Suggestions for a "confidence builder" course?

Hey all - my wife started riding last spring - did her M1 exit training at Centennial and has been riding since. Her first season she rode about 7000KM and this season she's approaching 6000KM, but that'll probably be about it.

For someone who had never sat on a motorcycle before I'm very proud of her - she's rode a lot of places, down some pretty challenging roads (a 30KM stretch of gravel in Quebec this summer comes to mind, LOL), and through some challenging weather including torrential rain..and has taken it all in stride with a smile. I've watched her confidence and skills build slowly but surely, and this summer I noticed that she's getting low-speed maneuvering nailed, avoiding the stereotypical duck-walk you often see amongst low experienced riders in parking lots, etc.

But, at speed, she's still a bit timid in corners, even big long sweepers.

I think some of this may be my own fault as I did tell her from the very beginning that one of the biggest causes for single vehicle motorcycle wrecks is "Failure to negotiate corner", and I'm sure any experienced rider here will have at least one story to tell of coming in too hot and having a pucker moment. She's very safety conscious so I suspect this is still in the back of her head.

Regardless, especially when group riding it is a problem - sometimes big gaps open up in the formation which presents additional risk for the group if a car tried to pas and jam its way in there. Even just following me solo sometimes she falls back in corners.

I've been very cautious to say much about it aside for some gentle prodding as I do NOT want her to over-ride her abilities and get in trouble as a result. I recognize I have several decades of riding experience vs her so I have to be conscious of the fact that she's still somewhat green. It's been a very fine line....although honestly, corners that she might take at 70K (in an 80K zone) are often rideable at 100+ even on a cruiser with appropriate lean and application/removal of power.

Anyhow, my point - is there any confidence builder courses out there that could help her overcome these fears and build the skills necessary to manage corners more confidently next season? Track (in it's pure/racing form at least) is NOT an option - she would most certainly not be into that for a variety of reasons. Ideally I'd like something along the lines of an advanced rider course akin to the M2 college training setup, but more aimed at intermediate riders looking to hone skills and build confidence.

Sharp Rider offers the Lee Parks/Total Control courses which are very good for riders using their own bikes.

RTI offers a technical course which is small classes and is done with riders using their own bikes as well.

Both courses mentioned above are parking lot setup with a great deal transferable to the street.

Awesome, exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

Any experience with both - IE will she be out of place with a Vstar 650, surrounded by young kids with gixxers and such? I'm worried she'd be somewhat self conscious making mistakes.

PrivatePilot said:

Awesome, exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

Any experience with both - IE will she be out of place with a Vstar 650, surrounded by young kids with gixxers and such? I'm worried she'd be somewhat self conscious making mistakes.

Click to expand...

Sharp has a facebook group and i think cutekill? on here helps run it. I've seen photos of naked bikes and some tourers.

You seem to be a pretty accomplished rider yourself. Is there any reason you can't coach her?

Are you guys connected with, say, Senas when riding? Can you talk to her while riding, offering tips? Can you find open sections of parking lots and practice things like looking through turns, exercises in avoiding target fixation etc?

When i did the rti tech course, we had four riders - 2 sport, 1 sport tourer and a standard. All could do the course easily and we were all not young kids. Depends on the class however speaking to the instructor, only more serious riders take this course. That being said, i highly doubt she'll be out of place.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com

The SharpRider course should be right for her.

The "failure to negotiate corner" thing is also referred to as "failure to turn" (by our very own Rob McLennan). The rider freaks out for whatever reason and either target-fixates on what they think they're about to hit, which of course they then promptly hit, or they freeze and do nothing, or they fail to look through the corner at where they want to go, and thus don't go to where they want to go. Often it's simplistically stated "just lean more", but really what's needed is to just LOOK more, at where you want to go.

On a recent Deals Gap trip we had two incidents related to "failure to turn". One rider (part of our group) who was a first-timer there, and who has put on a decent amount of mileage in corner-starved Ontario but did not have much experience in corners, took a wrong line into a left-hand corner (Too close to the center line) and ended up on a trajectory aimed towards the edge. He could easily have turned more (again, by looking through the corner) but ended up with wheels on the grassy edge ... and that ended up with him sliding on the pavement and the bike over the edge. Fortunately, damage to bike and rider was insignificant (mostly hurt pride and a lesson learned) although it needed a tow truck to haul it up from over the edge ... and thanks to a GoPro, we could point out step by step what went wrong afterward The rest of our group all have track experience.

