August 5th, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
Learn 2 Ride: Day 2
Today we got to sit on the motorcycles.
After reviewing the different parts on the motorcycles, we mount them:
- standing on the left side of the bike, grab the right handlebar
- lift your right leg over the bike
- straighten it out and upright
- raise the side stand
Then we start the bike using FINE-C
- Fuel switch - to ON
- Ignition - Key to ON
- Neutral - Make sure its in neutral
- Engine Shutoff - to ON or RUN
- Clutch / Choke - Clutch pulled, Choke if needed
- The Start Button, now you press it
We did drills practicing letting the clutch out and using the “friction zone.” Then we did drills using the friction zone to get us moving and we walked along with the bike, “power walking” under the bike’s power. Soon we were allowed to lift our feet up and put them on the foot stands. We did that a bunch of times back and forth and then progressed to more starting and stopping drills to practice with clutching and stopping. Nice easy stuff that makes sure everyone is at the same point. Then we got to do some longer distance runs were we could actually get some speed, like 15mph or such. Next we added shifting, which is still a bit odd to me because of the whole clutch with hand / shift with foot instead of the other way around thing. The three hours were up after a few runs where we shifted into 2nd.
All in all it was a fun day, and the weather cooperated by providing a nice breeze the whole time.
2 Responses to “Learn 2 Ride: Day 2”
To me the hand clutch seems natural. I have a lot of control that way.
I also like the sequential shift - much easier than the craziness you get in a car. Would you like to shift up, or down? That’s it… that’s all you get.
By Burns August 5th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
shifting craziness in a car?!
you put it in the gear you want and its in it! You can always tell what gear you are in just by feel.
I also like how I have never had to shut my car off to get it back into neutral, but that is what we were told to do in class on the Honda bikes. They don’t like to go into neutral once they are running so the only way to really get them out of gear is to shut the engine off, shift into neutral and start the engine again. We had to do that at each end of the course / track area so we could turn the bikes around.
By justin August 6th, 2008 at 8:23 am