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Pope Mobile posted:Have I mentioned the bike at school that has no mirrors or indicators yet? It's been down on both sides (wouldn't be surprised if it's multiple times) too. I'm betting this guy is either a poo poo rider or he chose an R6 as his first ride. Probably both. I've been riding my bike around without fairings, mirrors, front indicators, or headlight for the past few days. Squidding, ahoy. 
BlackMK4 fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 23:26
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hermand posted:Is this a symptom of no training requirements, do you think? We certainly have crap riders over here, but you have to have some riding ability to pass your test. tl;dr no it makes next to no difference whatsoever from what I can tell.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:09
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Jackie the Mick posted:Oh man, I've been "Parking in Corners" since around this time last year. When there is snow and ice on the roads here (only a hand full of times a year) the city just dumps sand on the roads. When everything else dries up, the sand stays for weeks. I was turning onto a side street, minding my own business, when the front tire hit a patch of sand. It wasn't a terrible accident, but it was really surprising and I've apparently still not gotten over it. So, yeah, I go pretty slow through sharpish turns now because I'm scanning the surface for goddamn sand. It's pretty embarrassing. After I dumped the bike last summer--slammed on the brakes at 35 when a light turned yellow right in front of me, because I was stupidly worried about getting too far ahead of my girlfriend--I've been really nervy whenever I come up to a green light. I know that the accident was because I grabbed a handful of brake about 20 meters from the intersection, but I still find myself staring at the light calculating if I should stop or go if the light changed... now. Now. Now. Maybe now. I'm getting better about it now, basically training myself out of it by testing my stop distance as I come up to red lights: if there's no one behind me, I stop hard and a lot earlier than I normally would, demonstrating to myself that it only took me that far to stop and I still have tons of space. For a while there my heartrate would go up a lot and I'd get pretty tense whenever I approached a green light, but I'm feeling a lot better these days.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:27
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When a woman opened her door on me while I was splitting I got affected badly enough that I would get really nervous just crossing the street in front of my work on foot. I would look left, look right, look left, look right ad infinitum. This went on for a few months, I got really nervous in any sort of traffic situation, including driving cars around. My very first crash was in the rain, in a straight line, because I didn't know how to ride and was young and a dumbass and had a bike with very questionable tyres. I locked up the front, the bike immediately went down and I remember sliding along on my side, and later on my back, down the center of the street for around 60m. The bike slid much further and off to the side, hit the corner of a curb, catapulted into the air and came back down with enough force to bend the crankshaft. Despite having no injuries whatsoever (wear gear, dumbasses) I couldn't get back on a bike for several months and the first time I did, I was extremely reluctant to use the brakes or accelerator properly because I had this constant vision of the front instantly locking and going down the moment I touched the brake. Got over it eventually, now I seem to be able to brake harder than most people. I have no 'feel' for the tyres on corners, but I always seem to be able to feel how hard I can get away with braking before the wheel locks up.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:48
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There may be one less living person on my Facebook friends list by this time next year. A 22 year old male who just got his learner's permit in January in New York:  Five days later.   There is so much stupid poo poo I could screenshot from comment threads on his wall, but basically every friend he has who rides is terrible and needs to stop giving advice like "ride with guys who've been riding for years, that's where you really learn" in response to suggestions to take an MSF course. Abel Body, Mary Achi, and Holland Oats are all him. Thanks for being consistent, Social Fixer!
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Feb 20, 2014 02:08
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You know why supersports are lovely learner bikes? Because they don't have enough mid-range torque, and the gearing is too long, so if you remap the engine and get a wheelie sprocket it makes it much easier to learn on around town. Also, whether a bike is a good learner bike is determined by how much kick-up (wheelies) it has on acceleration. There is no other relevant metric. Pride, social status and colouring that matches your riding gear are of cardinal importance.
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Feb 20, 2014 02:17
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It's a pre 03 ZX6R - really not that big of a deal to start on.
