New poll: Crashing constantly?

How many times do you fall off your bike every year

So, how many times a year do you tend to fall off? We'll go into how you crash after this... that one should be fun, eh?

Poll results: When do you wear your helmet?

I've basically nothing left to say on this subject. I am hoping against hope that the 4 per cent who don't use their helmet when touring basically never go touring and that the 35 per cent who prefer not to ride with a helmet in town essentially use public transport or their cages. As for the 14 per cent who never use a lid, my fingers are crossed that they aren't riders at all, just web traffic, passing through.

Learning to Ride

"How many days will it take me to learn how to ride a motorcycle?"

Wow, there's a question that stumped me. I didn't know the answer, honest. I told the young man that if he meant only the operation of the controls - clutch, brake, throttle - that would take 20 minutes. But learning to ride a motorcycle is a complex thing, no? I told him it depended on him. If he just needed to be proficient enough to get from home to work, that would sort itself in six months. But to evolve beyond that could take years!

I got to thinking about that and it's true. Unlike driving, riding motorcycles is a lot more nuanced. You need to learn a lot more to be good at it. I'm not saying these nuances don't exist for cagers, but the fact of the matter is a nuance that escapes you on a bike could kill you whereas in a car, it might mean little more than awkward looking metal, a tough session with the parents and a few rounds of insurance.

The other thing is that unlike learning to drive, learning to ride invariably depends on someone you know who is willing to teach you. Teach you all the basic points and whatever of those nuances he's figured out. And all the bad habits this person has picked up. There simply isn't a place or person you can go to learn riding from scratch in a structured fashion that aims to build you up into a serious, committed motorcyclist.

I learnt from a cousin brother of sorts, well, neighbour actually and at some level, I owe him my life and livelihood. But I don't even remember his face or name. I only recall his blue KB100, that springy feeling of a stretching throttle cable, the rising note of an urgent, if civil, two-stroke, a warm night flying by in reverse and a young heart throbbing in fascination at the experience. And yeah, I don't remember him telling me where the brakes were. Then I remember flying down a road in the Delhi IIT Campus on a brother-in-law's white Kinetic Honda. The scooter was stunned at the turn of speed - he rode it very gently - and then at the speedbreaker... both brakes pulled in hard-hard-hard and the throttle still on. And my first big air. And the strong apprehension that he will discover something broken later. Shit.

I remember riding my classmate Sachin's Yamaha RX100 down the road and being given all sorts of advice involving the battery running down if the ignition was left on for too long. I know now, that that's hogwash, but I was meticulous in the extreme with that bike's ignition. And I remember wafting about slowly on that bike too.

Then I got my Kinetic Honda and I simply cannot remember a time when the poor thing was ridden gently at all. That's the bike I realised I wanted to ride seriously. That's when the kit fixation started and that's when riding it for the sake of riding it became an obsession.

Point is that I cannot remember receiving riding advice from a serious motorcyclist until much, much later.

My riding 'style' has changed since I began riding. Rustom Patel - the motocrosser - changed my paws on levers riding style to two fingers on each lever. I remember these contributions because they're the only ones I got.

Think it's time to return the favour.
How do I do this? Ideas to rearsetblog [at] gmail. [dot] please.

Not again!

I received this anonymous comment yesteday

i have read the exact same review somewhere else.. either you copied from them or they copied from you... and i doubt you.. you could have at least noted that it was taken off from an another site.. its really pathetic

For this post.

I found that the whole first ride was posted verbatim at

• http://gudupdates.blogspot.com/2008/11/all-new-yamaha-fz-16.html
• http://motorcyclistlarge.blogspot.com/2008/12/yamaha-fz16-first-ride.html

I have to agree with the comment, this is really pathetic. But I am in no doubt at all that I did actually write that post.

Healthier Motorcyclists!

JC sent me this link today. I read it and liked what I read. So I thought I'd post a link here. Here's a quick excerpt.

"The group that rode motorbikes posted higher marks in cognitive function tests," Kawashima said.

The last one isn't the slow one

Sometimes, in traffic, you will naturally start classifying people as
slow or fast. I'm not entirely sure what goes into classifying them,
but you know as well as I do, that you do this. Without going into the
degrees of good-fast versus reckless or good-slow versus
idi-effing-ot, I was thinking about it and I realised that I consider
myself pretty quick through traffic. And for a fair amount of time,
I'm last or nearly last in traffic. Does that describe you too?

I figure that it's because my take-off from the traffic lights and
progress through traffic tends to be on the rapid side, and most of
the time, I catch up with the traffic that's ahead of me. In
traffic/transport planner terms, a group of traffic that leaves
together from a traffic light is called a platoon. Each cycle of
greens causes a platoon. Er, the point is, that I'm usually at the end
of the platoon. Doing what? Passing them, of course. And I'm sure
there's more riders like this out there.

Point? Don't automatically dismiss those at the end of the platoon,
they're probably just taking some time to get ahead. I think this
point has wider meanings that purely in traffic, but that's purely
unintended.

Pass or fail 2

Remember this post?

Well, I got a letter from the chaps who created it - pasted below - and they've pointed me to another little video. And once more, while it was intended for cyclists, I think it does apply to us as well. Watch it, and leave a comment about whether you passed or failed. I almost passed, I have to admit.

Here's the letter, then

My name is Martin Uttley and I work on behalf of Transport For London (TFL). We were very pleased to see your mention of our DoTheTest video on your website.

As you liked the DoTheTest video campaign we thought you might be interested in our latest cycling awareness videos Whodunnit?

We have posted them up on www.dothetest.co.uk and on YouTube. We would love to hear what you think of the latest cycling awareness videos from TFL. Thank you so much for your original post and I look forward to hearing your thoughts

Martin, the vids are great. I wish our Governments were doing as much for motocyclists' safety as you chaps are obviously doing. The new series is super. Keep up the good work, all the best and ride safe.

Hitler motorcycle spoofs on YouTube

Hey, I found both of these spoofs quite hilarious, so I thought I'd post a link here.

Neat Discovery Channel style video