DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
Always go +2 teeth on the back on any sports bike bigger than 600cc. They are always ludicrously overgeared as stock.
Aunt Ruby's motorcycling tips
- Thread starter RubyToogood
- Start date
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Wait until you have 50,000 miles under your belt before considering this advice.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Later !
Unfortunately, most of the best ones pre-date my decent digital camera.
I'll put some on my ipernity in the near future.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
If the casualty has an airway problem the helmet may have to come off immediately. There's a technique for removing a helmet at the scene. It takes 2 people. I was taught it on a course 20 years ago. Some parademics are taught it. I don't know whether it's standard NHS training.
Many modern helmets are designed to allow you to remove the cheekpads before you remove the helmet.
about emergency quick release EQRS motorcycle crash helmets - Billys Crash Helmets
What is EQRS or Emergency Quick Release System? All you need to know about how EQRS helps limit damaging a rider's neck removing a motorcycle crash helmet
billyscrashhelmets.co.uk
Find a motorbike helmet with a quick release liner/cheek pads (EQRS).
EQRS stands for Emergency Quick Release System. If you're looking to buy a motorbike helmet with EQRS, check out these pages where we list only EQRS helmets
billyscrashhelmets.co.uk
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
There are plenty of carbon fibre helmets around nowadays. Some of them are very, very light. A few are even affordable.
Modern helmet design has also improved the ability to see out. In other words the aperture has become bigger. The current crop of helmets from the serious manufacturers are vastly improved over the things we had 20 years ago. A modern Arai is a thing of wonder.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
I don't know what that is. Have done CBT multiple times and full bike test without hearing of it.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
And if your helmet ever gets bashed, buy a new one, even if you think the old one is fine.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
That's interesting, thanks.
I may have another look - and end up with a modern one for serious rides and another [my existing 60s vintage bowl] for attending ring rides at shows.
A couple of decades ago, I went around the ring bare-headed, as did several others. It was that sort of vintage show.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
If he’s going to do riding in London or any busy town/ city, my top bit of advice would be regarding the most frequent risk of an accident city bikers face: traffic jams or slow car traffic where a biker travels in the middle of the road.
The biggest danger of all in stationary traffic is pedestrians. Virtually no cunt who decides to cross a street with stationary traffic bothers to check for any bikes travelling (quite legally) in the middle of the road. Often they will do that while emerging from in front of a van or bus, so it’s impossible to spot them even if you are looking out for them.
Another danger of stationary traffic is cars emerging from a side street and squeezing in between two stationary cars. And to a lesser degree, cars that are caught in the traffic jam deciding on impulse to change their route and starting a U-turn in front of you.
In short, be extra careful around slow moving traffic, and assume the worst. If the cars are not moving at all, expect entitled zombie lemmings to materialise in the middle of the road right in front of you without looking right, because they will. Regularly.
The biggest danger of all in stationary traffic is pedestrians. Virtually no cunt who decides to cross a street with stationary traffic bothers to check for any bikes travelling (quite legally) in the middle of the road. Often they will do that while emerging from in front of a van or bus, so it’s impossible to spot them even if you are looking out for them.
Another danger of stationary traffic is cars emerging from a side street and squeezing in between two stationary cars. And to a lesser degree, cars that are caught in the traffic jam deciding on impulse to change their route and starting a U-turn in front of you.
In short, be extra careful around slow moving traffic, and assume the worst. If the cars are not moving at all, expect entitled zombie lemmings to materialise in the middle of the road right in front of you without looking right, because they will. Regularly.
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SheilaNaGig
Break requested
Another opportunity to post this
spudulike
Well-Known Member
Fair enough. Probably best to ignore it at this time. Do they cover counter steering?
edit prodded by bellaozzydog: contains a crash, guy lives
Oh, and I recommend fitting a half decent horn. I have a Denali sound bomb mini which is a simple replacement for most stock horns (the even louder and more expensive sound bomb needs additional wiring)
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8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
I guess it's heavier on a big motorbike so you need to be more consciously aware. Have only ridden little ones where the counter-steering comes more naturally because it's more like a pushbike.
