Ducati Monster Forum

What was the most helpful riding tip/piece of advice you have ever received and who was it from?

Misti

Delayed Apex corners, from David L. Hough in his book Proficient Motorcycling.

That has made a bigger difference to my riding than anything else.

"ride your own ride" - ducpainter

Head and Eyes, Friction Zone, Rear Brake.

Ride like a Pro III.

"look where you want to go" -my MSF instructor

Ride like everyone else on the road is trying to kill you.  Don't remember who said it, I think it was on one of our safe riding stickies.

+1 This has probably saved my hide more times than I care to remember.


"Ride like you're invisible"   -TOB

look where you want to go... over-look your turns to build the habit

oh, and EVERYONE wants to kill you

I think all of us riders have been given this piece of advice from at least one person in our riding careers!  It is a good tip, but I wonder, what does it mean EXACTLY?
I know that it means that you have to be extra careful of all the other vehicles on the road and extra vigilant, and pretend that you are invisible, but how does it actually HELP us with our riding?  What do we do differently when we are riding like everyone is trying to kill us?

Misti

In traffic I always ride staggered so that if someone decides to swerve into my lane they will miss me.

I assume people on side streets are going to pull out in front of me and try to hit me (I cover the brake in this situation and sometimes even stay in a lower gear so that if I have to I can WOT and gtfo of there. (Same applies for the inevitable left turn in front of me)

Keep the bike in gear and off to the side at red lights while watching my rear view mirror in case the try to get me from behind.

Stuff like that. I try to ride like I'm ready for the cager attack. Ever vigilant.

to me it means you have to constantly be scanning the road for hazards, cars, pavement, sidestreets, etc.. you basically have to constantly be aware and checking rear view mirrors for cars and cars passing you.

you have to look at cars and drivers constantly to see fi there are indications if they are turning braking or ready to swerve or change lanes.

i think the thing that it makes us do is simple. It reminds us to pay more attention, it makes us aware that we can't slack off no matter how experienced we are we have to be as attentive if we have 30 years of experience or 30 minutes of experience and that riding is a full time attention job, your mind CAN NOT wander at all from the task of riding.  That you constaly have to remember and implement the basics of body position, smooth throttle control and braking, looking through corners, picking good lines, scanning the road not target fixating, basically  constantly reinforceing the things that are taught in track school but doing it every single minute.  notice how a lot of those things are exactly the same things that "twist of the wrist" hammers into you the entire book to become "a better rider"

at least that is what the line of "ride like nobody sees you" means to me and is how i use that line to help my riding.

but i would say the most helpful tip that i learned was apply throttle smoothly through a turn, amazing how that actually works.

that and 'trust your tires they will hold'.. that is another great tip. that helps you actually make the turns that sometimes you thin kyou are too hot going into but you aren't you have to trust your tires.

"If you ride long enough, you're going to go down at some point. It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when'. Everyone hits the ground eventually, so dress for the crash not for the ride."

"Your motorcycle is happiest when you're on the throttle or off the bike." 

--Stefan Still

This REALLY saved my hide when I almost lost the front in some sand on the street.  Chopping the throttle is the natural--and worst--reaction.  I just got on the throttle smoothly and everything straightened itself out.  The rear obviously spun up a bit on the exit, but so what? 

Lots of great tips already mentioned.

Another one is keeping your arms relaxed and loose.  Tension is BAD.  Use your legs and abs instead, especially on the downhills.

Abs??!!?? >:( Awwwwwwwwwwwww   I'd rather [drink]

Everything is done with intent, or a plan, so when things go south you only need to react to that, not whatever it was you were doing before as well.  Every corner has a turn in point, an apex, and an exit so when the car crosses the line on the sweeper, or the gravel appears, you're not in the middle of adjusting your line and can react.

Stay alive  [evil]

ducpainter already posted my favorite, so I'll just add another that I like:

"In slow corners, I go slow"  --Freddie Spencer

fast riders have slow hands.

look through the turn, if you notice little grooves or intricacies in the pavement you are practically target fixating, and that can result in an bike repair. look through the turn.

quicker flick on turn in.   CSS school.

haven't felt the "oh shit I'm in too hot" on the street since then, even when I was going faster than I should have.    A fast turn in instead of a lazy turn in got me leaned over quicker instead of still getting to full lean as the corner is going by and I'm running wider and wider.

This quote is used by Aaron Stevenson, who is the owner and lead instructor of Cornerspeed.

Not really advice, but a statement I got from somewhere on this or that other Monster site...

"Your second year of riding is more dangerous than your first..."

eg. don't get overconfident.

And of course, the most posted piece of advice here...

"Ride like everyone's trying to kill you"

Ohhhhh this is a really great point!  I like it.  It implies that you have a plan, that you stick to the plan and that way, you have more time available to react to unknown situations than if you went into the corner without a plan at all.  I agree that every corner has a turn in point, and apex and an exit and when riding I try to ride from one point to the next as smoothly as possible.  When you have a plan for each corner then your riding is more predictable than if you didn't have a plan going in.

