How to ride a motorcycle?

Riding a motorcycle, especially the two-wheeled ones, can be challenging particularly to those who are not familiar with riding a bicycle. Even with the experience of riding a bicycle, many people still felt it difficult to get used to riding the motorcycle as they are much heavier , runs faster and therefore also harder to control. In fact, it is virtually impossible to learn to ride a motorcycle just by reading a book, the best way to start learning is to go to a riding school where you will be trained by a qualified instructor that will minimize the hardships and the falls, making your learning experience less frustrating (and less painful *grin*). Riding schools are often equiped with many different types of bike for your to try out, therefore allowing you to get familiarize with different bikes, this will help you select a suitable bike later on when you are buying a bike for yourself.

There are however a few tips for the new begineer to get an idea how to start off.

1. Start with a learner bike, not a big bad wolf
Bigger bikes are well, bigger, harder to control, heavier and of course comes with a higher price tag. They are usually designed for more experienced riders that are already familiar with motorcycle riding. Bigger cc bikes can be dangerous for a beginner who is not skillful in controlling the clutch, this may cause the bike to go out of control rapidly and result in serious injury.

Although this may sound disheartening at first, but within a year or even a few months, most beginners would become experienced enough to learn to control bigger bikes.

2. Know thy bike
It is essential for any rider to know what each bike control does. So a good introduction on where the brakes are, for example should be done before anything else. It makes the entire process of learning to ride the bike much easier.

3. Learn how they work
After familiarizing yourself on where the brake, throttle and the clutch are located. The next step would be to learn how to use them to make the bike run.

4. Learn to balance
Even those with experience riding bicycles may be surprised of the challenge of balancing a comparably heavy motorcycle (I knew because I fell off the first time *grin*). The secret here is to sit upright so that you can maintain your balance and learn to control the leaning angle when turning. Otherwise, you’d be zigzagging your way to a crash while trying to balance yourself on the bike.

5. Wear your safety gear
Even experienced riders need to wear protective clothing that is why there’s no reason why beginners shouldn’t do the same. When practicing, they should be dressed to the nines - in protective clothing that is. At the very basic, every rider should wear a crash helmet, gloves and fully covered shoes (no slippers). Protective clothing and boots would be ideal if possible.

6. Get an instructor
Hiring a professional motorcycling instructor will provide you with the right techniques in riding correctly and safely to shorten the learning process, minimize your injury and frustration as well as highlighting the hazards to watch out on the road.