Archive for the ‘Training Tips’ Category

How to Ride Pillion Safely

It is nigh on impossible to even scratch the surface of the whole world and culture of motorbiking in a Guide Entry. However, riding pillion is something that many people do: sometimes once only, before they declare ‘never again!’. Perhaps you’ll get invited to join a group of Harley riders on their trek across Europe. Maybe you’ll go out with a biker for six months. Or it could be something that you do for many many years. What are the essentials? (more…)

Surviving Urban Riding – Avoiding Common Accidents

The most common accidents that we bikers get involved in are collisions at junctions, collisions while overtaking, loss of control, either from a shunt or, and, surprise, surprise, failing to get round a bend.

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Surviving Urban Riding – Night Riding Tips

Two pieces of bad news:

• A disproportionately high number of road accidents occur at night.

• Your ability to see in the dark decreases with age.

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Surviving Urban Riding – Observation

Riding in cities requires a completely different set of skills compared to the open road. There are more distractions, more hazards and more corners. (more…)

Surviving urban riding – Traffic lights

Bikes are great in cities; they are small, nimble and have power-to-weight ratios that would make even top sports cars wince. This means they are almost perfect for standing starts, or traffic lights.

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Surviving urban riding – Filtering

Riding in cities requires a completely different set of skills compared to the open road. There are more distractions, more hazards and more corners. This makes it more entertaining than a track day but without the need for tyre warmers. (more…)

Lock it and don’t lose it!

There’s no time to think – letting off the brake has to be an automatic reaction to the first squeal from the tyre. There’s only one way to make sure you react in the right way and that’s to practice it until it’s second nature. Fortunately practicing is fun! (more…)

Surviving U Turns and Blind Spots

We’ve all seen it.  A car or truck pulls off to the side of the road.  You quite naturally assume that he is stopping, and then suddenly, as you approach, the vehicle pulls right across in front of you, making a U-turn. (more…)

Anatomy of a corner, braking smoothly and more.

Unless you’re a drag racer, corners are what bikes are all about. They’re the holy grail and the bread and butter of biking, but few riders really understand them in depth. You can tell the ones who do – they’re faster, safer and have more fun than the unenlightened.

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Steering a bike’s easy

Steering a bike’s easy – you either lean into the turn, or turn the bars right to go right, and left to go left, right? (more…)