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Feb 20, 2014 02:17
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I think the person riding it has quite a bit to do with what bike is a good starter bike. This guy? I wouldn't put him on anything bigger than a 125, self control isn't his "thing"
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Feb 20, 2014 02:27
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BlackMK4 posted:It's a pre 03 ZX6R - really not that big of a deal to start on. Suboptimal, still more than enough power to wear him like a hat, and like Slavvy said the track-oriented gearing requires more clutch skill than beginners have. That bike has the Kawi idiot-proof neutral finder so either his tranny is broken somehow or he's transcended mortal idiocy
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Feb 20, 2014 02:28
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BlackMK4 posted:It's a pre 03 ZX6R - really not that big of a deal to start on. I know you believe this with your heart of hearts, I used to feel this way too, until I had to actually teach someone to ride from scratch. Then you quickly realise that even bikes with a seemingly moderate amount of horsepower are utter deathtraps to an absolute beginner. Not even going into ergos, power delivery, gearing etc. You just feel like it's 'easy' to ride a bike like that because you're accustomed to riding much faster machinery and have so much experience under your belt that you can't remember what it feels like to have basically no control over the thing at all. I remember my mate, whose only riding experience was a clapped out dirt bike at the beach a couple of times, trying to ride my SV. This is a guy with a V8 BMW he routinely takes to track-days, athletic, intelligent, not what I'd call a coward. He said that in first gear, getting up over 3,000rpm there was such a massive rush of torque that it felt like it would get away from him, and after a couple of attempts to just ride it 100m up the street in a straight line, he gave up and duck-walked it back to me. From my perspective it looked like every time the bike would actually start moving under it's own power, he would chop the throttle for no reason whatsoever. When he walked it back to me I actually thought it had broken down somehow. If you have never ridden a bike before, or just ridden enough to get your permit, there is no way a zx6 (even an ancient, hosed one) is an acceptable starter bike. It may seem somewhat slow and archaic now, but back in the day it was still a fast, competitive bike. It's still got 100hp, is relatively light, has clip-ons and lovely ergos for learning, and is generally just extremely bad for it in every way. PCOS Bill posted:I think the person riding it has quite a bit to do with what bike is a good starter bike. This guy? I wouldn't put him on anything bigger than a 125, self control isn't his "thing" Also this.
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Feb 20, 2014 03:07
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I suppose you guys are right. 
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Feb 20, 2014 04:02
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I used to think that educating people about this stuff was the way to go (z3n is like the embodiment of that sentiment) but I now realise that my goal is to mitigate the damage caused to the reputation of bikes in general by morons. People who aren't idiots will ask for advice and don't really need preaching to. The idiots, on the other hand, need direct discouragement so as to lower the crash statistics and make people leave me the gently caress alone.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:25
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14 years ago I rode my first bike ever. It was my buddies katana 650. He had me in a full suit and gear in a parking lot teaching me the basics. After 5 minutes of clutch and rolling he wanted me to try some slow easy turns. 30 seconds later he was pulling the bike off me while I tried to struggle out of a bush 20 feet off the parking lot in a brushy area. His comment was "you held the wheelie for longer than I expected on your way out, now help me get this thing on the truck so we can grab my old 250. This is too much for you." I also had to shell out a grand to repair the damage I did. I wouldn't touch a bike for 12 more years when I bought my VLX to really learn on.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:54
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Unless it's someone I'm related to or very close to I basically just sit back and watch the magic happen these days. Too much good advice falls on deaf ears. Good source of cheap crashed bikes for the rest of us.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:43
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Spiffness posted:Unless it's someone I'm related to or very close to I basically just sit back and watch the magic happen these days. Too much good advice falls on deaf ears. Good source of cheap crashed bikes for the rest of us. I'm in the 'inner circle' of where I work, do all the side automotive/tech poo poo... and a top level guy brought in his little prodigy last month. I'm cool with the kid now - we are the same age and relate about a lot of things. Top level guy and prodigy go back to Chicago last week and the kid comes back with a 2001 R1 in pieces. Top level guy pulls me aside at work and tells me to help put the bike back together so the kid has some form of transportation - I told him I will do this but what happens afterwards is completely out of my hands and I think it's a loving terrible idea. This is his first bike. This can't end well. BlackMK4 fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 05:47
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PCOS Bill posted:I think the person riding it has quite a bit to do with what bike is a good starter bike. This guy? I wouldn't put him on anything bigger than a 125, self control isn't his "thing" My starter bike was an R6; I rode slowly, practiced turns in parking lots and back roads, and never really donged around too much. My peers were more interested in doing wheelies than turning properly, and almost all of them crashed their gsxr's and zx6r's within weeks of getting them. I think it really is the rider.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:08
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Mine was a 2001 CBR600F4i - I'd only ridden a YZ80 for a couple of years when I was much younger. Then again, I worshipped road racing and read/watched everything I could about it from like age 14 to 20.
