My First Proper Motorbike Riding Lesson

Today was my first proper lesson with a qualified instructor in controlling the motorbike. My instructor's name was Paul and he was from http://www.midlandschoolofmotorcycling.co.uk/

Slowly to start with at first, the main thing I learned about was how to control the clutch when starting off.



Then, after that, I learned about how to change up the gears to accelerate, and then change down the gears while slowing down, using the brakes.
This was hard because I had to use both hands and feet all at the same time, so they could all do different things, yet still keep the revs up so the engine didn’t stall. The important thing is that when braking, use a little bit of front brake, then apply a lot of rear brake- that's hard to do because the front brake means I have to use my right hand, and the back brake means I have to use my right foot- at the same time as pulling in the clutch with my left hand and kicking the gears down with my left foot.

I’ll keep practicing this- I’ll need to do this sort of thing lots when riding the bike, so the better I become at these skills, the better rider I will become.

The other different thing I learned about was how different the bike tyres feel when riding on the road tarmac- I could feel the vibrations of the knobbly tyres coming through my hands- that’s something I don’t feel when riding on grass or dirt.

Next time out, I’ll be using these skills to climb small hills, and control the clutch while standing up, so the bike doesn’t flip backwards and tip me off. I think that’s going to be really hard, but we’ll see...