The best books to improve your riding
Perhaps it’s because motorcycling is such a practical activity that relatively few riders turn to books to improve. Or maybe it’s because we’re now thoroughly used to the idea of taking training. Or just possibly it’s because we all had to read books we hated at school. Nevertheless good books on better biking abound and we can learn a lot from them.
By Kevin Williams / Survival Skills Rider Training
October 21 2019
Over the years, I’ve accumulated a (long) shelf full of books as well as some VHS videos – remember them? – and DVDs. All the books reviewed below ARE in my own collection, and I HAVE read each and every one more than once. Some are genuinely excellent works and the rest have value too. I do have a couple of truly mediocre books but I’ve not bothered to review those.
Some of the best books come from outside the UK, but we never seem to hear about them here – Pat Hahn’s book is almost unknown. Looking outside the usual books not only cross-checks what you think you know but also opens up access to new ideas. Just as relying on just one or two books is never a good idea if you want a balanced view, and once you look at authors from outside the UK, you’re no longer restricted to UK-only ideas. You may not be able to cross the Atlantic and take a course of training but by reading American writers what I think you’ll see is that the US approach tends to be a rather more pragmatic and risk-oriented one. And if you like what you find, then you can incorporate the new ideas into your own riding – it’s exactly what I’ve done with my Survival Skills training courses.
When deciding what to read, you also need about just what you want to learn. That means identifying your strengths and your weaknesses, as well as having some understanding of how you want to develop. Some books are pitched at novice riders, some at the intermediate ‘developing’ rider and a few at expert level. Most focus on road riding, some apply to the race track, and a few blur the line between the two. There are books in this list which deal almost exclusively with the technical skills of riding, others that aim to help you identify and manage hazards, and one or two seek to change the way you think.
I’ve started the research process for you by reminding you about the DVSA’s own ‘Essential Skills’ book, before reviewing some well-known books on advanced riding such as the Police manual ‘Motorcycle Roadcraft’, and Keith Code’s ‘Twist of the Wrist’ series. I’ll also be looking over some rather less well-known editions including Hahn’s excellent ‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’ and ‘Sport Riding Techniques’ by another American, Nick Ienatsch. At the end of the article, you should have a much clearer idea about which books would be able to give you the help you are looking for.
Here are the books we’ll be looking at:
Official DSVA Guide to Riding: The Essential Skills
Motorcycle Roadcraft – the police riders’ handbook
How to be a Better Rider: The Essential Guide
Ride Hard, Ride Smart
Proficient Motorcycling
A Twist of the Wrist II
Motorcycle Tuning: Chassis
Guide to Motorcycling Excellence: Skills, Knowledge and Strategies for Riding Right
Sport Riding Techniques
Smooth riding the Pridmore way
Full Control (ebook)
‘Official DSVA Guide to Riding’ – the Essential Skills
The first thing to say about the Driving & Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) ‘Essential Skills’ is that it’s a much better book than most people realise. The second thing to say is that it is not aimed at learners as most riders think. Instead, it’s a foundation text aimed at ALL motorcyclists at ALL levels, and to do that it offers some clear guidelines as to how the road should be used within the context laid down by the UK’s ‘Highway Code’. Although the text does get a bit attitude-heavy at times, there are some very good, clear illustrations.
It makes an excellent text for novice and developing riders, and it’s an effective bridging point from basic riding skills to advanced riding and often contains cautions within the text that are simply missing from the police handbook ‘Motorcycle Roadcraft’, which is often held up as the ‘bible’ for advanced riders. If you’re about to read ‘Roadcraft’ or the IAM’s ‘Be a Better Rider’, then I’d definitely advise reading ‘Essential Skills’ first to put them both into context with what exactly it is that you’re trying to improve upon.
‘Motorcycle Roadcraft’ – the police riders’ handbook
For many years has been ‘Motorcycle Roadcraft – the police riders’ handbook’ has been considered as the ‘bible’ for advanced riding. The motorcycle version is an offshoot of the original handbook for police drivers which laid out a clear and comprehensive treatment of defensive driving techniques. The core of ‘Roadcraft’ is the ‘system of car / motorcycle control’, normally referred to simply as ‘the System’. Given the heavy police influence on rider training in the UK, the concepts in ‘Roadcraft’ lie at the heart of nearly all UK-based advanced driving and riding courses, most specifically those run by organisations such as BikeSafe, the IAM and RoSPA. My own Survival Skills training courses build on many of the principles laid down in Roadcraft. It’s widely admired abroad too. Not surprisingly, where IAM and RoSPA teaching has spread to other English-speaking countries – for example New Zealand – you’ll find ‘Roadcraft’ has been adopted.