The other incident involved a H-D rider coming the other direction who blew a right-hand corner and came very close to head-on with one of our riders. The H-D's mirror struck our rider's elbow. This could have ended much, much worse.

Blackfin said:

You seem to be a pretty accomplished rider yourself. Is there any reason you can't coach her?

Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. I have coached her on many things before and after rides and she has taken the advice and learned from most of it, but when it comes to the gaps and "keeping up" it has become a bit of a hot button issue where I've mentioned it enough times that she's now getting upset at being told, so I figure some third party training would be the next step - she has always been open to formal training and I think she may realize it would be beneficial.

Blackfin said:

Are you guys connected with, say, Senas when riding? Can you talk to her while riding, offering tips? Can you find open sections of parking lots and practice things like looking through turns, exercises in avoiding target fixation etc?

Click to expand...

We do have intercoms but she doesn't like to be coached while riding - she interprets it as me "telling her what to do" while we are underway for some reason...so I just leave it at that instead of pushing it.

Curiously I observed this summer in various group rides that it seems to happen less when she's following someone else as opposed to me, but even that is inconsistent. Her corner confidence is very erratic - sometimes she keeps up perfectly with no hints of concern for hours (no matter where she is in the group, or even just us together), but then all of a sudden she seems to lose that confidence and the gaps open.

This summer I aimed to at least be understanding when it happens (again, I'd rather she ride within her confidence/skill and not wreck) but then speeding up after the corner and closing the gap - that has been somewhat successful, but I'd really like to strengthen the underlying confidence issues.

Brian P said:

The rider freaks out for whatever reason and either target-fixates on what they think they're about to hit, which of course they then promptly hit, or they freeze and do nothing, or they fail to look through the corner at where they want to go, and thus don't go to where they want to go. Often it's simplistically stated "just lean more", but really what's needed is to just LOOK more, at where you want to go.

Click to expand...

"Just lean more" is something I have worked with her on this summer and did yield some improvement, but as per my last response she seems to understand it but sometimes just doesn't have the confidence to practice it.

About midway through last season (so she was quite new still, maybe only 2000KM under her belt at that point) she did almost lowside her bike while leaning hard through a tight (but slow) corner when her crash bar (of all things) scraped the ground hard. It was due to a really weird combination of the angles of both the turn, and the asphalt - weird camber on the road against the way she was turning coupled with, yes, a lot of lean...which is what she had been trained to do when she wanted to tighten her corners, as she needed to do in this situation. She recovered in that scenario without dropping the bike (and I think her training kicked in as she did straighten up and slow down immediately) but I'm left wondering if perhaps subconsciously that incident has led her to be afraid of leaning too far now despite the fact at higher speeds you'd never get the crash bar to the ground short of having a 60+ degree lean happening.

Very similar situation with my wife. We've spent lots of time in the parking lot doing tight, slow speed stuff and she's gotten quite good at that, but she's still very conservative setting her speed into corners on the road, especially if visibility is restricted at all.

She took the Sharp Intermediate course this season and had a positive impression of it, but it sounds like most of the exercises were things that we were already practicing. I think the ARC 2 course would probably offer more of the higher speed exercises.

PrivatePilot said:

Awesome, exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

Any experience with both - IE will she be out of place with a Vstar 650, surrounded by young kids with gixxers and such? I'm worried she'd be somewhat self conscious making mistakes.

Click to expand...

I have not taken the RTI course, but have heard good things from those whom I trust.
I have taken the whole Total Control courses and they are a total mixed bag of types of riders in each group. Some cruisers, some V-Stroms, some sport bikes etc. Some riders have track experience and some riders only have straight line Ontario experience. The course is well set up to allow each rider to build upon whatever things they are already doing and improve, so it's not a competition, but more of a practice, practice, practice type thing. She should not be self conscious making mistakes. The primary focus is on vision and looking through the turn and body position as you prepare and travel through the turn. It's all slower speed stuff, but again, highly transferable to the street.

Similar to Brian's story above, I used to go to Deals Gap every year and while I could move a decent clip down there, I wasn't smooth or in proper control with many instances of 'almost incidents'. After taking the courses, I can safely say that I have far greater control and much improved smoothness, all the while moving at the same speeds I was riding earlier. It really helps to take a course where you can use your own bike as well.

