Where to ride a slow machine on a fast road

This is a question that crops up fairly often from riders on mopeds and 125s, and I know I’ve answered this before – several times – on the forums but when it came up again a few days ago, I couldn’t find a previous post, so it seemed sensible to pop it on the blog.

The key point is that you don’t put yourself in a dangerous position on the road. Your starting place is to remember what you would have been taught on CBT (presuming you did CBT!).

Generally centre or just left of centre of the lane is what’s recommended, to keep you reasonably far away from the danger of blind entrances to the left, but moving further right if there is an obstructed view to the left, to open up the line of sight. You’re not encouraged to ride right of centre as a starting point in the same way that you might be on an advanced course.

Keeping to a reasonably central position on urban roads gives you several advantages:

- you are easier to see by drivers emerging from side roads, and you have a better view into the side road to spot the problem.

- you’re further away from an emerging driver – if they poke a bit of the front of the car out to see out of a side turning with a poor view, you won’t have to swerve to avoid them

- you hold a more “dominant” position which encourages drivers to follow at a safe(ish) distance. If you sit too far to the left, you’ll find that following cars will be right on your numberplate trying to overtake at the slightest opportunity, which means they often squeeze past even though traffic is coming the other way. Being squashed into the pavement at the side of the road, or having people flying past you at very close distance is not great for your safety.

As speeds go up, then the problems for riders of slow bikes start to increase.

My own view from hundreds of CBT sessions is that in a 30, even on a moped you should be able to hold a reasonably dominant position, but on faster roads, you can’t really do this, so you need to move left. There aren’t usually the problems with side roads on busy faster roads that there are in town or in country lanes so it’s generally safe to do this.

I’d generally suggest you get no closer than a couple of metres from the kerb as this distance still gives you a bit of space to move left should someone try to squeeze by bashing the end of your handlebar with their door mirror – if you try to ride one metre from the kerb as many scooter riders tend to on fast roads, then you don’t have that option – your next stop is into the ditch!

With a 125, you’ve got more speed in hand and should be able to hold a decent 50/55 even up gentle hills on all but the slowest Chinese imports – bikes like the Aprilia 125, Varadero 125, CBR125 or the NSR125 should be able to hold their own on even quicker roads. About the only place these bikes will struggle will be steep hills or dual carriageways – don’t make the mistake of moving left in your lane on dual carriageways, or you’ll find drivers try to “lane share” with you. Stay central and make drivers overtake properly. You really do need to dominate a lane here.

It’s not easy to find the right compromise between being in a position where you are visible, but without being a hindrance to the faster vehicles behind you. If necessary, look for an alternative route which avoids fast but relatively narrow roads.

Positive feedback about the Bends Course

From Nigel

“The course made a big difference to my Spanish Pyrenees trip last year – not one dodgy moment in a bend (or otherwise) in a week despite truly atrocious conditions (ferocious rain most of the time!). Braking early was the trick…”

That’s excellent news… always good to get feedback!! Nigel has just booked a “Double Bends” course and is “looking forward to it“.

About the Survival Skills “Double Bends” course

There’s been a little confusion about the distinction between my new(ish) “Double Bends” course and the cornering content already in the “Bends” and Survival Skills advanced courses.

The Double Bends course is is a one day course, and functions as an ‘add-on’ to the cornering content of either the one day Bends course or the two day Survival Skills advanced course, taking over where the cornering element in the ‘Survival Skills’ 2 day course, or the 1 day ‘Bends’ course leaves off.

The cornering element in the two courses above covers the core skills a rider needs to progress beyond the basics of simply ‘getting round’ the bend. Before looking at how to use the various machine control skills of braking, counter-steering and accelerating required to ride corners as well, we first look at Risk Assessment and Risk Management techniques, by using a detailed system of hazard identification, including use of concepts like the Vanishing (or Limit) Point, road signs and the various clues as the general layout of the road ahead.

We then put all that together into a system that not only allows us to pick a safe and effective line through a particular bend, but also links bends together so that we’re not treating bends as “one-offs” but as complexes. Having done this course, a rider should now be able to deal with 99% of corners efficiently and without fuss.