But the book has limitations, even if they are rarely mentioned. In the first instance, I’ve heard it said that UK police rider training is “the best in the world”. That’s a very bold claim and one I’m sure other national police forces would dispute. I’ve also seen it said that ‘Roadcraft’ is all we need to read, but if so, that also ignores the excellent training carried out by organisations outside the UK. There’s another weakness – the book was always intended to run alongside a practical training course, and there are areas where the theory was clearly intended to be fleshed out with practical training.
Where Roadcraft remains so-so is in the coverage of the mechanical techniques of machine control. The latest version improves matters because at last it covers the rather important skill of counter-steering and how we actually steer a motorcycle. As late at the 2000s, steering didn’t actually rate a mention! The book’s strength is in its comprehensive treatment of defensive riding, so get hold of a copy of ‘Roadcraft’ (don’t forget ‘Essential Skills’ though) and absorb and digest. But if you’re about to undertake a course of advanced training, don’t fall into the trap of treating it as the ‘complete’ book on riding, let alone a bible. Make it a starting point for your new library. Compare and contrast – that’s the way to get the best from the police manual.
‘How to be a Better Rider’ – the Essential Guide
The IAM’s own ‘How to be a Better Rider: The Essential Guide’. According to the IAM, is intended to be the “definitive guide to defensive riding” and underpins preparation for the IAM’s test. Opening the book penned by IAM staff examiner Jon Taylor and motorcycle titles editor Stefan Bartlett, virtually the first thing I read was the phrase: “It’s a jungle out there”.
Now, I don’t claim to have said it first but it happens to have been the Survival Skills by-line since 1997. Some sections also bear a remarkable resemblance to my old ‘Course Notes’ CDROM released almost ten years earlier. Whilst parallel evolution around the same topic isn’t unusual, some of the photo sequences are very similar. I suppose I should be flattered.
Whilst there is a lot of good content, the tone of the text frequently creates an artificial divide between the IAM and other sources of training. As a former CBT and DAS trainer, I was shocked to read that basic trainers don’t teach learners in difficult weather conditions. Of course they do. Training schools operate year-round and in all conditions. Only the most extreme conditions would cancel training or the DVSA’s bike test. A learner will only experience the weather that crops up during training but that applies to ALL training. The implication that basic training fails new riders undermines the hard work of those trainers. I’d also argue that post-test training should maintain consistency with basic training, too. For decades, novice riders have used the right foot on the brake ‘safety position’ when stationary. Yet ‘Be a Better Rider’ use the term ‘safety position’ as a position on the road, where the rider has a good clearance to hazards. I think most of us would use the term ‘safety bubble’.
The book also claims to cover ‘revised steering techniques’. Since the physics of steering hasn’t changed since the invention of the pedal-powered safety bicycle, there’s nothing ‘revised’ about the technique. It’s just a new name – ‘positive steering’ – for an age-old technique first described by one of the Wright Brothers in 1905. Rebranding it does not change what it is. It’s counter-steering. This attempt to ‘own’ advanced training is depressingly-familiar; the very first page of the previous IAM book talked patronisingly about riders who didn’t ride the IAM way.
Whenever explaining the right (ie, the IAM-approved) way to do something, the authors rarely discuss the pros and cons of alternative techniques. Throughout the text, the emphasis is on the need to be a good rider, yet often comes up short on practical advice on achieving that goal. For example, two pages on road signs say little more than “read the Highway Code”. There’s no explanation about WHY road markings are painted and road signs are put up, nor HOW to interpret their meaning. The order of the content isn’t always logical either. Planning and ‘the System’ are given separate sections, yet planning comes second. Given that ‘the System’ implements a riding plan, why isn’t planning explained first? If I gained an overall impression, it was “so long as you ride to ‘the System’, you’ll be safe”. That’s hardly the case. Understanding what prevents crashes is rather more important than learning ‘the System’ by heart; “riding is a ongoing exercise in disaster management” as a US-based instructor buddy of mine put it some years ago.
