I’ve basically nothing left to say on this subject. I am hoping against hope that the 4 per cent who don’t use their helmet when touring basically never go touring and that the 35 per cent who prefer not to ride with a helmet in town essentially use public transport or their cages. As for the 14 per cent who never use a lid, my fingers are crossed that they aren’t riders at all, just web traffic, passing through.

“How many days will it take me to learn how to ride a motorcycle?”

Wow, there’s a question that stumped me. I didn’t know the answer, honest. I told the young man that if he meant only the operation of the controls – clutch, brake, throttle – that would take 20 minutes. But learning to ride a motorcycle is a complex thing, no? I told him it depended on him. If he just needed to be proficient enough to get from home to work, that would sort itself in six months. But to evolve beyond that could take years!

I got to thinking about that and it’s true. Unlike driving, riding motorcycles is a lot more nuanced. You need to learn a lot more to be good at it. I’m not saying these nuances don’t exist for cagers, but the fact of the matter is a nuance that escapes you on a bike could kill you whereas in a car, it might mean little more than awkward looking metal, a tough session with the parents and a few rounds of insurance.

The other thing is that unlike learning to drive, learning to ride invariably depends on someone you know who is willing to teach you. Teach you all the basic points and whatever of those nuances he’s figured out. And all the bad habits this person has picked up. There simply isn’t a place or person you can go to learn riding from scratch in a structured fashion that aims to build you up into a serious, committed motorcyclist.

I learnt from a cousin brother of sorts, well, neighbour actually and at some level, I owe him my life and livelihood. But I don’t even remember his face or name. I only recall his blue KB100, that springy feeling of a stretching throttle cable, the rising note of an urgent, if civil, two-stroke, a warm night flying by in reverse and a young heart throbbing in fascination at the experience. And yeah, I don’t remember him telling me where the brakes were. Then I remember flying down a road in the Delhi IIT Campus on a brother-in-law’s white Kinetic Honda. The scooter was stunned at the turn of speed – he rode it very gently – and then at the speedbreaker… both brakes pulled in hard-hard-hard and the throttle still on. And my first big air. And the strong apprehension that he will discover something broken later. Shit.

I remember riding my classmate Sachin’s Yamaha RX100 down the road and being given all sorts of advice involving the battery running down if the ignition was left on for too long. I know now, that that’s hogwash, but I was meticulous in the extreme with that bike’s ignition. And I remember wafting about slowly on that bike too.

Then I got my Kinetic Honda and I simply cannot remember a time when the poor thing was ridden gently at all. That’s the bike I realised I wanted to ride seriously. That’s when the kit fixation started and that’s when riding it for the sake of riding it became an obsession.

Point is that I cannot remember receiving riding advice from a serious motorcyclist until much, much later.

My riding ’style’ has changed since I began riding. Rustom Patel – the motocrosser – changed my paws on levers riding style to two fingers on each lever. I remember these contributions because they’re the only ones I got.

Think it’s time to return the favour.
How do I do this? Ideas to rearsetblog [at] gmail. [dot] please.

I received this anonymous comment yesteday

i have read the exact same review somewhere else.. either you copied from them or they copied from you… and i doubt you.. you could have at least noted that it was taken off from an another site.. its really pathetic

For this post.

I found that the whole first ride was posted verbatim at

• http://gudupdates.blogspot.com/2008/11/all-new-yamaha-fz-16.html
• http://motorcyclistlarge.blogspot.com/2008/12/yamaha-fz16-first-ride.html

I have to agree with the comment, this is really pathetic. But I am in no doubt at all that I did actually write that post.

JC sent me this link today. I read it and liked what I read. So I thought I’d post a link here. Here’s a quick excerpt.

“The group that rode motorbikes posted higher marks in cognitive function tests,” Kawashima said.

Sometimes, in traffic, you will naturally start classifying people as
slow or fast. I'm not entirely sure what goes into classifying them,
but you know as well as I do, that you do this. Without going into the
degrees of good-fast versus reckless or good-slow versus
idi-effing-ot, I was thinking about it and I realised that I consider
myself pretty quick through traffic. And for a fair amount of time,
I'm last or nearly last in traffic. Does that describe you too?

I figure that it's because my take-off from the traffic lights and
progress through traffic tends to be on the rapid side, and most of
the time, I catch up with the traffic that's ahead of me. In
traffic/transport planner terms, a group of traffic that leaves
together from a traffic light is called a platoon. Each cycle of
greens causes a platoon. Er, the point is, that I'm usually at the end
of the platoon. Doing what? Passing them, of course. And I'm sure
there's more riders like this out there.

Point? Don't automatically dismiss those at the end of the platoon,
they're probably just taking some time to get ahead. I think this
point has wider meanings that purely in traffic, but that's purely
unintended.

Remember this post?

