useless if the rider involved doesn't actually [u]think.[/u]
m3psm said:
black-k1 said:
Safe road riding is a skill that takes time and effort to acquire. The more ‘progress’ you make the greater the skill level needs to be and the more time it takes to get to that level of skill. Rather than using artificial restrictions of capacity/performance/bhp on new riders I would say that the answer is improved/extended training with more rigorous testing.
Due to being poor rather than any self restraint, I've worked my way up from 50 to 125 to 250, 400, 600 etc etc to R1 (with a year as a London dispatch rider in there somewhere) and back down to my current TDM and consider myself a safe rider and a fast rider. The problem is that I have always considered my a good rider
and this where the problem lies. Me being a cocky little herbert on a 50 or 125 wasn't too bad and although I got in a few scrapes, I came out of it unscathed. Had I done direct access at 19 or 39, with that attitude and a 100+ bhp, 150mph+ bike I'd be very dead now. I see new riders every day on various exotica and it worries me how bad they ride (especially compared to their belief) and how little clue they have about their surroundings
Everyone has to start somewhere and we were all learners once, so I always give them space and am patient, but so many really are so obviously out of their depth. After passing them in traffic, the same wobbling novice will steam past me on a clearer bit of road at 120+ in percieved control.
I say bring in a step up system so everyone is forced to learn slowly and properly. Say 50 - 125 - 400 - 600 - umlimited with at least a year and a minimum mileage on each. There's no substitute for experience.
That's my two penneth
I think that most riders, both younger and ‘born again’ simply do not get enough training of the right sort. I would suggest that all riders should pass the current test, be able to ride any bike but, have to sit and pass a test in the style of the IAM test within say 2 years. Don’t pass the second test, and you potentially loose your license. This would focus all the attention onto acquiring the right skills as quickly as possible.
black-k1 said:
I think you may have missed my meaning. I am against any form of restriction by capacity/bhp/speed. I think that most bikes under 250cc are too slow in that they can’t keep up with traffic and that, in my view, is very dangerous. Anything over 400cc is not going to be utilized to it’s limits on the road so what does it mater if you don’t utilize 600cc or don’t utilize 1000cc?
I think that most riders, both younger and ‘born again’ simply do not get enough training of the right sort. I would suggest that all riders should pass the current test, be able to ride any bike but, have to sit and pass a test in the style of the IAM test within say 2 years. Don’t pass the second test, and you potentially loose your license. This would focus all the attention onto acquiring the right skills as quickly as possible.
I think a combination of restricted bikes and IAM style training should be used. You're right about smaller bikes being underpowered, but that's the point. On a 50 you have to plan your moves, not just launch your self at warp factor 10 out of and into trouble. 125's and over are easilly capable of going over 70 mph, whereas a 250 will do 120 and a 400 over 130, so they're hardly slow and dangerous. A commuter 125 will easilly out accellerate an average car in traffic below about 50.I think that most riders, both younger and ‘born again’ simply do not get enough training of the right sort. I would suggest that all riders should pass the current test, be able to ride any bike but, have to sit and pass a test in the style of the IAM test within say 2 years. Don’t pass the second test, and you potentially loose your license. This would focus all the attention onto acquiring the right skills as quickly as possible.
I saw an extreme example of born again r direct access rider tonight on the way home from work. On a busy A12 in rush hour I was making courier style progress through the traffic when I suddenly had a huge set of headlights about 6 inches off my back wheel. I move over to let him past and an immaculate 'busa fies past. I crack again through the traffic and within a minute he's hlding me up. He sees a gap and gives it everything. Next car and he's on the anchors hard again. He then spots another 'busa ahead and with some really scarilly bad judgement and irratic riding catches him and then they both carry on like this for a couple of miles going from 20 to 120 and back again with no confidence in their own or each other's ability and there's now an intermittent line of everyday commuters behind but giving them a wide berth waiting for the innevitible to happen. By luck they both tried a "never gonna happen" undertaking manouvre and got boxed in allowing the rest of past, releived that these two idiots didn't take themselves and us out.
If they were on 250s they would have had to think a bit more about each move rather than their irratic point n squirt n brake like hell method.
I just hope they learn very quickly before they come a cropper.
I'm 16 and I have been riding a 50cc automatic bike for 14 days. I can honestly say that I think that people should start off on a small bike. A 125 or 250 perhaps. I think that even my bike is quick enough to keep up with traffic until you move into National Speed limits. My bike will do 50 ish on the flat if it is not too windy. If I was on a 250 then I would be very dangerous. I ride my bike flat out most of the time but I do because I need to usually. I think I would be the same on a 250. I was thinking about this today when I was stuck behind a car doing 30. I wanted to overtake it but I didn't have enough power to. On a 250 I would have gone straight round and probably into the back of the lorry in front. I think we should all start off on lower power machines at first.
So how do we know the two Busa riders were B.A.B and not just idiots riding badly?
Why is roadcraft learned on one vehicle completely null and void in another, despite it accounting for 99.9% of the skill involved in controlling a vehicle?
I agree with Black-K1's idea, in fact I strongly believe that our driving tests need a far more advanced level of training and I quite like the suggestion offered.
Why is roadcraft learned on one vehicle completely null and void in another, despite it accounting for 99.9% of the skill involved in controlling a vehicle?
I agree with Black-K1's idea, in fact I strongly believe that our driving tests need a far more advanced level of training and I quite like the suggestion offered.
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