I think of the term "ride like you are invisible/people are out to kill you" to mean that I need to use my vision to see the spaces available rather than the spaces that are taken up by other bikes or cars.  What I mean by that is that I try to widen my vision to allow me to see all the parts of the road that are open and free of cars, bikes or other dangers.  I see where they are NOT as opposed to where they ARE.  This tends to give me a lot more options and a lot more space.

I remember one time I was complaining to my friend that cars kept cutting me off because they were all such stupid drivers.  He said, "it's your fault." And I was so mad at him for suggesting that until he said this, "you should be able to see it coming before it happens, you should plan for it.  It's like a video game and you need to see things happening before it happens.  you need to pretend that everyone is going to pull out in front of you.  you need to see where they are NOT going to be instead of where they ARE going to be. 

After that, no one ever CUT ME OFF, because I knew it was going to happen.

I find this helps with passing other riders on the track as well as dealing with unexpected things happening on the street as well.

The thing with visual skills is that they need to be practiced.  Are there ways that we can practice these skills while riding?

Misti

The best way I know of to practice anticipating what others on the road are going to do is to get on the road myself.  Whether on the Monster, in the cage, or even on a bicycle, you can practice it.

As you get more confident, switch to roads with more traffic. 

Sorry I'm stating the obvious...but have to get that post count up too. [roll]

Yes, it's good to be scanning far ahead and trying to guess what everyone is going to do, whether you think it will affect yourself or not.  As big ed said, you can practice all the time, whether driving or riding, or even being a passenger.   It's also good to get in the habit of looking beyond the road itself.  Those kids playing on the sidewalk may suddenly dart into the road after a ball, and a car may suddenly swerve to avoid hitting them.

Recently I was being driven by a friend, I could see ahead that roadwork was affecting traffic on the other side of the road, but cars were moving into our line (far ahead of us).  I told him he might want to slow down, he didn't see why, and then got closer and had to stop quicker than I would have.  It reminded me how much my visual skills have improved from riding.

And splitting lanes is kind of the ultimate "video game" using your analogy...you have to be totally focused, get in the zone, and be watching signals, brake lights, wheels turning, gaps in traffic, head turns, shoulder turns, sudden grabs of steering wheels, road surface conditions between lanes, etc.  Add in darkness and/or bad weather conditions and it goes up a few notches.

i was telling my wife this the other day.  there was a car about 3 up from us that was itching to get into our lane, thereby causing an accordion effect of brake lights.

it's like you just start to feel what everyone around you is going to do and how it will affect everyone else.

Get full liability and comp insurance....my bike was stolen a couple of month later and the ins covered it.

Shiny side up.

"look where you want to go" Lee parks book.

+1.. This one's a must.

My favorite is: "Many riders spend thousands on suspension components to try and achieve perfect handling on their bikes. What many people fail to realize, is that learning smooth throttle control is the BEST suspension mod you could ever do..."   -Keith Code

Seems like the two main things that keep coming up (just worded slightly different) are visual skills/situational awareness and smooth throttle control.  I like this quote by Keith and it reminded me of a funny situation I encountered when I was working with a student at Barber Motorsports Park.  The student kept complaining that he was bottoming out the suspension and scraping his foot peg going into turn two and that he needed a stiffer spring and needed to make suspension changes and needed a new bike and needed to loose weight and on and on and on, but what I was seeing him do was delay getting on the gas  in the turn, he was just coasting,  which meant that all the weight was on the front and none was being transferred to the back of the bike.  I finally convinced him to just work on rolling on the gas as soon as possible in the turn and he finally admitted (Sheepishly) that he didn't bottom out or scrape the footpegs when he got on the gas early in the turn.  I told him he had just done a suspension modification on the fly :)

Of course, there are some times when you do need to change up your suspension but a lot of times, as mentioned, good throttle control, is the best (and easiest) mod you can make.

 [wine] Misti

Good stuff. Here's the ones that I'm a big fan of (may be repeated):
- Late apex
- Looking ahead
- Look where you want to go
- You are the reason you're getting cut off all the time
- Slow in, fast out
- Advanced techniques (knee down, trail braking and the like) aren't for the street, until you have no other option to save your ass so practice them!
- You're invisible & everyone's out to kill you
- Squeeeeeeeeeze, don't grab the brake - My MSF instructor drilled that one into me, THANKS!
- Smooth on the throttle and everything else too
- Don't depend on others to save your life (loud pipes, loud clutch, loud horn), you are the only one you can depend on
- Any idiot can go fast in a straight line
- Be polite to others, just because it's your right, doesn't mean you should every time (1 bike per car park? That's just rude)
- When you stop learning, stop riding
- All the gear all the time

* Every time you go out on the bike, you could end up dead. Tell your family you love them before you leave.

"Always make sure you have a way out." - my room mate

"Don't panic!" - Douglas Adams

"If you find yourself goin' down, LET GO OF THE BIKE, and for God's sake ROLL! Friction is bad." - Dad

 [thumbsup]