Well this section needs a first post...

[Steve]

What I learned today?
How about what I learned 4 years ago:

DO NOT FALL ASLEEP ON A BIKE WHILE ON A MOTORWAY.
(Or while moving at all actually)

It hardly ever ends well.


That's today's advice for noobs.

 

[badger27]

i agree with that! my brother fell off a scooter due to snoring ~#ya dope !

 

[xt660isgood2]

Not today but 34 years ago....Don't ride your Suzuki AP50 with massive great flared jeans (or any other bike for that matter)......because when you pull up at lights to stop, your jeans get caught in the rhs kickstart lever and you can't then get your foot on the ground. And the bike and you just slowly fall over to the rhs and bike lies on you trapped exhaust burning your leg as mates laugh and take the pi**
To this day that lesson has stuck and whenever riding in boots with lacers I always ensure they are well tucked in "still got the burn scar!"

 

[grimgraysky]

Not today but 34 years ago....Don't ride your Suzuki AP50 with massive great flared jeans (or any other bike for that matter)......because when you pull up at lights to stop, your jeans get caught in the rhs kickstart lever and you can't then get your foot on the ground. And the bike and you just slowly fall over to the rhs and bike lies on you trapped exhaust burning your leg as mates laugh and take the pi**
To this day that lesson has stuck and whenever riding in boots with lacers I always ensure they are well tucked in "still got the burn scar!"

Almost happened to me with a lace, but managed to push down hard enough to rip thru it. Rookie mistake to not tuck them in.
I totally hear u on the falling slowly bit, feeling of utter helplessness sets in at about the 60 degree angle. Lol

 

[Lonerider]

I learned last fall to not take too seriously helmet's review. I bought a Shoei Qwest because they told that it was a quiet helmet. Maybe for a sport-touring bike but for an unfaired bike as the MT/FZ it's a noisy helmet (mainly from the bottom). The only good helmet review site i trust now is: Motorcycle Helmet Reviews - ebBikeWorld

 

[xt660isgood2]

I learned last fall to not take too seriously helmet's review. I bought a Shoei Qwest because they told that it was a quiet helmet. Maybe for a sport-touring bike but for an unfaired bike as the MT/FZ it's a noisy helmet (mainly from the bottom). The only good helmet review site i trust now is: Motorcycle Helmet Reviews - ebBikeWorld

Yep same here, bought a Shoei Qwest 3 months ago, comfortable but not quiet. On a lighter note: had a wasp fly up my sleeve a couple of weeks ago. Stung me twice! little devil

 

[sdrio]

Not today but 34 years ago....Don't ride your Suzuki AP50 with massive great flared jeans (or any other bike for that matter)......because when you pull up at lights to stop, your jeans get caught in the rhs kickstart lever and you can't then get your foot on the ground. And the bike and you just slowly fall over to the rhs and bike lies on you trapped exhaust burning your leg as mates laugh and take the pi**
To this day that lesson has stuck and whenever riding in boots with lacers I always ensure they are well tucked in "still got the burn scar!"

As someone who 32 years ago had a fizzy, I'd just say 'don't ride a Suzuki AP50'.

 

[dazzor]

I keep re-learning that I am not as good as I sometimes think I am....regardless of how long I've been riding and how many miles I've covered

Humility - possibly my biggest saviour.

 

[sdrio]

I keep re-learning that I am not as good as I sometimes think I am....regardless of how long I've been riding and how many miles I've covered

Humility - possibly my biggest saviour.

I try to think the same way, but it doesn't stop me thinking other people are idiots.

I seem to do something at least questionable, if not completely stupid, at least once a day though.

 

[dazzor]

I try to think the same way, but it doesn't stop me thinking other people are idiots.

I seem to do something at least questionable, if not completely stupid, at least once a day though.

Ditto: I think that's a huge part of why I am no longer on rev-hungry 4's and even 3's. Loved the STR though.

Sometimes I'm behind another biker and he, or she, will be weaving in and out of traffic that in all honesty is moving at a sufficient pace, that in my opinion, equates to little more than pure inpatients....anyway.....I then see said biker shake their head disapprovingly when a car driver attempts to change lane and perhaps didn't see them squiring between lanes at what could be considered an usually high speed in such a short space. Sometimes the biker will be really p1ssed off and gesture aggressively because of the massive injustice inflicted upon them.

I then realise this is sometime how I act....Hopefully not so much these days.

How selfish and arrogant am I to think everyone on the road should be super-vigilant (Perhaps we all should but another thread perhaps) so that I can perform stuff you wouldn't pull on a track for fear of breaching etiquette.

I am speaking for myself here, nobody else.

 

[sdrio]

Ditto: I think that's a huge part of why I am no longer on rev-hungry 4's and even 3's. Loved the STR though.

Sometimes I'm behind another biker and he, or she, will be weaving in and out of traffic that in all honesty is moving at a sufficient pace, that in my opinion, equates to little more than pure inpatients....anyway.....I then see said biker shake their head disapprovingly when a car driver attempts to change lane and perhaps didn't see them squiring between lanes at what could be considered an usually high speed in such a short space. Sometimes the biker will be really p1ssed off and gesture aggressively because of the massive injustice inflicted upon them.