The ‘Double Bends’ course takes all that core cornering knowledge and adds a whole raft of new techniques I use myself from time to time like trail braking to deal with decreasing radius turns and body shifting by ‘hanging off’ and counterweighting. To confirm what I’m doing, I’ve looked at expert riders around the world. For example; Nick Ianetch’s “power-up steering”, Reg Pridmore’s “body steering”, Keith Code’s “peg weighting”.

A key point is to clarify the pros and cons of what are often seen as track techniques, and to see whether they have any relevance on the road. We show how they influence the way the bike handles in turns and where they can be used to advantage, as well as their drawbacks.

An example of a track technique is hanging off. Moving your body inside the bike when it leans moves the Centre of Mass of the bike and rider inside the “centreline” of the bike. The most obvious consequence effect is that it pushes the bike more upright. Most riders will assume that’s good because it increases ground clearance, which is true – but it also has other effects on the way the bike steers which aren’t so obvious.

Firstly, it makes the bike turn on a slightly wider line because it’s not leaning over so far and it’s the largely the camber thrust controlled by the contact patch of the tyres that determines the radius of the turn at any particular speed – this might not be the best way to deal with a tight turn if you have lean angle in hand (and we’re not on the racetrack but on the road, so hopefully you will have, and counterweighting might be the better option!). The second effect is that it reduces the self-centering torque generated by the offset contact patch (as the front tyre’s more vertical it’s not so far off the axis that the steering rotates around) – this makes the
steering lighter in turns (and even neutral feeling if you move far enough) and could reduce wobbles if you hit bumps mid turn. You also need to consider the potential to destabilise the bike if you move at the wrong moment, the possibility of impaired control if you need to do something other than you expect and the loss of vision round a bend if you hang off like a gibbon.

These are not necessarily skills you’ll need every day you ride – indeed trail braking into a bend has its drawbacks when used inappropriately – but they are skills that come in useful in certain situations; for instance where we’ve misjudged the corner, the bend tightens out of sight or we detect a surface problem part way round the bend and need a rapid change of line or speed to compensate. Or the road is completely blocked by an accident or a fallen tree!

You may be wondering why I don’t simply put all this into the other courses – one simple reason: time! There’s simply too much to learn and practice in a single day, so the Double Bends day can be added to existing training covering cornering.

And the routes planned for the course allow us to take in a range of challenging bends in a variety of different shapes, sizes and speeds, so it’s a fun course too.

The Bike Insurance Minefield

I needed to change one of the bikes on my policy the other day as it was up for renewal, so sorted that out and just as I was about to hand over the debit card details, I asked the guy if he could just run a quick double check to make sure that I was still covered for instructor use.

Long pause followed by “I’ll have to ask my supervisor”. He clicks off, then another long pause, this time with music.

After several minutes, back he comes to tell me the supervisor is going to have to check further up the line and this will take some time, so he’ll call back.

“No problem” I say, as it’s early afternoon and I don’t have to ride the bike again till the following day, and after all, how long does insurance take to sort out?.

Yes, I know I left the renewal to the last moment, but I’d spent the previous couple of days in bed with a bad cold.

As promised, a short while later I get a call back to say it’s been referred to the underwriters, they’ll try to get back to me before five pm. Oh dear, this isn’t looking good.

Phone duly goes at 5, to report they haven’t had an answer and the underwriters have now gone home for the day, but they reassure me as I need the bike tomorrow, it’s the very first thing they’ll be chasing in the morning.

Next morning bang on 9:15, I call up, and they’re still awaiting an answer. I make a second and very apologetic call to the trainee and cancel the training. As it happens, I’m still feeling bloody rough, so head back to bed.

At 10, the phone goes off – they just have one small question to ask then can give a definitive answer. I duly provide the information and go back to bed for the rest of the morning.

No call by 5pm and next day is Saturday, so I abandon attempts to find out what’s happening till Monday morning.

Monday morning comes around and I’m on the blower again mid-morning. I get the guy who’s been handling the case since Thursday on the line again. Several back and forth calls later, he apologises for the lack of progress, and promises to chase up the underwriters.