Having said all that, it’s not an expensive purchase, there IS good content and the big plus is that the latest book is an improvement on the old IAM book. It’s more readable than ‘Roadcraft’ and more understandable than Keith Code’s ‘Twist of the Wrist’ books. I was impressed with the nice, modern-looking layout of the pages. Confusion of terminology apart, it does build on what’s in the DVSA’s ‘Essential Skills’. But is it really the ‘definitive guide’? Not really. Long on exhortation, ‘Be a Better Rider’ is often short on explanation. Add Pat Hahn’s ‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’ to the library, read it back to back with this book and you’ll see what I mean. In any case, it’s aimed at a niche market. It is effectively a reference guide for riders aiming for the IAM’s advanced test – each chapter ends with pointers telling you what the IAM examiner will be looking for. Just avoid treating it as a ‘complete’ book on advanced riding.
‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’ by Pat Hahn
What stands out when reading the excellent ‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’ by US safety expert Pat Hahn is that it’s a book which makes you constantly re-evaluate what you thought you understood. The subheading ‘Ultimate Street Strategies for Advanced Motorcyclists’ shows that the target audience is the road rider, and Hahn’s attention is focused on showing you how to apply risk assessment and risk management techniques to riding. This book is not an exhaustive “how to deal with [insert hazard here]” book like ‘Proficient Motorcycling’, nor an overview of defensive riding like ‘Roadcraft’ or ‘Be a Better Rider’.
Instead, Hahn opens the door to becoming more self-aware. His thinking – very much paralleling the Survival Skills approach – is that to ride safe, you have to first of all really understand WHY and WHERE accidents happen, and the CONSEQUENCES if things go wrong. Hahn looks at where riders get hurt, breaking accidents down into how, where and why, then moves onto looking at risk, showing how risk analysis can be used to rate every motorcycling activity from 1 (safely home in bed) to 10 (moments from certain death!). The writer argues that as riding is not safe, we must work to achieve an acceptable LEVEL of risk between the extremes. He therefore avoids the error of implying that safe techniques eliminate risk – an approach UK books could do well to adopt. Hahn explains that how we decide on an acceptable level of risk depends at least partly on internal factors – our own perception of what we are doing – and that being ‘safer’ is best achieved by eliminating higher risk activities from our riding.
To show how this works, the book explores ‘Trouble Areas’ by identifying a range of scenarios that spell risk to riders. But Hahn then shows ways OUT of trouble, a big gap in ‘Roadcraft’ and ‘Be a Better Rider’. As a long-time courier, I particularly liked his suggestion of looking for alternative routes that simply avoid trouble spots. It’s a technique I use all the time.
Hahn considers the powers of sports psychology and the technique of visualisation so that ‘practice makes permanent’, something else I’ve talked about for years. His suggestion that we can change the attitude of other road users towards bikers by the way we ride is a refreshingly different perspective to the groupthink “they’re all out to kill us” trap most riders adopt. Other topics include group riding, temperature extremes, medication, passengers and a short but useful section on how to deal with a rider who’s just been upset by a minor crash.
It’s clear that much of the advice is based on Hahn’s real-world experience and some of it is unconventional, but virtually everything he writes struck an immediate chord with me – just because it’s not in ‘Roadcraft’ doesn’t mean it’s wrong. ‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’ is a little abstract at times and definitely not a do-it-yourself riding course, but the text flows nicely, Hahn’s style is conversational and mildly amusing. The illustrations and box-outs correspond neatly to points in the main text. With his thinking processes clearly laid out, at no time is the author dogmatic – he leads you to water, it’s up to you if you drink. Focusing as it does on risk reduction, the book is an ideal counterbalance to ‘Roadcraft’ and ‘Be a Better Biker’. As you assemble your library of better riding books, this is the next one I’d be putting on the shelf.
‘Proficient Motorcycling’ by David Hough
David Hough is another American author, and a long-term Motorcycle Consumer News column writer. His book ‘Proficient Motorcycling’ is well-respected in the USA. According to the cover notes, “amusing anecdotes, helpful instruction and detailed photos and diagrams… will develop your riding skills”. The book is packed with content. It covers virtually every situation you’re likely to come across on the roads and then some. It’s one of the few books that explains counter-steering effectively; in that regard it’s way ahead of the latest version ‘Roadcraft’ which finally broaches the topic. Another big plus is that Hough explains that different bikes handle differently, often overlooked when discussing machine control. As a do-it-yourself riding course, it covers just about all the bases from riding kit to weather to road surfaces. Positioning, cornering, braking, throttle use; it’s all there. And once again, Hough’s thinking on risk management being the key to safer road riding mirrors my own.
