Hooray! Sunshine today and there’s no excuse to not go for a ride.
With time a little limited after work but before evening social catchups, I decided to ride over to my favourite empty carpark and practice my u-turns and cone-weaves - which are two of the (allegedly) trickier skills necessary for the provisional licence Motor Operator Skills Test (MOST) in this state. On the ride over, I feel the rustiness that has seeped back over 5 days of non-riding. A sure sign that I haven’t yet totally trained my muscle and body-memory with the feeling of riding - not that I’ve reverted back to complete beginnerdom, by a long shot!
At the carpark, I ride far over away from (unlikely) potential pedestrians and start with the u-turns - in a clockwise direction, the same as you’d do on any road in Australia (from the left driving side in one direction, to the left in the other direction). So far, my skills I’d built up from the last time in the carpark have stayed with me fairly well. That said, we’re still talking say 75% success rate for a tight u-turn without putting the foot down or going outside of my chosen lines.
I’ve been practicing my turns in the width of 2 car parking spots, which I measured to be approximately 5 metres. If I can get up to a 100% success rate in that width, then the MOST requirement of 6.1m should be totally easy. Likewise with the cone-weave, I’ve been trying and (almost) achieving a weave between single widths of car parking spots (2.5m), so the 4m requirement should also be simple, even with the 0.6m offset.
For my u-turns, I do loops from one row of car parks, across the lane to the next row. Over and over, building up that body-memory of the task, yet still I get the odd occassion when I turn too tightly and start leaning, put my foot down. Not what you want to do on the one time you actually get tested for your licence! Just one of those occassional mistakes could cost me the time and money to make another booking for the test.
But then, I remember the first trick you learn for cornering back in the pre-learner rider training course: that is, to turn your head in the direction you want to go!
With this revelation in mind, I try again. It’s like magic! Just by turning my head, I complete a new u-turn well within the 5m while barely even having to concentrate. I just follow my direction of sight around the turn and out into the straight. Then I realise that previously I had been watching the lines on the way around (there’s a catch for the newbie). By putting my head down, watching the lines especially on the last part of the turns, I had been almost dragging myself down from the outset. Just the simple trick of raising my head, leading myself around the turn and out of it, has suddenly improved my success rate almost to 100%. And that’s with a whole metre to spare for the actual 6.1m test box!
Niiiiice. I’ll have to remember this trick next time I visit the carpark for a practice. For now, before I leave, I decide to try a few turns in the other direction… well - I might as well be ready to handle a u-turn in Europe or the US, mightn’t I?!
4 responses so far ↓
1 James Laugesen // Jan 23, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Hello, you posted a comment on my (stale) Suzuki Across blog, thanks… you have motivated me to try to get some more content on there, esspecially now I know people still occaisionally stumble upon it.
I just wanted to say _great work_ on this blog! It is an excellent idea, well written interesting, educational, and entertaining.
I hope you can keep everything online indefintely, your posts will be valuable for lots of people.
There will be a time in the near future (as fuel prices and traffic congestion increase), when information and discussion from people like yourself will be great for motorcycling in Australia.
If I can offer some things think about regarding U-turns; the obvious thing that can go wrong is that your bike falls over into the turn.
You would prevent the bike falling a few ways:
* Putting your foot down - You should pretend that is _not_ an option, because in a real situation it could be very dangerous.
* Turning the front wheel/bars ’sharper’ into the direction of the turn - Thus moving the front wheel under the bike, bringing the bike more upright.
This transfers the ‘energy’ required to stop the bike from falling (thinking about it abstractly) to the front tyre… in other words, if the surface is loose or slippery, the sudden sharp turn on the bars may cause the front wheel to slip out from under the bike.
* Lean your body opposite to the turn - Using your body weight to balance the bike, even shifting your bum and sitting on the side of the seat.
This way you’re not putting any more/different forces on the tyres (the ‘energy’ to stop the bike from falling is your own body weight, using the same analogy as above), feels more controlled and comfortable esspecially on slippery surfaces.
* Accelerate the bike - while still holding the same turn, centrifugal force will keep you balanced.
This would be the hardest reaction to develop, but after a few tries you’ll definitely notice the benifits, and develop confidence to accelerate while turning sharply, which could come handy one day
There’s no right or wrong technique, and you will be doing all of the above already. By playing around with each piece seperately, you’ll find that you’ll combine them all together more naturally & confidently for different situations.
Keep up the great blogging!
James
2 Becky // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:35 am
Great blog. I was in the same place that you are a few years ago. Keep riding and your confidence will build. I still remember from the riding class, “keep your head up, look ahead, turn your head and look where you want to go” when turning a sharp corner, or U-turn. Those things stay with you and do help.
Bikerchickz
3 chuck another u-ey (day 45) // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:24 pm
[…] U-turn to sunshine (day 38) […]
4 ROBSTA the MOBSTA // Mar 6, 2008 at 1:03 am
Now would be a great time to learn clutch and throttle control,
by clutching up some gangsta stylz wheelies
youl learn to rock the back brake,
and about bike control
youl holla blox like Bullo and his crew
in no time
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