First riding season mistakes I made | GTAMotorcycle.com

First riding season mistakes I made

justride

justride

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Make sure you tie/ tuck in your shoes lace or better yet get some proper riding boots. My laces got caught when tired to put my foot down and down I went.
Do forget to put you drain plug back after changing the oil. I ruin my jeans and also created a hazard to fellow riders.
Going wide in a corner. I did this on 400 series highway in the greater Toronto . Learn how to keep the bike from going wide around the corner at high speeds
Wearing just jeans for riding pants. I seen on this website and others the damage road rash can do. So I going pick up some riding pants this spring.
Pulling in the clutch around slow corners. I was working and continue not to do that. later
 
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Heated grips.
Will easily extend your season by another month or two.
 
justride said:
Make sure you tie/ tuck in your shoes lace or better yet get some proper riding boots. My laces got caught when tired to put my foot down and down I went.
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Forgive my complete n00b ignorance but how did you go "down I went" because of a shoelace? You and the bike?

If I am comfortable with riding, I hope to wear sneakers on hot summer days in the city. But would want to "go down" on a shoelace?
 
The laces tangle up in the shift or brake levers and your foot doesn't go down and you fall over.

Sneakers have no ankle protection.
 
I've had that sort of thing happen a couple of times with my Anthem overpants. As overpants designed to be able to go over boots they have a sort of "bell bottom". Once in a while that bell-bottom gets hung up on the peg feeler on the left side, preventing my leg from easily getting to the ground. I've not "gone over" because of it but have spooked myself a couple of times.

Way back in the Bronze Age I used to wear a pant-leg protector to keep my pants from getting fouled in the chain of my bicycle. It looked like this:

pantclip.jpg


I might check out something similar for the Anthems this year...

IMO, unrestrained laces on a motorcycle are just asking for trouble. It suggests that the footwear is just running shoes which will over zero protection in an off but the laces can also get fouled. I have a set of Exustar riding shoes/boots (cover the ankles) which are laced but they also have a Velcro "wrap" that entraps the laces and keeps them out of the way. Get some decent footwear...
 
Oh, I see. So essentially, if your laces get tangled up and you don't realize it, you'll trip getting off the bike or potentially pull it down with you. Yuck.
 
Not to mention if your laces aren't tied the sneaker still provides more protection when it is on your foot than when it comes off because the laces are untied and the sneakers come off immediately. But then again if someone wears sneakers they obviously don't care bout their feet and ankles.

Get proper boots.
 
IMO, with all the great riding boots on the market at so many price points, wearing laced running shoes to ride is completely insane. I won't even consider a laced boot.
 
I had an off in a pair of Vans skate shoes way back in the day. When the dust settled, I was laying in the gravel on the shoulder in my socks. Both shoes laying on the road 200' away. Buy what you want.
Btw Strangely enough, when I left the house that morning I really had no immediate plans of crashing...:D


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marktwothousand said:
Oh, I see. So essentially, if your laces get tangled up and you don't realize it, you'll trip getting off the bike or potentially pull it down with you. Yuck.
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Not quite. The laces get caught up, so that when you come to a stop and go to put your left foot down to hold up the bike, your foot doesn't make it to the ground and the bike just keeps tipping over and down you go.
 
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sonnythebull said:
Retards ride in running shoes or less
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What about my skate shoes? They have more padding than running shoes... Old habits I guess.

Simple fix for the laces issue is to put them behind the tongue on your shoe, or tuck them into the side of your shoe. Whichever feels more comfortable... (I started doing this right after I had the same problem in my first season)

other first season **** ups:
- pulled into my driveway, got off the bike and walked 10 steps to the front door when I heard a crash... (lesson, use the kickstand dumbass) i dont know how it stayed balanced for so long
- left the bike parked in a freshly paved lot and not in gear on a hot day, came back and the bike was on the ground. The stand sank into the pavent, bike rolled fwd and fell. (lesson, put something under the kickstand like a crushed beer can or park on concrete and leave it in gear... dumbass)
- Pulled away from my gf's apartment, started to turn and heard a scrape. Next thing i knew the bike bucked me sideways and i dumped it. (Lesson, make sure your kickstand is up before riding away... dumbass)

Hope these little lessons I learned when I was 18 will help some new riders out.
 
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you mean something along these lines?
2008_sidi_vertigo_corsa_boots.jpg
 
justride said:
Not yet. I gotta save up. Not sure if it can get any better than the Sidi boots shown.
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If I owned those boots, no matter how hard I crashed, they'd always find my feet...:D


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You can do much better than sidi boots Daytona's are much more protective and don't have all the Lego glued on.

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LOL, I hate to bring up another Star Trek reference, but those big boots could totally work with a Klingon costume.

But seriously, if I could bring this thread back down to earth here. I'm really concerned that as a newbie, I'm gonna drop my bike at a stoplight. This is now my main concern about riding. I already almost dropped a bike at a dealership-- I sat on it and because only my toes could touch the ground, I almost let it go to the right and knocked over another bike, but I saved myself somehow, I guess just by strongarming it back up, and luckily the dealer was there to help me right it.

But my question is...if I'm really stuck on the road and I damage the bike or simply have no way to pick it up after a fall, I will need a roadside assistance program. Right now, I have Canadian Tire Roadside assistance, but their program does not cover motorcycles. Does anyone know a cheap motorcycle-only plan that anyone has?

CAA has the PLUS membership, but seeing as I already have the CT for my car, I don't wanna be paying for two memberships if I don't have to. CT is non-refundable. In the future, I'll probably just get CAA PLUS, but for now I think a motorcycle-only plan would be more cost effective. Does anyone know if any such plan exists anywhere, how much, and with who?

Thanx!
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