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Enhance your driving skills

Sunday, June 28, 2009 @ 11:25

Motorcycle driving license

Just after passing the test and getting the driving license to the motor cycle, bikers just want to ride and go for rallies, coffee meetings or to get some touring experiences. It is all about getting the thrill and excitement of the wide open roads when exploring - that is what we finally have been waiting for.

Among the motor cyclists there are many re-born bikers. I am sure those who saw Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, have been dreaming of the US highways ever since they exchanged the motor cycle with a pram. Now the kids are gone and have their own motor cycle, it is time to get back on the road. Just remember the riding skills might been a bit rusty, and the bikes now have more speed potential.

Safe ride

So how to get a safe and pleasant ride out of it? The personal safety has always been on top of my mind when I have been riding my bike. Not to say that I always kept within the speed limitations given by our government. What I mean is the gear, and nothing less than full protection is acceptable. Not doing the jeans/sneaker trick. Imagine how your legs will look like after at tarmac tattoo...

Motorcycle safety

In Denmark we have a some organizations offering training to you and your bike. The most popular ones are a week-end training program on a closed course. Here the training is about breaking, evasive actions, defensive driving style, gear and safety check of your motor cycle. A bunch of qualified guys made the www.mc-sikkerhed.dk. To motivate you to join a training like this one, just ask yourself a simple thing like maneuvering you bike. How confident do you feel when you have to move around with it in the garage? The balance and confidence of off-bike maneuvering is one of the things you learn during the week-end training. And this is really an important key to feel confident on the bike.

As you may not all understand Danish, try Google Language tools, which can translate everything. Then you also get the chance to improver your PC skills...

Driving course

After being on this training course, hit the road and get some experience. This really enhanced my riding skills, why I wanted to try out some more on track days. That was thrilling and breathtaking. Also I really learned that the motor cycle was not the biggest limitation when cornering. I learned how to understand and get a feeling of my VFR´s limitations and behavior. It was not racing, it was a serious training about ideal curves, how to approach a corner and how to be confident with the bike when it is not straight up-side-down.

I now got the bad habit of watching the tires on the motor cycles I see, just to watch what angel my fellow bikers reach when they ride in the corners. And by the findings, I can see a lot of potential in going for the track day training.

OK - I am not entirely fair, as we are not all born to be swing kings, but when the confidence level increase the pleasure of riding the bike also increase, and you fully focus on the fun instead of being nervous of maneuvers, corners and breaking.

Watch those Italian police officers. Would just all bikers be as good handling the bike as they do. 

 

Have a fun training,
Jan

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