Hough has an ability to discuss technical topics relatively simply and writes in an approachable style that explains but never condescends – a difficult balance. But sometimes his style isn’t so easy to get along with. According to the cover notes, “amusing anecdotes, helpful instruction and detailed photos and diagrams… will develop your riding skills”. If ‘Roadcraft’ could be lifted from a 1950s British Pathe News report – dry to the point of coma – this is 1990’s “Friends”, rather laboured jokes and canned laughter. After you’ve read the same style of anecdote for the n’th time, you begin to want to skip the filler and fast-forward to find real content. That’s not always easy. Even allowing for the greater threat of deer on US roads, it’s hard to see why the issue needs FIVE pages (plus another half-page under night riding!) when “smarter cornering lines” only rates four. After all, even US riders have to go round bends.
It’s a heavyweight 285 pages and is not a quick read. But on balance, the good far outweighs the not-so-good. There is a lot of great content for the complete novice, and there’s plenty for the developing rider too. Even an experienced rider would undoubtedly pick up some new ideas. If your only other source is ‘Roadcraft’ or the IAM’s book, get it, read it, absorb it. Use a pad of Post-It notes and cross-reference them. And if this one book isn’t enough, you can also check out Hough’s sequel ‘More Proficient Motorcycling’ and his ‘Street Strategies’.
‘A Twist of the Wrist II’ by Keith Code
Keith Code’s theories were developed on the race track and his well-known California Superbike School use the track for their training courses, as does the European Superbike School offshoot. Although the book is track-oriented, street riding is not ignored and many of his tool kit of ideas will help your smoothness and control on the road.
Once again, it’s not the ‘complete’ book of advanced riding. This time, there’s next to nothing about defensive riding, but in many respects Code’s thinking on machine control techniques fills in big chunks that missing in ‘Roadcraft’, and not terribly well covered in ‘Be a Better Rider’. I’ll give you an example – the sections on planned cornering which maps machine control inputs to specific parts of the corner are absolutely vital, yet barely covered in ‘Roadcraft’. Code also advances very different ideas in terms of throttle control – he emphasises the importance of keeping the throttle open from the beginning of the bend to the end with his throttle control exercises. Rather than rolling off the throttle to decelerate as the limit point moves towards us, Code shows us that way to maintain stability is by driving the bike through the corner. That being the case, when a bend changes radius, we adapt by adjusting lean angle rather than speed, thus avoiding destabilising the bike by throttling off mid-corner. It does mean that we need to go in to any bend rather slower than the limit point allows, but I believe it’s the Code approach we should be teaching riders to do on the road. There’s a role for both interpretations but there’s an essential conflict between them. Code is concerned with maximising stability, ‘Roadcraft’ is concerned with maximising speed consistent with stopping distance. Only by reading both books will you understand why. The machine control elements of my own courses draw heavily on the ideas advanced in this book.
TOTW2 is not just about machine control. A really important section of the book covers target fixation and what he calls ‘survival reactions’ – the unwanted and instinctive reactions to the threat of personal harm that often prevent us from responding to emergencies. This section will make a lot of sense to anyone who has ever scared themselves silly on a bike, and understand it is a key starting point to understanding how to get out of trouble.
TOTW2 is not a book for a beginner and will only really makes sense in the context of post-test training. A reader also has to be able to filter out the track-only advice. And finally Code’s ‘cosmic’ style of writing is not the clearest. Digesting what he’s saying and discovering the message takes some effort – I went through my copy with a highlighter pen to emphasise the gold nuggets. Nevertheless, if you care enough about your riding, put a bit of effort in and you will get a lot out of this book. And just in case you’re wondering, there is a ‘TOTW I’ but it’s far less relevant to road riding.
The ‘Survival Skills’ books by Kevin Williams
Why not take a look at the Survival Skills series of paperbacks too?
Survival SKILLS is the latest book in the series of three written by Kevin Williams of Survival Skills Rider Training. Completely rewritten from the first edition (which was on a CDROM) and laid out as a ‘do it yourself’ guide, this is a highly practical book which shows you how to improve machine control techniques, risk assessment and risk management, and the planning skills that we need to ride well in all environments from filtering in city centre to cornering on rural roads. Whatever your standard, wherever you are taking training, the easy-to-follow practical exercises will help you master advanced motorcycle riding technique.