At this point I decide to hedge my bets and start making a few other calls to likely insurance brokers. As usual, the “I’m a motorcycle instructor” line causes the pre-prepared selling blub to stutter to a halt, followed rapidly by a referal to a supervisor and lift music, and finally some minutes later an apologetic “I’m sorry, we don’t cover instructors”. Click…. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Comic relief at this point was provided by one broker’s representative who seemed to think I’d have the trainee driving the bike whilst I sat on the back with dual controls and started to direct me to talk to their car instructor people. Another suggested I typed “motorcycle instructor insurance” into Google. I apologised for laughing.

Anyway, some two hours worth of phone calls later, I actually had a quote from someone willing to cover me, interestingly with the underwriters I’m currently with.

Nearly double the renewal premium though, and with compulsory breakdown cover. Eh? “Can’t I get rid of that? First I don’t want it, second it makes your policy very expensive, and in the third case it’s probably no use because although I don’t know who your recovery is with the RAC and AA won’t pick up bike instructors.” “No, we only sell the policy with it.” “Sorry, we can’t sell the policy without the breakdown cover, but we’ll give you a free pair of crash bungs to compensate.” Well, I’ll keep a note, but I’m not about to rush out to the bank just yet.

Around 3pm, I get back to the original brokers. Still no reply. He explains my question is in a queue with others awaiting a reply from the underwriter’s expert. Can they call back? Yes, I’m ok to take a call later that afternoon.

Finally, half an hour or so later, I get a call. Sorted!

After all that palaver, it seems I’m covered.

What appears to have happened is something that will no doubt occur to many of us. My original policy was taken out with one broker some 12 years ago, who had all the information on file, but who sold up and had their business taken over by a second broker three or four years back.

At the time of the changeover, the second broker simply presented their paperwork at renewal time to say they had taken over the account, sent me a statement for me to sign saying “no material changes” which there hadn’t been, so they duly issued me with a new insurance certificate when I returned it with cheque.

All went swimmingly for the next couple of years, right up to the point where I asked “could you just double check I’m covered for use as an instructor?”

As far as I can work out, the specific business use declaration had gone missing from the underwriter’s records, presumably somewhere in the translation between the two brokers; I wanted use of the bike for motorcycle instruction, not simply “to and from place of work in connection with policy holder’s business”.

Fortunately the new broker had a clear copy of what cover had been provided previously which they sent back to the underwriter. So after an extremely inconvenient pause, it was sorted out.

There is an obvious point to make about why on earth the simple question of “do you cover my job of motorcycle instructor” brings the entire insurance industry to its knees.

It’s not exactly as if it’s a new occupation, since the DSA have required new riders to take training on the roads since CBT was introduced in 1992.

Nor is it down to the “increased risk” of being a professional rider. One broker would have been happy to quote if I was a courier or fast food delivery person, but not as an instructor.

One broker did say I didn’t need it and tried to sell me an ordinary policy, saying that I was covered under the training school’s policy. That would be technically correct if I trained through an Approved Training Body (ATB) but of course, as an independant advanced instructor I’m not so covered.

Incidentally, if you are an instructor reading this you should be aware that many ATBs only offer third party insurance to their instructors, which is decidedly dodgy if you happen to ride an expensive bike for work – which is one reason I had my own policy back in 95/96 before I got involved with running Survival Skills courses!

As a side note, whilst I was hunting around I tried several websites, and spent quite a lot of time filling in online forms, including one of the “compare the market” style sites which then referred me to a whole series of “best quotes”.

Following the best offers up, one of the things that quickly became obvious was that some fairly unwarrentable assumptions get made and not all the detail is swapped correctly. For instance, I got one quote which would have been quite attractive had it covered intructor use (needless to say it didn’t!), until I looked at the fine print.

They’d “assumed” my maximum annual mileage would be a less than staggering 3,000 miles (I wish! My tyre bill would be peanuts!) and that I wouldn’t ever carry a passenger (wrong there too).

But neither of those restrictions were in the least obvious until I checked the detail of the proposal with the “EDIT” button that took you backwards.