Aside from counter-steering, perhaps understanding speed limits may also have been helpful here.
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
What a misleading, unhelpful, nasty video. The bars started flapping around because of a combo of a bump in the road and a handling problem, probably caused by too much luggage on the rear end, and/or shit suspension or underinflated tyres. The rider was also picking the wrong lines. Countersteering is learned on the road, preferably from an instructor. You don't learn it by armchair motorcycling on the internet. Especially from a stupid video of somebody dying. Same with trail braking.
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David Clapson
Well-Known Member
The police Motorcycle Roadcraft book is excellent. If you do what it says you can pass the IAM advanced motorcycling test, which is a good way of extending your life expectancy.
Sweet FA
✪ Three rounds Lord, in my .44 ✪
On the gear front and it might sound obvious but make sure nephew is choosing substance over style. I spent a few hours at the weekend helping godson kit himself out. There is an awful lot of gear specifically aimed at the teen market which looks er rad but is made of yoghurt pots. Check kite marks/reviews etc etc.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
Lots of people give up biking shortly after buying lots of pukka, expensive kit. So there are some amazing bargains to be had on ebay.
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
That looks excellent, I'll get him that. I think he'll like it.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
My takeaway from that video was that he was going too fast to see the oncoming truck and maintain control of his bike to avoid it.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
I'd rather be killed in an accident.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
This, frankly. One thing is racing on a closed race track, where you can of course crash out horribly but at least can count on using the entire width of the road if needed, and quite another going so fast on a public road that you will need to use the incoming traffic lane with the possibility of vehicles coming your way.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Really? I cant get away from wanting people to see me.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
This. I was a despatch rider with an ever increasing quantity of titanium holding my body together. I had ridden 12 years and done 300,000 miles minimum since getting a bike.
After a broken femur crash with my pregnant wife on the back I joined the IAM.
it took three goes to past my test. I learned so much. I learned to ride faster, not get nicked not crash. I haven't had a bad crash since and this was 1996.
The IAM is a charity too and it's as cheap as chips to join them. I so encourage anyone on two wheels to give it a go.
jontz01
taking refuge in the loft
Our IAM course was a week night in the pub having a shandy bass and surf n turf while the coppers gave presentations on the overhead . The following Sunday, we'd have 4 hours practicing the theory. One week it was roadabouts, then overtakes, filtering etc etc. All done with 2 way radio headsets. Absolutely brilliant course couldn't recommend it enough.
15 years later i still use the cert and the fact that I ride a bike as leverage for getting truck driving contracts.
15 years later i still use the cert and the fact that I ride a bike as leverage for getting truck driving contracts.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
His major fault was taking the wrong lines through corners. You should always be changing your road position to extend your view; a golden rule whether you are on a twisty country road, or in town or on a motorway. Extending your view increases your safety margin. The further you can see, the faster you can go. In this case the rider wants to go fast to catch the bike in front, so he needs to be using the whole road to extend his view. At 8 secs he should move to the edge of the road on the left. At 16 secs he should move to the right hand edge. At 19 secs he should move to the left hand edge. He should stay on the edge until he sees the truck, which would have been at about 25/26 secs. He would have seen it from a long way and would have had a huge safety margin. (This would have permitted more speed....he could have done 110mph+ and caught the other bike, in safety.)
But at 25 secs he can't see very far because he's in the middle of the road. Also at 25 secs he grabs the front brake because he's scared by the oncoming corner. This is a bad scenario. Scaring yourself on the entry to a corner is not good. You tense up and do all the wrong things. At 27 secs he's drifted to the left because he was too far to the right in mid-corner, and now he sees the truck. He's staring at it, getting target fixation and panicking. He can still save himself just by steering to the right. But because of the panic he grabs the brake again. This makes him go straight, i.e. into the truck. Also at 27 secs the handlebars are bucking madly, back and forth. I don't know why. Could be many reasons. But by then he was going to hit the truck anyway.
He might also have been hampered by a squared off rear tyre. This would make the bike harder to steer. It's a common problem for riders who don't go on twisty roads much.
