It just gets better the deeper in you get. You don't know how good it gets. It gets really damn good.
As for the scooter option, those things are still good fun. I rode a scooter a whole bunch when I started riding on 4 month vacations to India when I was 12 and 13. Went every couple years until I was 22 or so. When I got my motorcycle in 2008, I felt noobish, but not a total noob. The scooter experience did help me. I had already experienced braking and maneuvering through traffic on 2 wheels....and it was INDIAN traffic. Oh man I still remember riding around one night in rush-hour type Indian traffic in the pitch black with no street lights. I can count more than a handful of times that ride I was literally staring into trucker's headlights as they bore down on me. I never rode in the night again in India. Bloody gong show and you can't see a damned thing.
But just don't think a scooter is any less of a ride. The guy I see every morning looks confident and presses through traffic well. I actually like his scooter. It's a black Yamaha with slightly knobbyish tires and his gear is good riding gear. Every time I see him when I'm in my car I actually feel shitty about being in my car and not on the bike. Also worth mentioning: being on a scooter is no excuse not to have proper gloves, jacket, pants, boots.
That aside, just keep in mind, though, that the biggest thing about riding is risk management. If you sustain a higher level of risk by being irresponsible, then you are baiting trouble (for example, never having ridden a motorcycle or driven a car even and jumping into traffic on a big ole cruiser). If you constantly for every minute that you ever spend on 2 wheels sustain the lowest possible level of risk that you can, you will achieve that which every rider seeks to achieve: to be an old fart still riding. So the approach you are taking already has you headed down that path.
It is worth mentioning, though, that I firmly believe I am safer on my motorbike than I am in my car. I am visually aware of everything around me and am hyper vigilant to prevent issues before they spring up. When someone changes into my lane without checking a blind spot, I am already hugging the curb and decelerating before their tires have hit the lane marker. When someone turns out from a parking lot tracking me down in the outside lane, I had been rolling on the throttle already for the 50 previous feet before then so as to clear the zone quickly. Expect and
ASSUME trouble, and don't stick around to see how things actually develop. You can squeeze out of every issue you will EVER encounter on the road when on a bike.
A friend of mine who is a rider trainer once told me:
There is no accident a motorcyclist gets into that is not his/her fault. None. Not a one. And I am inclined to agree with him. No matter the cause, it could have been prevented by assessing the risk, and controlling it. If going 50 through an intersection and getting a left hand turner smashing you could happen, then do 35, not 50. If 35 is too fast, then do 20. (note: being forced to do 20kph through an intersection is pretty rare and would only happen in the event of heavy traffic and terrible visibility so everyone else will probably be pretty slow as well). But say doing 20 would mean the guy behind you is going to ram into your tail, then quickly swerve into the teeny tiny cushion in the cars on your right and slow down, then when the tailgater passes, swing back into that lane again and continue to decelerate. You are a superior road user with the ability to escape in ways cars could never hope to do.
That's just a random example, but I'm just saying I agree with that rider coach's statement. You can always manage and control a situation. You can see it happen before it does. Always. There are a limited number of variables here. Know them and you will be good.
It is possible to cut down risk to the point where it is pretty much negligible. Riding is indeed a safe activity.
One thing that makes me laugh is what people tell you who don't ride. What do they tell new riders or people considering it? It's always the same thing. Always. They say, "Oh you will be safe, I am sure, but everyone AROUND you won't be!!".
Well of course they won't. But it's not that you will be a safe rider like these people say. You will be more than that. You will be truly superior in terms of road going traffic skills over the average motorist.
And add to that you will have shorter braking distances, quicker throttle application, better maneuvreability, and smaller footprint than everyone else on the road. Oh wait, you're getting a cruiser eventually......forget this last paragraph.
P.S. The community thing is pretty awesome indeed. You can literally go anywhere in the world on a bike and feel welcomed. When you ride through the middle of absolutely nowhere and meet up with some random people who rode in from some other random place, everyone is sharing the same experience. Hell, even people you meet in the middle of nowhere who don't ride, you feel quite welcomed even then. Motorcycling is just imbued with some beautiful aura or something. It is positive and it just kicks ass. Everyone feels it. Not everyone gets to experience it personally though. You're well on your way there.....just don't rush it. Remember....you want to be an old fart of a rider one day looking back at a lifetime of wicked rides and experiences. I tell myself that every single time I jump in the saddle.
Oh and it is more addictive than crack cocaine fed intravenously. When we're not experiencing it, we're talking about it. And when we're not talking about it, we're thinking about it.
Haha, it's pretty sweet.
Topic: Need experience (Read 285 times)
