Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Rotating the brake lever should help. That, and some practice.

I know that the "range bikes" for the MSF sometimes need the levers twisted around the bars for the easier reach of a particular student.

P

I'm new too - and did this a lot at the start of the motorcycle course last month. The instructor kept telling me to squeeze and not grab the brakes. Then he showed me what he meant ...

by squeezing, he meant pulling your fingers in, but not moving the hand at all, where grabbing is more a whole hand motion (which when you move your palm, you're revving the engine).

Dunno if that helps, but it made sense for me, and what I was doing. And as others said - the key then was practicing both what I was doing wrong, and the corrected "right" way. Doing both right and wrong helped my body (hands and mind) understand the difference - so was to avoid one and do the other.

if that helps ...

Problem sorted out?

You're doing one of two things. Either using your arm to pull the lever, in which case the palm of your hand is dragging the top of the throttle back toward you, or; you're rotating your wrist down to help pull the brake lever back. Which naturally adds throttle.

To help use just your finger in braking, practice feeling the lever itself slide up your fingers toward your hand when you apply brake. Once that becomes a habit, you won't have the problem again.

Do yourself a favor and concentrate on seperating your right wrist from your other body movements. Throttle control is rarely mentioned in most forums, but is very important. Adding gas because a railroad crossing was bumpy can cause problems you'd prefer to avoid.

better- defintiely getting sorted out... a little at a time

haven't done it in a while - but still working on smoother throttle control - e.g. wrist down.

harder in stop and go traffic here in suburbia.

thanks for ALL the awesome advice everyone

-z

p.s. - im woozy - blues2cruise commented to me!