Surviving your first year on a motorcycle: part one

You are not yet legally allowed to drink. But you are allowed to buy and ride a motorcycle that can exceed 160km/h faster than you can update your Facebook profile.

That being the case, and taking into account the natural recklessness of youth, the risk of death or maiming is ever-present.

Yes, you’ve done your government-approved learner course, and you’ve successfully negotiated your way around witch’s hats inside a traffic-free environment, and good for you.

You’re now going to take your tiny little skill set and all your good intentions and head out onto the road. And out on the road, the learning curve is as steep as a cliff and just as forgiving if you fall off it.

So let’s not do that, okay? Here’s how you’re going to survive your first year…

Get your mind right
There really isn’t anything more important than this. If you aren’t on your game every second you’re on the road, then you will pay the price. And it’s a big price. So let’s start with the basics.

Pay attention. All the time. Even when you’re stopped at a set of lights. Stay in gear, watch your mirrors, be aware that being rear-ended by an inattentive driver is bad news if you’re on a bike, and certainly not your fault in a legal sense. But that fact brings scant comfort to you when you’re lying in hospital re-growing your bones with the aid of titanium inserts.

If your riding instructors have not told you to assume you’re invisible to your fellow motorists then they have failed in their duty. There is no scientific evidence that shows wearing fluoro clothing or bright colours makes you any more visible, and even the fact your headlight is wired on provides no guarantee a car driver will see you. In fact, having your headlight on all the time actually makes things worse for you in some circumstances.

If you’re backlit by the sun, your headlight is useless as an aid to visibility. And science does show that car drivers have trouble accurately judging the speed of a vehicle with its lights on. They might think you’re going slower than you really are and pull out in front of you. And once again, you’re legally in the right, but you’re eating hospital food again.

So roadcraft is your friend. You must and will learn to “read” the traffic. After a while you will develop a “Spidersense”, which will allow you to virtually predict what the cars around you will do. You will learn to watch drivers’ head movements, which are a good indication of what they’re going to do. If he’s moving his head from side to side, he’s probably going to change lanes. If his head is bobbing, he’s on his phone.

And do not assume he has seen you, even if he looks directly at you. The chances are he hasn’t even registered you’re there. In this light, there are sound assumptions and unsound assumptions.
A sound assumption is when you’re riding in a left-hand bus lane while assuming at any second some idiot will turn across your path into a side-street. Yes, it’s illegal for the idiot to do that, and the idiot is an idiot because he doesn’t know the road rules permit him to turn into that side street from the bus lane, but that’s something your lawyers will explain to the judge while you learn to eat through a straw.

Situational awareness you might call it. And it is crucial to your survival. A good example is when you pull over to the side of a busy road to take a pee, adjust something, or tell your mum you’re running late.

Firstly, mind where you’ve pulled over. If you’re on a freeway, get your bike as far over to the left of the breakdown lane as you can, then get yourself on the other side of the Armco. So if a truck takes out your bike, it won’t take you out with it.

Secondly, when you’re pulling back out onto the freeway or road, ride along the breakdown lane with your blinker on until you’ve matched your speed to the traffic. Then merge. Simple, huh? Perhaps not. So many people, young and old, just pull out onto a freeway at 25km/h obviously hoping drivers who are doing 110km/h will slow down or swerve to miss them. And that sometimes doesn’t work out well.

Lose the victim mentality. Disobey the law if obeying it puts you in danger.

If you are riding at the speed of the surrounding traffic then you are putting yourself at risk. Always ride a little bit faster. You are not ‘traffic’, are you? Car drivers are ‘traffic’. Do not be part of that.

Use your mirrors and also turn your head. Especially when changing lanes. Yes, bikes have blind spots, just like cars. It’s likely your instructors have told you about those blind spots and how you should not be in them.

Adopt the mindset that you are a risk manager rather than a risk taker. Do not succumb to the self-fulfilling prophecy that “everyone falls off” and therefore you will too and it’s only a matter of time. That is not a mindset conducive to good health.

And always remember that you and you alone, are responsible for what happens to you out on the road. It’s pointless blaming the road, or the driver, or God, for why you’re suddenly leaking your life out into the gutter.

It’s on you. It’s always on you.

Get your bike right
If you’ve bought a new bike, the only thing you need to do is make sure you maintain it properly. Make sure your tyres are good and your chain is tensioned properly. Do not trust bike shops to do this checking for you. Some do. Some don’t. At the end of the day, it’s your bike and it’s up to you to make sure it’s right.

Bought second-hand? Then you’ve got some money to spend before your bike is right. Yeah, someone told you motorcycles are an economical alternative to cars. They lied. They’re not.

Firstly, tyres. Horrible expensive things. But they’re the only thing keeping you out of the casualty ward. Tyres are pretty much crucial to your well-being.

If you’ve bought second-hand, the first thing you have to do is go and get new tyres. The hoops on your bike might look okay, but you have no way of knowing if they are okay. They may be old, they may have been poorly maintained, and like all perishable rubber products, they have a life span. You really don’t know where in that life-span they have become your problem, do you?

So get new tyres. Get the best tyres. Like oil, tyres are not something you can skimp on. And when you buy them, err on the side of grip rather than looking for hoops that will last 50,000km. Spend the money. Being a povo penny-pincher when it comes to motorcycle rubber is a zero-sum game.

Now go and sort your brakes out. Replace the pads, even if you’re told there’s “lots of meat” on them. That is someone else’s meat. You need your own meat.

Finally, while you’re probably tempted to buy a new exhaust can so your bike makes a better noise and you’re still a teenager so that’s cool, just hold off for a bit.

After you’ve sorted your tyres and your brakes, go and sort your suspension. This is a dark art that uses terms like “sag”, “preload” and “damping”. By all means research the meaning of these things, but it’s okay if you don’t ever quite grasp what’s going on. The measly few hundred you might spend on getting your suspension set up properly by a professional who knows what he’s doing is the best money you’ll ever spend on your bike.

That professional will set your sag while you’re sitting on the bike, ask you some questions about your riding, then ignore what you say because you’re a kid, and set the bike up to what he thinks might work for you. Then you take it for a ride, see how it feels and then he’ll ask you some more questions. He may or may not make some more adjustment to your pre-load and damping, and then you’ll take it for another ride. Eventually, you’ll be able to pick the changes he’s made.

Or you can try to do this yourself. We all do. Few of us have any success. Lastly, clean your bike from time to time. It’s a good way to see if anything’s come loose or something is leaking.

So that’s part one. In Part two we’ll look at your gear and some general principles to keep you out of the emergency department.