What makes a person an experienced rider?

[dr_bar]

would an experianced rider be anyone who recognises hazards and avoids them all using the skills they posess?
if thats the case theni doubt any rider can make this claim as you dont learn much from never trying anything

i dont know!!!!
my brain hurts now

I've avoided both high and lowsides, don't really think it's a requirement to have experienced either one to know how to avoid one or to realize they're bad.

I think the confusion here is between being experienced and being proficient.

Ex·pe·ri·enced
Pronunciation: -&n(t)st
Function: adjective
: made skillful through experience : PRACTICED <an experienced driver>

Pro·fi·cient
Pronunciation: -sh&nt
Function: adjective

: well advanced in an art, occupation, or branch of knowledge

synonyms PROFICIENT, ADEPT, SKILLED, SKILLFUL, EXPERT mean having great knowledge and experience in a trade or profession. PROFICIENT implies a thorough competence derived from training and practice <proficient in translating foreign languages>. ADEPT implies special aptitude as well as proficiency <adept at doing long division>. SKILLED stresses mastery of technique <a skilled surgeon>. SKILLFUL implies individual dexterity in execution or performance <skillful drivers>. EXPERT implies extraordinary proficiency and often connotes knowledge as well as technical skill <expert in the evaluation of wines>.

I have had my mc license since 1971, in all that time, I have only owned a bike for 10 of those years. Am I experienced, yup I sure am, am I proficient... that's a whole different ball of wax. I have beem on rides where I know that I just don't measure up to those that are ahead of me, my experience says to ride my own ride, if I was proficient, I could ride their ride. It's the expertese that comes with a whole lot of experience that I'm missing.

I still don't want to high or lowside... lol.

[sv-wolf]

I've ridden for eight years: five years in the nineten seventies and three years recently. In the last three years I've covered about 38,000 miles. In the seventies - who knows?

I don't consider myself as an experienced rider. I think experience and skill is as much to do with learning ability and temprament as it is to do with age and number of miles - though that's important too. My mate, Eric, who has been riding for over 50 years on road and track and in all sorts of conditions - he's an experienced rider.

He's got many years of riding behind him
He's ridden many hundreds of thousands of miles
He's ridden in all kinds of weather conditions
He's ridden on all types of road surfaces all round the world.
He's been involved in track racing for years.
He's done loads of off road
It's beautiful to watch him handle his bike. Like poetry.
He has fast, accurate reactions to difficult situations I would have had trouble with.
He has great judgement on the road, a real instinct for traffic.
He knows bikes backwards.
He can fix anything that is fixable


Talk to him about bikes and you will find him a very relaxed, modest, ordinary warm-hearted guy. Real experience is worn lightly.

And he still reckons he has a lot to learn.

He has my vote.

[King Frog]

The day you call yourself an "proficient rider" is the day the clock starts ticking to your first major spill.

[macpilot]

Hope you guys don't mind a "newbie" to chime in....

Would it be fair to say that judgement is 90% of what keeps experienced riders alive? The rest being a combination of luck and skills.

I am a new rider and I don't think anyone can have enough experience in a risky environment like riding or flying. When I flew for a living, it was judgement that got me out of a fix, and a bit of skill and assistance.

Now as I venture into this motorcycle experience, which so far has been extraordinary, I find myself yearning to learn and expand my control of the machine, while trying to judge what other are doing on the road.

[Bubba]

Common sence and maturity.

[onlinesmurf]

You must have both to be experienced. Riding 3k miles over 10 years doesn't make you experienced or does riding 20k in one year. Time and miles is what you need IMO.

With that said experience doesn't = good rider or a skilled rider. If you have no formal training you can just be a guy who has basic skills many years over.

A good experienced rider who has years + miles + training.

Oh btw if you are experienced it doesn't make you less of an idiot doing squid things like 150mph on busas on public roads or other dumb things. Alot of times an 'experienced rider' is more dangerous than a new rider because he believes he can do dumb things and justify it with 'I know what I'm doing'.

