This week we talk about the 4 words and 2 principals that MCrider is founded upon. Every training video on MCrider falls under one of these two riding principals.
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How can we define what being a good street rider is? Being a good rider not only allows us to be safer but it also carries a sense of pride. When one can handle their motorcycle with skill and place the motorcycle exactly where they want it on the road at the exact time they want it there it will naturally help the rider feel pride in that accomplishment.
Many riders think they have better control of their motorcycle than they actually do. If you take traffic out of the equation it does not take a whole lot of skill just to keep the motorcycle between the white lines on a public road. Just about everybody riding a motorcycle can start, stop and negotiate a corner with some precision while keeping the motorcycle and themselves out of the ditch.
But, if you ask the question of what is a really good rider you will get a lot of different answers.
Some might say a good rider is Marc Marquez, one of the top riders on the MotoGP circuit.
Others would point to a friend who has been riding for 30 years without a single accident.
Others might say someone who practices their skills a lot or can get a knee down on a motorcycle, or goes to track days, or any other way we might measure the skill of a rider.
The difference in all those answers is what we use as the measuring stick to evaluate all of these riding disciplines.
This week on MCrider I want to discuss what I consider to be a good street rider. That is the focus of MCrider to help you be a better rider on the street. It is not as easy as being able to perform a u-turn in a certain radius or perform a quick stop within so many feet at 30 MPH. It can’t be measured with cone placement or with a tape measure.
And, if you have been paying attention to MCrider you might already have a pretty good idea of what I think constitutes a good street rider because it is at the foundation of every video released on this channel.
How many times have you heard me say what I just said here on MCrider? If you have been watching since the early days of MCrider you have heard me say that hundreds of times.
But in this statement I repeat the mission, the foundation, the crux of MCrider every time I introduce myself each week on MCrider.
It can be summed up in 4 words Road Skills – Road Strategy. It is not skill alone that makes a good rider and it is not strategy alone…it is the balance between the two that separates a good road rider from and average road rider.
First let’s define Road Skill and Road Strategy as I think they relate to street riding.
I would define Road Skill as the ability to control your motorcycle with precision, in order to navigate the streets and perform life saving emergency maneuvers. And, the ability to transfer some of these skills from the conscious to the unconscious portions of thought.
So, if you have to use constant brain cycles to shift the motorcycle up and down the gears you are not proficient yet in shifting gears. You should be able to perform this without much focus from your conscious thought.
Road Strategy I would define as the ability to ride on the street in a predictive manner creating for yourself time and space. A rider using good Road Strategy will rarely need to use their Road Skills to avoid a crash.
So, a rider using good road strategy is aware of their position and speed on the road in relation to traffic and potential threats and they use that information to increase their time and space on the road and the ability for others to see them on the road.
Road Skills and Road Strategy are not exclusive to each other for a good street rider. A good rider must develop and practice both of these disciplines to be a safer rider.
Let’s look briefly at Road Skills and Road Strategy and talk about how you can develop each one.
A rider who wants to develop their Road Skills will work on these basic fundamentals of riding:
Emergency Braking: this is perhaps one of the most important skills you can have on a motorcycle and one that few riders practice. A lack of proper braking skills leads to crashes from locking the tires up causing low or high side crashes or the need to “lay her down” I have also seen a video from a VERY popular motorcycle YouTuber say that he would jump off of his motorcycle if a car pulled out in front of him…I won’t mention names but it brings up an important point…Be careful who you listen to. I try my best to provide accurate information to you but if something doesn’t sound right here, investigate it for yourself and do some research…but especially investigate if someone ever tells you to jump off your motorcycle.
Hand in hand with emergency braking is swerving. Sometimes you can’t stop and swerving is a nice tool to have at your disposal.
Cornering: The lack of cornering skills is a huge cause for crashes on the road. One of the best places to practice that is at a teaching focussed track day. Some trash days are out there so you can go fast, some are out there so that you can work on your cornering skills. Do some research and find an instructor lead track day you can attend.