I then realise this is sometime how I act....Hopefully not so much these days.

How selfish and arrogant am I to think everyone on the road should be super-vigilant (Perhaps we all should but another thread perhaps) so that I can perform stuff you wouldn't pull on a track for fear of breaching etiquette.

I am speaking for myself here, nobody else.

Haha. No, you're speaking for me as well.

The one I get a bit stupid about is people tailgating me. It's a red rag to a bull when I'm not in the mood for it. I don't do the tyre smoking brakechecks on cars, even I'm clever enough to realise a ton and a half of car up my backside is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts them, but I will slow down to a crawl then gun away when I'm satisfied I've annoyed them appropriately.

Of course 99% of the time they've no idea why I did it, and just think I'm an idiot. 99% of the time they're probably right.

 

[dazzor]

Haha. No, you're speaking for me as well.

The one I get a bit stupid about is people tailgating me. It's a red rag to a bull when I'm not in the mood for it. I don't do the tyre smoking brakechecks on cars, even I'm clever enough to realise a ton and a half of car up my backside is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts them, but I will slow down to a crawl then gun away when I'm satisfied I've annoyed them appropriately.

Of course 99% of the time they've no idea why I did it, and just think I'm an idiot. 99% of the time they're probably right.

Yes, that gets to me too. Of late, I tend to indicate off and pull over, allow them to pass and pull back out....invariably I pass them in no time at all as they are stuck in traffic and I can filter. If I am being particularly childish, I may give them a sarcastic wave as I leave them behind. Whether they actually realise I am saying "See, all that up my ar2e b*****ks got you nowhere" is entirely another matter.....I like to think so.

But often I try to rise above it all, let them have their 20 seconds of being "in front" and carry on with my journey without incident.

 

[TJ63]

Don't either of you ever go to France. Tailgating seems to be a national sport over there .

Even I learned to turn a blind eye to it eventually, and I hate it as much as you.

 

[dazzor]

Don't either of you ever go to France. Tailgating seems to be a national sport over there ;-).

Even I learned to turn a blind eye to it eventually, and I hate it as much as you.

Good to know....... God bless the French


Surely a biker is especially entitled to be agitated by tailgating....as we are most physically vulnerable when such plumbs invariably can't cash the skill-cheques their impatient ego's are writing?

I know plenty of car-driving folk who understand that giving way to, or simply creating a gap for a bike is a short-lived commitment...... as we will soon be off and away beyond their remit of progress in today's traffic conditions.

 

[xt660isgood2]

As someone who 32 years ago had a fizzy, I'd just say 'don't ride a Suzuki AP50'.

Yep the fizz was a good ped also. But I could never get my head round the gear sequence.......seem to remember it was "4 down?" as apposed to the AP's "1 down, 3 up?" along them lines anyway.
And yes, all x fizz/ap owners wish they kept them as we all know what they are worth now. (paid £250 in 1979 and sold around a year later for the same, obviously with added spanny chamber!)

 

[Chillipom]

The spanny box was 'de rigour, Lots of noise but not much on the performance front in my experience

 

[Eddieh93]

No offence but how on earth do you fall asleep riding a motorbike?!

I understand a car your sitting down warm with music on but on a motorbike you have wind blast, excessive noise, not warm (by any stretch of the imagination) and you have got to balance!?

One of the main reasons I feel safer riding a bike than I do driving a car.

 

[robodene]

Today I learned that you can not only be undertaken but you can be undertaken via a LAY-BY. Oh, yes! Following a line of cars at about 50mph where overtaking is impossible, I became aware of a car beside me to my left. WHAT?! Yep, and he only just made it out of the lay-by by me letting him in - he was not going to be stopped. He remained in the queue ahead of me for miles. Idiot (but better him in front than behind me).

 

[sdrio]

OK, as this one has resurfaced, back to the Fizzie tips.

What I learned on a cold November night in 1983. Or thereabouts.

The following is a bad idea.

5 or 6 of us had just got mopeds, and one of them (let's call him Darren) only managed to get a Garelli Bimatic, which has dynamo powered lights.

This Garelli even by contemporary standards was slow. We all had Fizzies or (spits with contempt) AP50s, so because he was so slow, we used to make Darren go in front, so we wouldn't keep losing him around the twisty Gloucestershire country lanes where I lived at the time.

This all worked fine until one day Darren with his 3 candlepower headlamp missed a bend, and shot through a hedge into a field. I say shot, it was more a sort of 'pushed through at a spirited pace' kind of thing, but anyway, as we were not paying any more attention than any other 16 year olds would, we all followed him through the hedge and landed in a large pile of swearing, exhaust pipe burning, laughing fit to piss ourselves carnage.

Fucking Darren. If he'd had the brains to do a paper round, he could have bought a proper bike.