BlackMK4 fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 06:12
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red19fire posted:My starter bike was an R6; I rode slowly, practiced turns in parking lots and back roads, and never really donged around too much. My peers were more interested in doing wheelies than turning properly, and almost all of them crashed their gsxr's and zx6r's within weeks of getting them. I think it really is the rider. Yeah in case some of you missed it, he already wiped out on it trying to ride a sportbike in the snow in western NY. I don't know exactly where he lives these days but he was living on a hill in a lovely part of my hometown last I knew, which means poor road conditions even for four wheels unless it's gotten better, but I doubt it. At least he did say he's going up to the Niagara Falls area for the nearest NYSMSP program in April, later on in one of the status updates. If he still has a motorcycle by then, maybe he'll be alright. Probably. Also I didn't want to mention it right off the bat and have anyone withhold their opinions to be polite due to it (I know, it's SA, not much of a consideration) but this is my little brother, so I have 22+ years of watching every stupid decision he's made and I just want to smack him and take that bike away from him before he dies on it. Our dad has been riding since before I was born, I've been riding for almost a decade now, most of the adult men in my family at least have their license even if they don't regularly ride (and one great uncle was hit by a drunk driver ~30 years ago and left for dead laying across the exhaust of his cruiser and wound up with almost no muscles in his arms due to pretty much being burned off through his leather jacket) so when I see him talking about motorcycles, knowing how he is... I just don't see it ending well. I don't think he even got his regular driver's license until about a year ago. If our grandma found out he bought a motorcycle she might literally die of worry. Anyhow, I don't want to go too E/N about it, I'm just a combination worried/annoyed about/at him. I wish it wasn't icy here, I could use a few hours of strangling my throttle.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:38
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red19fire posted:My starter bike was an R6; I rode slowly, practiced turns in parking lots and back roads, and never really donged around too much. My peers were more interested in doing wheelies than turning properly, and almost all of them crashed their gsxr's and zx6r's within weeks of getting them. I think it really is the rider. I thought that too as I started on a FZ6. I rode for years thinking I was 'fine'. Then I read more about riding and started watching videos. I got a 250 for my sister to ride on as well, since the fz6 was definitely too much bike fer her. Riding that 250 taught me that I was uncomfortable as hell on my fz6 and that riding 'fine' isn't riding well. That ninja taught me to ride and I'm 100% improved on bigger bikes because of it. If your goal is to be able to take a cruise then by all means, start on a bigger bike and just take it slow and putt it around. But what's the fun in riding a fast bike slowly? If you're looking to become a competent rider the smaller bike is always the better choice. More forgiving of mistakes and it teaches you how to take a corner as opposed to exiting the corner and twisting the throttle to get back to speed.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:55
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edit: ^^^^^ I never expected to hear that coming from you. You're ok in mah book  PCOS Bill posted:Meathead brother. Slavvy fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 07:05
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My brother went in a totally opposite direction. He has been talking about getting a bike for years but hadn't up until last summer. My stepfather found him a shiny red Puch that was stored in a neighbors shed for years. He got it running and gave it to my brother. I've never gotten so many selfie+bike pics and excited texts about how awesome riding is and how much fun he's having. He's at the "throwing a kit" stage now so he might be ready for a Ninja 250 in a few years.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:17
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Bugdrvr posted:My brother went in a totally opposite direction. He has been talking about getting a bike for years but hadn't up until last summer. My stepfather found him a shiny red Puch that was stored in a neighbors shed for years. He got it running and gave it to my brother. I've never gotten so many selfie+bike pics and excited texts about how awesome riding is and how much fun he's having. He's at the "throwing a kit" stage now so he might be ready for a Ninja 250 in a few years. This is adorable.  and This seriously makes my lovely week so much better.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:36
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Slavvy posted:
Haha, no. He's ... actually, I haven't even seen him in like th.. tw... a few years now. Crap. Maybe four even? Last I remember he was about 4-5 inches shorter than me, and built like a string bean. He's been working manual labor type jobs for a few years so he's probably gotten stronger. I'm fairly certain I could take him in a fair fight but he was only 13 when I left for college so it's not like I have much to base that on. "Back home" is a few hundred miles away, and it's not worth a trip just to go yell at him in person in the winter. It wouldn't do much other than waste a few tanks of gas, anyhow. He hasn't listened to me once in over two decades that I can remember.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:17