The worrying thing was that in searching for the “best deal” I specifically selected a much higher annual mileage AND passenger cover. I might not have thought to check the broker site having input it into the “compare” site, had it not been for the fact that as getting instructor cover is so bloody difficult, I was reading every last bit of small print to see what was and wasn’t covered.

So, two things to think about:

If your broker sells up and you get a renewal from a new broker, it’s probably wise not just to accept the renewal but to check all the details of the policy.

If you use a “Compare the market” style site, you MUST double check ALL the details, not just rely on what you’ve already typed in to be correctly transferred to the individual broker’s proposal form.

Oh… and by Saturday evening I thought I was dying – the cold turned out to be a bronchial infection. So I’m now on the antibiotics and off the bike for a few days whilst I recover.

Finally, lots of thanks to Dan and Dan at Masterquote for helping me out.

What revs should I ride at?

“Apologies that the question is a bit basic, but I’m not quite sure about precisely when I should be upshifting. I’ve been driving for years but I’d normally change gear in my car at much lower revs. I read a tip of Spin’s in a previous thread to the effect that he’d be looking to shift from first to second at about 25mph.

“That makes me think I’m upshifting a bit early as I’d change up probably more about the 20mph mark and ride at 30- 35ish in 3rd gear but Spin’s comments made me think I should probably be in 2nd at that speed. Trouble is I tried that the last couple of days and to me the engine sounds like it’s screaming.

“The bike I have is a Kawasaki ER6f and the redline is at 11k. So far I don’t think I’ve ever had it significantly over 6k so I’m probably being a total wimp about it.”

This question cropped up today on Visordown. It’s an issue I’ve looked at before, but I put a reply together again, then hit the word limit count when I tried to post. So I thought rather than split it, I’ll make a blog entry out of it.

“What revs” used to be simple… no-one worried about it and just got on with the job of riding the bike! Then all of a sudden it became a hot topic thanks to the ‘performance riding’ articles.

First things. You’ve mentioned what kind of machine you’re riding so I can give a reasonably specific answer but for other readers the speed/revs question and also the revs/power delivery equation will depend on the size of your bike and the power output, the overall gearing and the engine configuration.

Second point. The point of shifting from 1st to 2nd at ~25 is based on the need to get the bike moving and away from following traffic more than anything else. The problem is that when you dip the clutch in the car, it doesn’t really slow down, the mass of the car keeps it moving. By contrast, the bike slows quite suddenly. This can mean that if you change gear at the same kind of place as the car driver might, he’ll be running into your tail light – it’s best to get the bike moving and up near the urban speed limit before shifting up.

The third issue is changing gear in the middle of a hazard – revving the engine a little further tends to let you get clear of physical hazards before shifting. If you shift in the middle of a junction, you’ll do it 999 times and it won’t be a problem. On the 1000th time, you’ll miss the gear and the bike will either be unstabilised (missing gear mid tight turn isn’t fun) or you’ll get stuck with no drive in a hazardous position. I remember towing a mate across a staggered junction years ago, I could have just done the whole junction in first, but for some reason I decided to go for 2nd, and naturally I missed the gear (it was a Moto Guzzi!)… the weight of the Guzzi rolled me clear of the junction, and at the same time amusingly towed my mate out of the side road and left him stranded in the middle of the main road! It’s easier just to use the revs available on any bike bigger than a 125 to ride clear THEN change.

So, what’s the “right revs”? Well, all I can say is “where the engine is ‘responsive’ for the situation you’re in at that moment”. You’ll know pretty soon if it isn’t. My rule of thumb is that you should be somewhere in the middle third of the rev range, because this gives you flexibility in both directions. So with a typical four cylinder, the motor smooths out around 2000rpm and hits the red line at 13,000 rpm, that gives a range roughly 5-9k and in that zone is where you should plan to be, towards the bottom of that 1/3rd if you’re in town, towards the upper section if you’re pushing on a bit.

What are the advantages of riding the middle third? If you slow, the engine can still drop some revs without you being forced to change gear immediately – useful if the car ahead doesn’t go as quick as you expected or the bend tightens up a bit. If you speed up, you aren’t forced to change gear immediately either – useful if the overtake you’re in the middle of turns out to be a bit tighter and need a bit more speed than you planned.

