The biggest problem with our motorbike

Welcome back Miss! Today I am starting a new column as an instructor, in which I will try to get you interested in the mysteries of motorbike riding. We will discover how to become accomplices of our beast, instead of frightened passers-by. Motorcyclists full of awareness, and therefore confidence.
And don’t worry, I’ll even get to explain those fateful downhill hairpins!
This column is aimed at all curious enthusiasts, from beginners to experts, and today’s is an introduction, with which I want to introduce myself and try to capture your curiosity.

But let’s start in order, let’s talk about your bike: is it not going as you would like?
Yet whatever motorbike you ride, if kept in order and relatively recent, it will ride well.
Do you have doubts about that? Hand it over to Valentino Rossi and you’ll see that it will run great!

I guess you see where I’m going with this, even if it burns a lot to realise that the biggest problem with our bikes is us.
Nick Lenatsch in his ‘Sport Riding Tecniques’, with this lapidary sentence, literally destroyed me! And I am still thanking him for it.

Try to think: what’s the first thing you do if you don’t like a bike? Modify it: adapt the bike to us, change that … something. I don’t know, the handlebars, or the seat. The tyres! Come on, it has to be the tyres, they say it on all the forums.

Or sell it, change it. Let’s spend that money! The next bike will definitely be the perfect bike for us… or so the ego tells us, the annoying little monkey in our brains, which I will help you get to know better in one of the next episodes.

Actually, the question we have to ask ourselves is much more painful (but it is the beginning of our growth): am I doing something wrong?

The answer is: you are! We all make mistakes when driving. The problem is that few want to admit it. And how can you improve if you don’t realise you’re doing it wrong?

AND SO MY DRIVING IS A DISASTER?

Don’t despair, there is also good news: fortunately, we also do a lot of things right! Without us, the bike wouldn’t even start, wouldn’t shift gears, wouldn’t corner, wouldn’t brake.
So here is the second revelation: we are the magic that makes our bike work.

Now there are no excuses: it is our precise duty (and pleasure!) to understand our riding and improve it, one brick at a time, to find confidence and fun in the saddle of our beloved companion of adventures.

BUT SO GETTING BACK TO THE BIKE, IS IT PERFECT AS IT IS?

No, it almost never is. But how can we know if it needs to be modified if we don’t know how to sit in the saddle and what are the right movements to make when cornering?
We cannot know. We would start modifying, spending, patching up problems we don’t even know about.
Here’s another sore point about motorbikes: money doesn’t solve everything.
Well, it’s also good news, though, isn’t it? It means we don’t have to be rich to ride well. The solution lies somewhere else: within ourselves.

SO WHERE TO START?

In my experience, the best money spent since I started riding motorbikes is money invested in quality riding courses.
I say this because I have already given: before I got to take my first course, I spent a lot of money chasing ghosts. If a bike wasn’t going ‘as I said’, I would put up with it for a while as it was and then change, certain that the new bike would be ‘better’. And it wasn’t.

I was always in the fast group on the road. I had already read several riding books, done a couple of track rides.
Yet at the first driving course, which I signed up for in order to improve, I had an epiphany. With the instructor flailing and stopping me making me realise that we weren’t really there, I realised that yes, I was going fast, but not because I was really that good: I was driving above my capabilities. At what (only in my opinion) were decent speeds, I was no longer in control of my bike.
Translated simply: I was playing jokers every single time I got on the bike. Not good.

SO WHAT WAS MISSING?

Any particular finesse, any tricks of the trade? No. I lacked the basics. I considered myself an experienced rider, but experience does not imply growth. I realised that I had a lot to learn and I rolled up my sleeves, but believe me, I had a lot more fun. Now if I go fast (and that’s what I like most), I am in control of my bike, and I have fun. I’m also going much faster than before! I know I have a lot to improve, and where.

I also realised an insidious danger that lay at the root of my passion: I gave more weight to adrenaline than to skill, I confused risk with riding pleasure. Perhaps some of you recognise yourself in these words.
And I repeat: I was passionate about motorbikes, and by my standards I was learning as much as I could! Yet, to the attentive eye of a good instructor, nothing escapes. I was really convinced I was doing certain things! I had not been told that by dint of driving without awareness, one also learns mistakes.

When we are freshly licensed, we are told a nice little fairy tale: ‘now just do some kilometres, the more you drive, the more you will learn’.
Yet I imagine you know several people who have been driving for many, many years, and they drive really badly. So what went wrong? Are they ‘in denial’? Perhaps they consider themselves ‘prudent’? Or maybe no one has ever bothered to give them any tips. Maybe someone gave them that nice patronising advice, like convincing them that they had already reached their limit, that it wasn’t their thing. So that someone did great damage!
If they convince us that they can’t do something, or if they teach us to do it the wrong way, that’s the reality for us until proven otherwise. And it is difficult to contradict people we are close to, or who have more charisma than knowledge.

THE INFAMOUS GUY AT THE BAR

Follow me in this provocation: let’s pretend that we no longer remember how to open a door. A guy at the bar (the one who talks the loudest) politely, but very confidently, explains to us that you can open a door with your head, for example. It will take time and a lot of patience, you will certainly get hurt, and the door will also be damaged, but you know, that’s how it’s done and you have to take that into account. In fact, surely in time we will learn where to headbutt for maximum effect, and how to hurt less. We will become better at giving headers. Sooner or later the door will open. Or maybe we will tire of it first, who knows, but on the other hand, headbutting doors is not for everyone.

Of course, we could have asked someone else for help: he might have explained to us that just turning the key, and then the handle, would achieve the same effect in the minimum of time, without damaging us or the door.

Do you understand what dead ends we can end up in, and how much energy we can waste? One can really learn to find a ‘science’ within incorrect driving. We can improvise wacky rules that seem to work in the absence of anything else, and we can follow them religiously like a cabal or a rain dance, since they have always worked so far. But the slightest hitch would sweep them away like a house of cards, at which point we might end up thinking that ‘the problem is others’ and it doesn’t matter how hard we try.
Or we could simply follow the advice of that guy in the bar who likes to talk loud and too much (and certainly doesn’t know he’s doing it wrong) and tells us with authority and pride, his chest puffed out: ‘I NEVER use the rear brake!
This may sound strange to us, but then why do motorbikes have them? But this guy has been riding for 30 years, and he speaks with such conviction! He must know what he’s saying.

IN CONCLUSION

Well, if you don’t want to remain in the group of motorcyclists who open their doors headfirst (and without a rear brake, of course) and this introduction of mine has whetted your appetite, keep following me!
I have in store for you, beginners or experts, a whole series of appointments, one more useful than the other, with which to begin to understand your riding better, to find confidence and have more fun, to overcome the challenges that worry you the most and to find a nice smooth riding rhythm where you are comfortable.

We will look at riding position, riding psychology (cool), cornering and braking techniques, surfaces.
Before the season is at its peak, you will have discovered a lot of things to try! And maybe who knows, you will feel like doing a course in your area, to see if you have understood and where you can still improve.

You never stop learning! See you soon.