PrivatePilot said:

About midway through last season (so she was quite new still, maybe only 2000KM under her belt at that point) she did almost lowside her bike while leaning hard through a tight (but slow) corner when her crash bar (of all things) scraped the ground hard.

Click to expand...

Have you considered getting her off of a cruiser and onto a naked bike or more standard riding position? Cruisers have an approximate average of a 26 degree maximum lean angle. A naked should have at least 40 degrees. Should alleviate any corner ground clearance issues she has - physically and mentally.

Not sure why you have dismissed track, i would suspect her riding a cbr125 with a Racer 5 course would do her the world of good.

She will learn more being taught by someone else, nothing against you or your abilities but that's just the way it is.

A little tip i learned from an experienced rider(on youtube of all places)

Its not enough to 'look where you want to go'. I use my nose as a literal compass, and keep it pointed where i want to go, and i find this works really well, just keep it pointed EXACTLY where i want to go

Case in point, you can look left with your eyes while your head is turned right


+ 1 on advanced rider course as well

There are plenty of group rides that do 200-300km per day, some have expert riders that will work with novices on some of the basics. I've seen a few rider improve dramatically by doing this. If you're in the east end, TTSR and Epic riders (find them on Meetup.com) often have group rides that accommodate riders who are still building confidence. The ride sweepers are willing to help and are patient, there is no pressure to keep up with the pack. With TTSR, one of the organizers, Bob aka Deer Slayer hosts a lot of short moderate pace rides that include sweepers and a few twisties, these rides are great for beginners.

I've done the Sharp Rider with Cutekill and Lee Parks, and it was worth it. Try one of the courses next year, and try the other the following year if you don't like it.

Rumour has it that women are smarter than men, and therefore tend to go slower around curves.

OP - my advice - stay out of groups - that's what is hurting her confidence.
By all means the courses are good and both of you might have fun on an off pavement adventure using their bikes.

Groups suck....ride your ride.

"teaching" yoour partner is fraught ....trying to find a more experienced female rider for some two some rides with her alone lets her experiment without being under your critical gaze.

She'll always be second guessing while you are around. It's great that you two are putting on good riding seasons.
Do you have SENAs ??? Being able to chitchat is ideal - puts a whole different face on riding and she should set some routes or just wander in the lead.

My son and I worked out systems where on a twisty stretch he wanted to boogie and I wanted to play tourist he'd power on ahead and I'd ride my pace and he would wait at an obvious spot.

Let me photograph etc and on occasion play chase tho keeping pace with him is a fading memory.

She'll decide if she wants to give chase or not ..it will be her decision...

Putting her in a group is simply all wrong and it's become a hot button ...so lose the group. IMNSHO

I'd vote for RTI, racer5 looks awesome and I'm sure a really good thing , may be too 'track' oriented for her comfort.

As others have said , you can coach her, but only to a limit, then it just gets ugly (been with same girl 35yrs, trust me)

if you need to ride with a group, make it a very small group

Story time!

I dated a girl who never drove in her life. A year after I got my M2, she got hers and got a 250. Some how during the rain, she slid out while going straight. We never figured out why aside from it possibly being she chomped on the rear brake too hard. This event led to a huge loss of confidence for her. She'd always get left behind in turns, was afraid to go too fast, and had stiff limbs while riding.

A year later, four of us decided to go to Racer5, including her. On the second day, it became apparent that we could not pass her if she wasn't getting off the gas. One friend actually rammed into her while trying to because he was focusing so hard on passing that he forgot where she was. When I asked her how did she get so much confidence, she said that being in a closed-course put her mind at ease and she knew going down wasn't going to hurt (much), so she might as well push.

Post Racer5, she had no issues dive bombing any corner if she felt the need to, going so far as to send sparks flying from her stock 250 exhaust scraping the floor

I vote Racer5.

Racer5 is by far the best learning option, but it's not going to be for everyone. The time (3 days) and cost investment is quite large for a casual rider, and you have to be willing to crawl into a race suit. I dragged my wife along to watch me at one of their endurance races this year and I think she got more interested in the idea of taking the course once she saw the number of female instructors and participants. She also got used to the fact that basically no one looks good in a racing suit, but everyone is having too much fun to care. I'd still be a bit surprised if she signed up for the introductory course though.