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Today i bought my first bike. a 06' kawasaki ninja 250. its brand spankin new. i wanted ride it so i got all my gear on and fired it up. pull out into the cul-de-sac where my grandmother lives, and started riding around. i looped the block once, and was feeling fine. so i decided to do a u-turn into the cul-de-sac. so i am cruising along, and i realize even for all my slow, look, press, and roll, i am not going to make this turn. against my instinct i straightened the bars and eased on both brakes and came to a stop about a foot and a half (about 50 centemeters for you metric kids) away from the curb and a mailbox. if i had hit that curb/mailbox i probably would have destroyed the bike. if i had just slammed on the brakes i would have almost certainly ow sided and messed up my bike. so about 2 hours after rolling out of the showroom with my new bike, i have already made the MSF pay for its self because i learned in there to straighten the bars before hitting the brakes.

THANK YOU MSF!

anyone who thinks, "oh, i'll just teach myself". remember, i wasnt doing anything fancy, i was just turning, and so even with the simple things can be made safer/better with a little formal training.

yes, i had to wait a month to get into a class, yes i still have a lot of learning to do after the class, but in my book the class already paid for its self by keeping me from needing new fairings the first day i owned my bike.

thanks for listening.

(and yes, i know i was going too fast in third gear instead of second, and probably not looking over far enough to clear the turn, it wont happen again)

Well, you can use the brakes, and even stop in a turn, it's just not a good idea for the most part.

Anyway, how fast have you ridden so far? When I was practicing around my neighborhood, I got up to like 40 tops, and that was only for a second or two. So how fast are you going that you need to be in 3rd gear? Especially on your bike, it has like a 13k redline right? Anyway, you might not be going fast at all, probably just changing gears in the low rpms, which is good for gas. When I'm riding on the road I change to 2nd around 20-25, unless I'm accelerating really hard, in which case it's closer to 30. 3rd gear around 35, and 4th gear around 45, if I'm planning on staying in 4th for a while, if not, then I usually just stay in 3rd. I don't think I've even used 5th gear yet, and I've been up to 60mph. I have no idea what kind of rpms those shifts are at, because my tacho doesn't work, so maybe I'm wasting gas, who knows.

Oh, and if I'm making a sharp turn, like in a col-de-sac, I usually down shift to 1st, slow down to like 10-15mph, and pull in the clutch and gently use the rear brake, until I'm about halfway through the turn (so if it's a u turn, wait until you've made a little over a 90 degree turn so far) and then I start letting out the clutch to start accelerating out of the turn.

HandsomeRyan wrote: anyone who thinks, "oh, i'll just teach myself". remember, i wasnt doing anything fancy, i was just turning, and so even with the simple things can be made safer/better with a little formal training.

They didn't have MSF when I was learning (teaching myself) to ride. I launched myself off the bike in the first 10 minutes because no one had told me about braking around corners.

That's why I tell noobs who ask me how to get started, to just go to MSF. It's a lot less painful and expensive to learn about these simple riding concepts in a class.

From what I read on this site, when I started riding, I thought that you absolutely could not brake in a turn. So when I was practicing at first, I never braked in a turn. Eventually I realized you can gently brake, if you're not turning to fast or sharply (I haven't tried braking in a high-speed, hard-lean turn yet).

camthepyro wrote:So how fast are you going that you need to be in 3rd gear? Especially on your bike, it has like a 13k redline right?

im in the "break in period" and im not supposed to go above about 4000rpm. so 3rd gear at 4-5K is only about 20-25mph. lots of hills, i could have been in second (or if i was really revving it, 1st) but about 35 is as fast as i have gone because i dont have insurance yet. so if i get pulled over in the neighborhood, my bike gets impounded.
but i will have insurance as of monday morning.

but you are right. i should have been in 1st or second at 10-15, not in 3rd at 25.

A friend tells a story about going into a dealership for something or other and there was a "dad" age guy in there, who the friend had seen with his son some few weeks before, picking up the son's new sportbike.

Son had had no formal training, dad was gonna show him the ropes.

When my friend inquired as to how it was going, he was informed that son had wrecked in a turn and died.

Now, what I find incomprehensible is what the father is going through.

P

HandsomeRyan wrote:but i will have insurance as of monday morning.

...now there's a good lad! Glad you avoided the mailbox for you and your bike..absent insurance that would have been a very unfortunate start..

BTW...as mentioned in the other posts braking in corners was a definate no, no at my MSF. I figure they do that to drill into you the proper technique is to get your speed right before you enter the corner. Having put in a few miles I have started on occasion to use mild braking while cornering..but with this thread as a reminder I think I need to re-assess...perhaps I am getting too cocky and I need to return to the technique as taught and cut my entry speed so in corner braking is unnecessary.

Even with MSF...I just low-sided...

Worse... the bike wasn't mine...

Worse yet... I was doing a full throttle full speed turn so the bike was going full bore....

Worse worse yet... it happened in my driveway...

Worse worse worse yet... the bike was a 1980 Pugeot Moped!

Yep, a moped! LMAO... I have a circular dirt driveway and I was trying to keep my speed up around the corner so the clutch wouldn't have to slip too much (and I wouldn't have to pedal it back up to speed)... unfortunately, the smoke-breathing two-stroke "came on the cam" and the rear end slid out as I rounded the #3 corner and down I went.

All the gear all the time.

thats kind of funny, wiping out in a moped, im glad you are okay. yay for safety gear!