I will add to these road speed oriented skills slow speed control. Slow speed control like the slow race, off set weaves or u-turns are important to practice because they have that cool factor to them but it also forces you to use proper brake and throttle control, head and eye placement and body position on the motorcycle.
Notice I didn’t mention getting a knee down, stoppies, wheelies or any other cool to do tricks on a motorcycle. I call them tricks because as they relate to street riding I do consider them tricks. They have a purpose in other riding disciplines. Getting a knee down or extreme cornering is important on the track, wheelies are important for negotiating obstacles off-road but there value for street riding is greatly diminished.
And, if the other discipline of Road Strategy is applied they become even less important for street riding.
I think a lot of riders misunderstand what good road strategy is.
Many riders think riding slow is good road strategy, or going around corners extremely slow is good road strategy or always staying in the far right lane is good road strategy.
Sometimes applying good road strategy on the street will appear to the average rider as an aggressive move. For instance you are on the highway and a really slow car is in the lane ahead of you. In order to maintain following distance you would have to ride really slow as well. But someone using good road strategy will look for ways to get around that car in a safe manner but a purposeful manner. You don’t want to hang out around a car going really slow so either back off or get around them but do so with purpose.
Leaving intersections at a red light I leave the intersection with purpose and I get up to the speed limit usually much faster than the cars around me. This road strategy may appear somewhat aggressive on the road but it creates space between me and the traffic behind me.
A rider using good road strategy is always looking for ways to create time and space for themselves on the road and they are always asking the question “what if” and providing “I will” answers in real time. Road Strategy is as much an art form as it is a set of rules that can be applied in every situation.
Many people like hard rules to common situations, like what lane should I ride in when going down the highway? The correct answer is: I don’t know. How much traffic is there, how fast is the traffic traveling, what lane allows you to see the furthest up the road, are there any large trucks on the road.
All of those things play a role in the correct answer to the question of what lane you should be in. My general run for that question is how well can I see up the road and am I in a place giving others the best chance to see me. I am always able to see well up the road or I am actively doing something to make that happen, whether that is passing a car, backing off from a car, changing lanes, etc. My vision to see and predict road situations is primary and second to that giving others the best chance to see me.
So, as you can see there is no easy answer to what is the best lane to ride in.
I often see riders in the comments talking about their daily ride to work. Cars are cutting them off, pulling in front of them or slamming on their brakes in front of them. If I was a Doctor and you came in with these symptoms I would say you are suffering from poor road strategy.
Hear this: daily evasive maneuvers are not the norm for a good street rider. If your life is threatened daily or weekly or even regularly on a motorcycle you need to look at what you can do to fix the problem. And adjusting your road strategy is often the answer. In these situations it is not about improving your skills to avoid the crash it is about adjusting your strategy so you don’t need to employ your skills on a regular basis.
So we have talked a lot about skills and strategy in this video but a good street rider will not develop one of those disciplines to the detriment of the other.
A rider who has all of the skill in the world on a motorcycle who flies around corners well above the posted speed limit will eventually run into problems on the street. Even if they have the skill to take that corner at high speed 100 out of 100 times under perfect conditions, at some point there will be gravel the road, at some point there will be a car coming the other direction that drifts into their lane, at some point something crazy will happen and their skill cannot save them from a crash.
On the other hand an overly cautious rider trying to use good Road Strategy maintains following distance on the road even if that means following another car rather than going around them. Even if that car is 25 MPH slower than the flow of traffic. This causes problems with some riders trying to be safe but causing more problems for themselves by the speed differential between them and the traffic flow.
So a good street rider in my opinion is the rider who develops the skills they need to stay safe on the road and then rides in a manner that they rarely need to use those skills. It is a balance of skill and strategy and is also the foundation of what I try to teach here on MCrider.
