05-14-2016, 01:50 PM
I learned to ride the old fashioned way. Trial and (often painful) error. My first 5 years of riding were peppered with newbie gaffs that often led to replacement parts and some healing time.
About 10 yrs. ago a friend was teaching a local motorcycle safety course and I sat in on the class one weekend just for fun. I found that the basic skills that they were teaching the new riders would have probably prevented 3/4 of my early goofs. It seemed to me that learning the ins and outs of motorcycling in a classroom/parking lot setting was much more efficient than learning those lessons one at a time on the road.
I always recommend that new riders take the course, with the caveat that it will not make them an expert rider in one weekend. Only that it will likely keep them from making the most obvious newbie mistakes. The rest is up to experience. I tell them that they start out with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before the bag of luck is empty.
About 10 yrs. ago a friend was teaching a local motorcycle safety course and I sat in on the class one weekend just for fun. I found that the basic skills that they were teaching the new riders would have probably prevented 3/4 of my early goofs. It seemed to me that learning the ins and outs of motorcycling in a classroom/parking lot setting was much more efficient than learning those lessons one at a time on the road.
I always recommend that new riders take the course, with the caveat that it will not make them an expert rider in one weekend. Only that it will likely keep them from making the most obvious newbie mistakes. The rest is up to experience. I tell them that they start out with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before the bag of luck is empty.