Well, I got a letter from the chaps who created it – pasted below – and they’ve pointed me to another little video. And once more, while it was intended for cyclists, I think it does apply to us as well. Watch it, and leave a comment about whether you passed or failed. I almost passed, I have to admit.

Here’s the letter, then

My name is Martin Uttley and I work on behalf of Transport For London (TFL). We were very pleased to see your mention of our DoTheTest video on your website.

As you liked the DoTheTest video campaign we thought you might be interested in our latest cycling awareness videos Whodunnit?

We have posted them up on www.dothetest.co.uk and on YouTube. We would love to hear what you think of the latest cycling awareness videos from TFL. Thank you so much for your original post and I look forward to hearing your thoughts

Martin, the vids are great. I wish our Governments were doing as much for motocyclists’ safety as you chaps are obviously doing. The new series is super. Keep up the good work, all the best and ride safe.

Hey, I found both of these spoofs quite hilarious, so I thought I’d post a link here.

Yesterday, something obvious struck me while I was emptying an overfull bladder. Wrinkle your noses all you like, but here’s the situation – most men should be able to understand this easily. I’m standing above the pot and I’ve got my legs split up really wide. Don’t know why, but there it is. At this point, let us focus only on the events occurring at the sole of my, say, left foot, although either will do nicely.

The floor of this particular loo is one of the those new-fangled textured jobs where grip is easy to find and the chances of you breaking you head in by falling in the wet are low. But, for some reason, my foot starts slipping outwards. Not being a gymnast, this immediately was a cause of concern. For once, family jewels landing with a sickening thud on the rim of the pristine but unforgiving edge of the toilet bowl is a painful image even to conjure up. And second, landing on the floor in a split would ensure that a tortured groin would put an end to motorcycle adventures for some time to come.

To recover, I tried pushing down on the sole – more weight equals more traction, remember? It worked. But then, reassured, I tried varying where the extra weight was. And in there, lay the light bulb that lit up above my head like a Diwali rocket. I found that if I put my weight on the inside edge of my foot (the arches side), the slide started again. However, the moment I used the outer edge of the foot, the left edge of the sole of the left foot, the slide was arrested with a ferocity I haven’t consciously thought of before.

Now, how does that apply? Here goes.

You know that the ideal position for cornering involves you hanging off the inside, weigh on the inside peg, using the outside thigh to lock you into position etc, right? However, weighing the inside peg is the same, in effect, as exerting the pressure from the arch side of the left foot in the toilet situation. As long as traction is good and the demand for it is reasonable, the feeling is of stability. However, the moment, traction is at a premium, like in the wet, more weight on the inside will as usual, reduce lean angle, but will also provoke a slide earlier. Which is why, they tell you to weigh the outside peg in the wet, and in off-camber corners. Both are places where traction is relatively little and the pressure on the outside helps the tyre dig in harder and postpone the slide.

Yeah, yeah, all OCD disclaimers apply. And feel free to disagree, try this etc.

Just don’t pee outside the bowl, ok?

Yesterday, something obvious struck me while I was emptying an overfull bladder. Wrinkle your noses all you like, but here’s the situation – most men should be able to understand this easily. I’m standing above the pot and I’ve got my legs split up really wide. Don’t know why, but there it is. At this point, let us focus only on the events occurring at the sole of my, say, left foot, although either will do nicely.

The floor of this particular loo is one of the those new-fangled textured jobs where grip is easy to find and the chances of you breaking you head in by falling in the wet are low. But, for some reason, my foot starts slipping outwards. Not being a gymnast, this immediately was a cause of concern. For once, family jewels landing with a sickening thud on the rim of the pristine but unforgiving edge of the toilet bowl is a painful image even to conjure up. And second, landing on the floor in a split would ensure that a tortured groin would put an end to motorcycle adventures for some time to come.

To recover, I tried pushing down on the sole – more weight equals more traction, remember? It worked. But then, reassured, I tried varying where the extra weight was. And in there, lay the light bulb that lit up above my head like a Diwali rocket. I found that if I put my weight on the inside edge of my foot (the arches side), the slide started again. However, the moment I used the outer edge of the foot, the left edge of the sole of the left foot, the slide was arrested with a ferocity I haven’t consciously thought of before.

Now, how does that apply? Here goes.

You know that the ideal position for cornering involves you hanging off the inside, weigh on the inside peg, using the outside thigh to lock you into position etc, right? However, weighing the inside peg is the same, in effect, as exerting the pressure from the arch side of the left foot in the toilet situation. As long as traction is good and the demand for it is reasonable, the feeling is of stability. However, the moment, traction is at a premium, like in the wet, more weight on the inside will as usual, reduce lean angle, but will also provoke a slide earlier. Which is why, they tell you to weigh the outside peg in the wet, and in off-camber corners. Both are places where traction is relatively little and the pressure on the outside helps the tyre dig in harder and postpone the slide.

Yeah, yeah, all OCD disclaimers apply. And feel free to disagree, try this etc.

Just don’t pee outside the bowl, ok?