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New Rider!

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 5:29 pm
by kawi301
Hey y'all ☺️ So I'm a new rider, I just got my first bike today! I'm super excited but I'm also really nervous. I was just wondering what helped everybody out when they first started learning, and how they dealt with being nervous. Anything would be helpful ☺️

Re: New Rider!

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 7:51 pm
by Johnj
Hello April and welcome to the forum. Experience make the jitters go away. Now show off that bike with a picture.

Re: New Rider!

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2016 1:40 am
by GS_in_CO
Practice in parking lots, practice in very quiet residential streets, practice in very quiet 2 lane roads. Concentrated on learning the machine really well before venturing into traffic where I knew I needed more brainpower to deal with traffic instead of the machine.

Several evenings after getting it home I put it on the centerstand and practiced operating the controls with the engine off. Then on centerstand practiced throttle and shifting with it running. (that bike it was not going to touch the rear wheel down unless I did something really stupid) All this to burn in the muscle memory as to how to operate the controls.

Re: New Rider!

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:48 am
by Lion_Lady
Take a beginners course, if you haven't yet. That will help tremendously with the new rider jitters and will set you up for success.

Re: New Rider!

Posted: Mon May 09, 2016 2:28 am
by PIBrider
I'm a new rider too! Took the MSF beginners course a couple of weeks ago, bought my bike last week and just got into traffic for the first time 3 days ago riding to work. It was very intimidating for me! By the time I got where I was going after that first ride I was shaking from how scared I was. I'm a dive in head first kinda person though, so I forced myself to face the fear and rode to lunch (all back roads) and then another short ride straight home.

That was all I could take for that first day and it took me an hour to work myself back up on the bike the next day. Once I did though, it was amazing! I rode about 50 miles that day and couldn't stop looking for excuses to get on my bike. I even ran out of gas and sat on the side of the road for a few minutes until I figured out what went wrong.

I guess what I would say to new riders like myself is: take the MSF course and go at your own pace, but don't let the fear hold you back. Facing traffic is hard so work your way up to it. Ride around in quiet areas and when you're ready to face traffic for the first time choose a short route that you know well and isn't too heavily traveled.

Good luck!

PIB