[Big B]

Oh btw if you are experienced it doesn't make you less of an idiot doing squid things like 150mph on busas on public roads or other dumb things. Alot of times an 'experienced rider' is more dangerous than a new rider because he believes he can do dumb things and justify it with 'I know what I'm doing'

like some guy on a warrior you might have read about

[Sculelos]

I don't consider myself experienced, although I have been threw my fair share of hazards.

1) Having a dog run out in front of me, that was freaky.

2) Deciding to take my bike out in the snow, that was a stupid mistake and resulted in me almost dropping it, thankfully after much sliding I got home safely.

3)Deciding to take the bike out again after the snow was mostly cleared up but thier was ice on the road, it was a interesting experience going up a hill then sliding down it without falling over.

4)Panicking at a light change and grabing the brake on the blast, nevertheless the front wheel locked and I experienced a lowside, thankfully I was fairly relaxed when I went over so the only injurys I had where a bruise on my hip and leg.

5) Giving a bike throttle when the front brake is being held, did that at a takeoff on my first day and skidded out in front of two cops.

6) Going 200miles on the Blast at 70-85mph, the journey was alright but I got very tired of all the wind buffeting and bike hugging, as I'm 6' 5'' and felt kinda cramped on it. (plus it only got about 42mpg on that trip pushing it to the max)

7) Stalling the bike in the middle of severall intersections, thankfully the other cars didn't run me over.

Well thats all the stupid things I did on my Buell Blast, that I won't be doing on my Lightning XB12S, and I guess that gives me some experience although not alot of it I have been in more dangerous situations then quite a few other bikers.

[noodlenoggin]

I think gaining experience makes one experienced. That sounds like a cop-out...what I mean is that the more different things you do, the more experience you gain.

I rode a little bike in the woods for years before I ever got a road-bike. Taught me bike control more than anything on flat pavement ever could. Taught me finesse when I didn't have the brute power to overcome something.

On the road, I guess in the past 20 years I've ridden just under 20,000 miles. I've ridden through thunderstorms, gravel, freeways, cities, gridlock, country highways, cold, heat, rain, bugs, two-up with adults, two-up with kids, and laid it down once. I've gotten a ticket for speeding on the bike, and I've gotten laughed at by squid-kids for going too slow.

The first year I had the bike I learned not to gas it on wet grass. I learned not to ride into the ditch at a corner in the dark. I learned lots of other things the hard way, too.

I've rebuilt my own bike when I've crashed. I've replaced the worn parts, I've maintained the good parts, and I've polished the rest of them. I've gotten harrassed by campus police for having a bike, I've even kept it in my living room and decorated it for Christmas.

Does all that make me 'experienced?' No, but it's given me experience, and with more experience, I have more of a chance of riding into a new situation and being able to compare it to something I've already experienced, and make a better educated guess at what to do.

[jrdudas]

I think there is a significant difference between experience and expertise. Just because someone has the experience of doing something does not make them an expert at that activity. As a teen I had a lot of experience playing baseball but somehow the pro teams overlooked my experience.

I drove a truck when I was in the Army and we had driver training 3 or 4 times a month. One of the points they hammered into us was "do not overdrive your level of ability". Make an honest assessment of you skill and function within that range. I see drivers everyday who drive beyond their level of skill; if some emergency situation arises they do not have the expertise to handle it. It doesn't seem to deter them from exceeding their ability however. On bikes I learned early on that it's easy to "hot dog" and most of the time you can get away with it. One small unexpected thing happening however will expose the level of the rider's ability. On today's local news one of the stories is about a biker who passed two cars on a two lane road at a high rate of speed. After passing the cars he lost control of the bike and died in the resulting crash. There apparently was no other road hazard involved and the weather was good. I suspect he died because he misjudged his level of expertise.

JR