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Slavvy posted:I used to think that educating people about this stuff was the way to go (z3n is like the embodiment of that sentiment) but I now realise that my goal is to mitigate the damage caused to the reputation of bikes in general by morons. People who aren't idiots will ask for advice and don't really need preaching to. The idiots, on the other hand, need direct discouragement so as to lower the crash statistics and make people leave me the gently caress alone. Some people just can't be educated. Three days ago I went to do my final exam for the unlimited license, and there were two of us riding the Kawasaki R6 (piece of junk). The other guy was there for the 6th time, and still failed to overtake me when he shifted to neutral (no idea for what reason) and completely lost control of the bike. Needles to say that he failed the exam. After the exam was over i gave him the only piece of advice I could: just give it up. it's not for you. Needless to say I passed and got my unlimited license 
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Feb 20, 2014 11:04
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adary posted:Some people just can't be educated. Three days ago I went to do my final exam for the unlimited license, and there were two of us riding the Kawasaki R6 (piece of junk). The other guy was there for the 6th time, and still failed to overtake me when he shifted to neutral (no idea for what reason) and completely lost control of the bike. Needles to say that he failed the exam. After the exam was over i gave him the only piece of advice I could: just give it up. it's not for you. As an ex-MSF instructor, drat straight some folks just can't be taught. We had a lady that fully grasped the concept of throttle/clutch/brakes, but for her life could not balance on two wheels. At 46 she had never ridden a bicycle, horse, walked a straight line heel to toe, balanced on and walked along a curb, or even ever been on the back of someone else's motorcycle. She had no clue how to find her balance, and coupled with being afraid of the throttle we couldn't get her going fast enough to balance the bike. After the second time she dropped the bike while waiting for an exercise to begin (engine was off and bike in neutral), it was kindly suggested that she go learn to ride a bicycle and come back to us when she had that down. Met her a year later, still hadn't tried to learn to ride a bicycle, went to another MSF facility and was counciled out there as well. (She thought it was funny the second place also suggested she try and learn to ride a bicycle.)
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Feb 20, 2014 13:36
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Skreemer posted:As an ex-MSF instructor, drat straight some folks just can't be taught. We had a lady that fully grasped the concept of throttle/clutch/brakes, but for her life could not balance on two wheels. At 46 she had never ridden a bicycle, horse, walked a straight line heel to toe, balanced on and walked along a curb, or even ever been on the back of someone else's motorcycle. She had no clue how to find her balance, and coupled with being afraid of the throttle we couldn't get her going fast enough to balance the bike. After the second time she dropped the bike while waiting for an exercise to begin (engine was off and bike in neutral), it was kindly suggested that she go learn to ride a bicycle and come back to us when she had that down. Met her a year later, still hadn't tried to learn to ride a bicycle, went to another MSF facility and was counciled out there as well. (She thought it was funny the second place also suggested she try and learn to ride a bicycle.) At least she was not as bad as a bunch of 16 year olds that tried to run each other over while i was practicing figure-8's
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Feb 20, 2014 13:50
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Skreemer posted:As an ex-MSF instructor, drat straight some folks just can't be taught. We had a lady that fully grasped the concept of throttle/clutch/brakes, but for her life could not balance on two wheels. At 46 she had never ridden a bicycle, horse, walked a straight line heel to toe, balanced on and walked along a curb, or even ever been on the back of someone else's motorcycle. She had no clue how to find her balance, and coupled with being afraid of the throttle we couldn't get her going fast enough to balance the bike. After the second time she dropped the bike while waiting for an exercise to begin (engine was off and bike in neutral), it was kindly suggested that she go learn to ride a bicycle and come back to us when she had that down. Met her a year later, still hadn't tried to learn to ride a bicycle, went to another MSF facility and was counciled out there as well. (She thought it was funny the second place also suggested she try and learn to ride a bicycle.) I'm pretty sure my local MSF course (through a community college) specifies you have to know how to ride a bicycle before signing up. I want to teach my girlfriend how to ride (she really likes being a passenger and motorbikes in general), but she can't/won't try riding a bicycle as an adult, so... that's as far as that goes.
