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Bike or Class First?
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:52 pm
by poet
Just curious because of a couple postings.
Which did everybody do, get a bike first or take a safety course first?
I took the MSF course first.
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:01 pm
by dr_bar
I didn't vote, although I guess I could tick off the "What's a safety course." one, because when I got my first bike, there wasn't a safety course. With that said, a few years later, a friend and I took the brand new Canada Safety Council , Motorcycle Safety course...
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:43 am
by poet
dr_bar wrote:I didn't vote, although I guess I could tick off the "What's a safety course." one, because when I got my first bike, there wasn't a safety course. With that said, a few years later, a friend and I took the brand new Canada Safety Council , Motorcycle Safety course...
lol
I forgot to account for ol ... er ... more experienced riders.
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:41 am
by Wrider
I knew I wanted to ride, so I bought my bike first but it stayed in the garage until I took that course. After that I registered the bike and started riding.
Wrider
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:50 am
by Johnj
poet wrote:I forgot to account for ol ... er ... more experienced riders.
Watch it sonny.
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:18 am
by jstark47
I did both, kinda. My wife had a maxi-scooter and she taught me to ride it. But I didn't buy a regular motorcycle until after the MSF.
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:28 pm
by Thumper
I took the class...I wasn't sure if I wanted a bike or a scooter, and having never ridden more than a moped it seemed like the bright thing to do--especially since it would get me out of the riding part of the DMV test.
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:46 pm
by blippo
I bought a starter bike first, got familiar with it, took the written test to get my permit, then took the course
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:21 am
by flynrider
The didn't have the course when I started riding. I had to learn on my own (i.e. the hard way). I bent some metal and scraped some chrome, and a bit of skin here and there. If there had been a class available, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. I made several dumb mistakes in my first few rides that would have been avoided had I known what I was doing.
Last year a friend of mine decided to do some self-teaching on her recently purchased Rebel because her class wasn't scheduled for another few weeks. I advised against it. She ended up loosing control of the bike while practicing in a parking lot. The bike hit a parking block at about 20 mph and was a total loss. She got some scrapes and bruises. She never made it to class.
Practicing on your own before the class is not a guarantee that you'll have a bad result, but someone who knows nothing about motorcycles is more likely to make a common mistake that could end badly. Even in a relatively safe place like an empty parking lot.
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:08 pm
by vladmech
I took the class about 10 months before getting my bike. This actually was quite a bit longer then I would recommend to anyone as I ended up not remembering some of the stuff they taught when I finally picked up my bike. Fortunatly they gave handouts, so I re-read all of it and did pretty well, all things considered.