Keeping the revs in the middle of the range also allows you to ride the bike more like an automatic – you can find a gear that “fits” most rural roads and just stay in the one or two gears, riding the revs that the bike makes rather than constantly shifting up and down the box. It’s not natural to a car driver for whom the “auto” gear is usually top, but you’ll soon get used to it.

I’ve not ridden an ER6 but the CB500/GS500/ER5 and a few other odd-ball twins I’ve ridden like a Laverda Ghost 650 all preferred to be kept over 2500 to 3000 rpm, and I’ve no reason to suppose that the ER6 will be much different, so with a red line around 11k, that gives you 4-7 or so as your middle third.

It’s really not “buzzy” at 5k, it’s just beginning to get going. That’s just the car owner in you listening. So don’t worry about it.

Though it might appear I’m suggesting precise figures, in reality, it’s not an exact science and needs fine tuning for the bike you’re riding. The 600 Hornet can still hit 60mph in first gear but compared with the GSXR has a more flexible engine and can pull from tickover. This means that I can actually ride it in top in a 30 limit. The engine isn’t turning over much more than 2500, and it’s not stressed, it feels perfectly relaxed and pulls smoothly if I open the throttle. But it’s not got a lot of acceleration there, and so normally I ride in 4th in town, where there’s a bit more response. Out on a reasonably twisty B road, I’ll usually be running with the revs a little higher and swapping between 3rd and 4th.

My GSXR has a flat spot at 4k, which means I have to keep the revs over 4500 for reasonable response. 4500 – 5000rpm is fine in town. True, it goes better over 7 which is good for twisty roads and flies over 9 up to the red line which I occasionally need for overtakes, but I don’t need those revs in urban riding. But if I try to ride with the revs any lower, whilst it’ll pull from 1500rpm, that flat spot is waiting to catch me out if I need to accelerate.

As a contrast to the above machines, I’ll also refer to you to a mid 90s Yamaha Diversion 600. This bike was very low geared in first (which gave it a good turn of speed off the line for its modest power output) but it meant that you hit the redline at about 45mph, so changing gear on this bike at 25 means you’re already nearly 2/3rds of the way round the rev counter. Rural riding would have this bike swapping gear a bit more; third on the slow bits, fourth for most of the other bits and top (fifth) for the faster bits.

Other bikes need yet different solutions. Twins generally rev lower, but the same general “middle third” rules apply. Two strokes tend to need the revs kept up towards the red line to keep moving; if you tried to ride a TZR250 at 1/3 of the way round the rev counter, not much would happen. Big singles take a bit of getting used to -with very restricted rev ranges, they often don’t have much choice of gear! The old BMW Funduro 650 really only liked being in one gear at any particular road speed because it was lumpy under 3k and hit the rev limiter at 6k!

You’ll hear some people saying you should be keeping the bike at peak power for best response. Away from the track on all but the smallest bikes this simply isn’t an issue. It wasn’t even an issue on my 77 Honda 400F which put out about 30hp tops, because the bike is low geared to make the most of the limited power it does produce. Even the TZR would still pull tractibly outside the power band. And in any case, even on the open road, you’re better off being able to pull up and into the peak power band rather than have to shift gear almost immediately to stay in it.

And around town peak power simply isn’t an issue. I don’t need to be wailing along at 9000rpm. I can also keep the noise down by keeping the revs lower – the GSXR bike has a semi-legal system with a race mid-section and a road can so it’s fruity but not ear-splitting, but even so it makes more noise than the stock system on the Hornet.

You’ll also hear that you should keep the engine revs up to deliver good engine braking. If you did CBT, I’ll remind you of what you learned – it’s the FRONT wheel that delivers good traction under braking, not the rear. Neither does closing the throttle illuminate your brake light which would be important for any following traffic to judge your actions – it’s not easy to spot that a bike is slowing from behind. Whilst small reductions in speed can be made by closing the throttle, for anything serious your front brake is your straight line stopper.

Not quite what I expected

I logged onto the www.survivalskills.co.uk site this morning to check something and was greeted by this:

Not quite what I expected from Amazon

I gather it’s the best selling book on Amazon!