Gaining Courage

Okay.. here's my deal. I just purchased a '95 Cow EX500. It's comfortable, moderately powered and it's not in perfect cosmetic shape. A great starter bike, imho.

I'm scared to corner. I love riding and I love motorcycles. I owned and rode offroad motorcycles when I was younger but never got a street bike. I accidentally dumped a buddy's older ninja on 40 degree pavement (winter project that he finished and we both took rides on it, mine being the latter of the two rides). I was doing 10 miles an hour around a 90 degree right hand turn and the rear tire just slid out from under me.. Whoops :)

So now my issue is I'm very skittish to trust the tires to stick on any pavement.. How do you go about learning limits? Because if you OVER estimate, you're effed, if you under estimate, you ride like I do.. lol.

First step would be to take an MSF course and play with their bikes for a while. As far as your bike, make sure the tires are in good, useable shape and not worn or dry rotted. Change, or have changed, the front fork oil. this is a widely overlooked maint. item that will transform the handling of the bike if it's never been changed.

And lastly, you have to trust your bike and tires. Smooth inputs into the bars are important. One thing I always remembered when learning to lean it way over is that every motorcycle made is designed to lean at least far enough over that hard parts will touch ground. If nothings dragging, you have room left to lean over. You need to be looking all the way thru a turn to look for road debris (which could have caused your last mishap). Target fixation is another big cause of wrecks that didn't need to happen. Simple, you go where you look. Sound silly, but it's almost a force of nature. If you lock onto a curb, railing, tree, etc.. with your eyes, that's where the bike will travel. They will teahch you all this at the MSF course, and more. It's all just a learning curve man, hang in there.

lol.. at LEAST til the hard parts touch, eh? it'll be a while before i can trust the tires to do that.
They're fairly new. Only one season on them and the bike was garage kept by the previous owner.

I definately plan on the MSF course. I've already contacted them and I'm waiting on the brochures to arrive. I'm planning on the beginner and intermediate courses (one where I use their bike and then use mine).

I think the biggest cause of my mishap was a combination of 2 things. A: very cold pavement/tires. They just weren't warmed up (which brings me to another question, how do you warm them up properly in cool weather and how long does it generally take?)
and B: a very small dropoff of pavement height from main to secondary roads.

Thanks again for the advice and I'm excited about really getting into riding. it's just a matter of time.
-Brady

Change, or have changed, the front fork oil. this is a widely overlooked maint. item that will transform the handling of the bike if it's never been changed.

Maybe that is why my bike kinda pulls when i turn, you can feel the handal bars pull the way you are turning. But how do you change the oil in the fork?

why do you need to change your fork oil for?

keep it on the back wheel and you don't need to worry!

Lol Shit If I Could!!! To Damn Scared

U turn from dead-stop sucks, I can do it only half the time. How do you guys do it so fast?

well... fastest way involves spinning the back tires... lol. no, i wouldn't suggest that (but it is). U turn from dead stop sucks... best bet? avoid it. but if you have to do it just keep your feet down while in 1st gear start to roll a little (like no gas, just the clutch 1/2 way or so off) and turn the handlebars all the way to wichever way you need to go (or as far as you can turn them and still feel in controll) and let the bike pull itself, just use your legs for support. you may have to watch how far you turn your HBs ...depends on your own ability to hold up your bike. the farther you turn them the more it wants to fall down -- U turn left it wants to fall over on the right. i try to U turn only to the right because my ancle is messed up on my right leg lol.

thats about how i U turn. the other way is to lean it to one side and spin the tires... it WILL spin around... fast. and it really does not take much spin to do it. like 2 seconds and you are around and moving lol. just, um, let off the gas at like 3/4 of the 180... otherwise you will highside or go farther than you wanted. you should end up still leaned on one side... you cant let it get all the way upright because it is going to want to flip on you when you stop it (rather, when it stops spinning). in fact if you are comfortable doing it you can make it were it ends up being upright. at any rate, no, i dont suggest this when you need to turn around, i am just saying its the fastest way.

Well i feather the gas as i turn, that will help alot. It's funny reading this. I remeber my first right hand u-turn. In Fl that is something you will never do, but it's on the test. So i was like ok i can do this. hahahaha yeah right, I droped it right on the muff. I was kinda pissed but o well had to see if i could do it.

my dad just got back into bikes and is scared shitless.

hes done 33k's in two weeks

i took him out to a carpark in a university where there were no cars at all
3hrs of starts from lights and full stops, u turn from stop and moving u turn. now he's more confident in his ability.

while teaching him i had to concentrate on my style and what i do is

1) clutch in till almost all the way around and the bars are starting to point in the direction i want to go in.

2) ride the back brake

3) no front brake while turning

4) rev slightly to keep balance

hey, that's kinda what i said, without the braking thing. But now i think about it, yeah that's what i do.

I think the biggest cause of my mishap was a combination of 2 things. A: very cold pavement/tires. They just weren't warmed up (which brings me to another question, how do you warm them up properly in cool weather and how long does it generally take?)


-Brady

It depends on how cold it is and how warm the pavement is. When it is below 50 or so, the tires don't seem to ever warm up to where the grip improves much. With experience, you will learn your limits in varying conditions, cold, wet, dry, hot...

The best way to put heat into the tires is by accelerating and braking. If you watch a race, you may notice that during the warm ups, some riders will get on the throttle and then hit the brakes. They may do this several times in a row. Doing this puts heat into the tires real quick.

cool, thanks Kennedy. I went riding on Sunday (in Ky) and it broke 50, I felt a lot more comfortable on the tires and I got a little more aggressive in the corners... one of the things that reassured me how sticky the tires were was to just give the back brake a quick hard tap, if it broke free easy, it was obviously not very sticky and vice versa.. when it really bit down and braked hard, I felt a lot more confident.

actually when I made that post, I learned complete u-turns in two days. I was kinda nervous, considering people went down before. fortunately, it wasn't my case, I can turn the bars full-lock on either side, and feather the clutch and gas. I never use brakes, because that can lead to disaster, if you brake little too much while fully lock in either direction, chances are you'll go down. on my left side u-turn, I managed to learn that if I simply put my right foot on peg, and leave the left one on the ground for balance turning, I can lean the bike faster. the right-hand u-turn just feels unnatural, since the balance of the foot, clutch is far away, and throttle is sticking to gas tank, harder for me to control.