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Feb 20, 2014 13:56
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adary posted:Kawasaki R6 (piece of junk).
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Feb 20, 2014 14:35
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I'm pretty sure my local MSF course (through a community college) specifies you have to know how to ride a bicycle before signing up. It's so weird as a dutch dude to hear about adults who can't ride a bicycle, or even repelled by the very idea of it. 
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Feb 20, 2014 16:20
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KARMA! posted:It's so weird as a dutch dude to hear about adults who can't ride a bicycle, or even repelled by the very idea of it. It must just a subset of Americans. I can't think of single Canadian I've ever met that didn't ride the poo poo out of their bicycles as a kid.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:29
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Slavvy posted:Pride, social status and colouring that matches your riding gear are of cardinal importance. I would feel like such a twerp if my bike and my gear were the same colour.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:44
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My GF never learned to ride a bike AND didn't get her license until she was 34. Guess the bus and hoofing it are good enough for some people.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:04
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I dated a woman in college who knew how to ride a bike but insisted she didn't know how to shift nor did she want to learn. Few things have ever made me so irrationally annoyed and exasperated. Even now I get a little worked up thinking about it. Edit: And this was before fixie hipsters, at least where I lived. She had gears, she just thought she was better off not using them.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:19
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She must've either lived somewhere very flat or had calves like a tree trunk.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:24
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I'm pretty sure my local MSF course (through a community college) specifies you have to know how to ride a bicycle before signing up.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:52
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Backov posted:It must just a subset of Americans. I can't think of single Canadian I've ever met that didn't ride the poo poo out of their bicycles as a kid. I was born in the mid-80s in America, everyone I knew, even the poorest kid, had a decent bicycle that we'd all get together and just ride around on for hours if we weren't all in the woods. My family lived in one town and had a house on the lake the next town over (maybe three miles away, small towns) that was generally the destination for a ride with me and my two best friends, before we moved to the lake house when I was 10 or so, then it was riding the three miles to meet up with my friends before riding bikes for hours and then back home. It was the same for pretty much everyone I've ever talked to in the US around my age as far as living on a bicycle went. Can't speak for kids today, but there are a few kids in my neighborhood with bikes, though I live in a hilly city now so they mostly don't go further than our street.
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Feb 20, 2014 18:36
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Zool posted:What? That's the best bike ever! After countless students that rode it, and probably fell over with it countless times, it's a piece of junk. New ones are awesome
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Feb 20, 2014 18:46
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PCOS Bill posted:I was born in the mid-80s in America, everyone I knew, even the poorest kid, had a decent bicycle that we'd all get together and just ride around on for hours if we weren't all in the woods. My family lived in one town and had a house on the lake the next town over (maybe three miles away, small towns) that was generally the destination for a ride with me and my two best friends, before we moved to the lake house when I was 10 or so, then it was riding the three miles to meet up with my friends before riding bikes for hours and then back home. I don't think that there was a single kid in my class back in last 70's early 80's who didn't have a bicycle and didn't know how to ride one. Even today all the kids in my family have bikes and know what to do with them
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Feb 20, 2014 18:49
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What the gently caress is a kawasaki R6.
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Feb 20, 2014 18:57
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Slavvy posted:What the gently caress is a kawasaki R6. ER6 I missed the E in the first post where I mentioned it
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Feb 20, 2014 18:58
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