MIND over MOTORCYCLE explores the often-ignored area of human factors – how our brains interpret the environment around us and allow us to interact with it on a motorcycle that’s capable of travelling far more quickly than the human body was designed for. The book explains the major flaw in road safety, that humans are essentially prone to error, and how a riding strategy that predicts error can help us avoid making them or falling into the traps created by other road users’ unwitting errors.
Tarmac Tactics is the courier rider’s equivalent of the taxi driver’s ‘knowledge’. Drawing on his vast experience of riding, Kevin helps you broaden your knowledge of the road and how to deal with the hazards posed by different riding environments from city centres to mountain tops, from bright sun to snow. Explore the problems we encounter as we ride and discover solutions to deal them. Covering the commonplace – junction collisions for example – and more unusual issues – riding abroad – you can use this book to gain knowledge of situations you’ve not yet encountered and still have solutions ready to deal with them.
‘Motorcycle Tuning: Chassis’ by John Robinson
The late John Robinson of Performance Bikes was one of the few UK journalists who has been able to write with real authority on technical issues. The book on handling was a standard reference in the 1990s and was the basis of most of the “why your bike goes round corners” or “how to use the brakes” technical articles in the bike press. I’ve used the book myself to help with some of the deeper background knowledge that enables me explain handling issues to trainees on my Survival Skills courses. However, it seems to have been largely forgotten in recent years.
As a technical manual, rather than a descriptive book, it’s not the easiest read. There are some pages of mathematical calculations which will make most readers’ heads spin – I’ve got a science background and they were a struggle for me. But there’s enough to read that you can make sense of the content without getting the calculator out. It’s another book to put it into the melting pot. Mix it up with Roadcraft and Keith Code, and you will have a much clearer understanding of the third essential motorcycling principle – if Roadcraft tells you what you should do, and Code tells you how to do it, Robinson explains why it happens.
‘Guide to Motorcycling Excellence: Skills, Knowledge and Strategies for Riding Right’
The award for least-manageable title for a book on biking skills go to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. For years, the MSF were at the forefront of rider training in the USA and though their pre-eminance has recently come under fire, they have exported their ideas world-wide; the UK’s own Compulsory Basic Training course appears to mirror elements of their basic rider course.
Once again, the book demonstrates the States-side emphasis on risk assessment and risk management. In this respect, their Experienced Rider Course is ahead of ‘Roadcraft’ and the IAM’s ‘Be a Better Rider’ books. But that doesn’t mean that their ‘Guide to Motorcycling Excellence’ is only suitable for advanced riders. It is a good read for riders at any level of development from novice upwards, covering issues such as rider attitude, protective riding gear, pre-ride inspection, maintenance, and troubleshooting, as well as basic and advanced street skills. In terms of defensive riding, the book includes tips on how to create a ‘space cushion’ – what we’d call a ‘safety bubble’ – and how to avoid traffic hazards, stopping quickly and counter-steering for better control, managing traction and positioning your body for smoother, more consistent riding. The book also covers riding in a group and off-highway riding… and much more. As the authors remind you: “the more you know, the better it gets”.
‘Sport Riding Technique’ by Nick Ienatsch
Although the name of former 500cc GP world champion Kenny Roberts is in big letters on the cover, his contribution is actually restricted to the foreword. The text is written by highly respected US motorcycle journalist Nick Ienatsch and none the worse for it. Ienatsch wrote a pair of articles entitled ‘The Pace’ about an effortless style of riding on the road. Those articles have since been much copied, and the book also reflects Ienatch’s ideas on road riding technique.
Although he’s a former racer, the book explains why many popular riding techniques are really for the track and don’t have a great deal of application for a road rider. Nevertheless, he goes on to explain the more useful crossover ideas, such as body shifting – another topic you won’t find much about in ‘Roadcraft’ or ‘Be a Better Rider’ – and explains how this helps ‘power-up’ counter-steering.
I’ve seen comments suggesting the detail contained in the book isn’t in-depth enough but I fail to see that objection. You’ll find the book entirely relevant to road riding, nicely digestible in bite-sized chunks, and compared with Keith Code’s books, it’s far more readable.
‘Smooth Riding the Pridmore Way’ by Reg Pridmore
In the US, former AMA road-racing champion and ex-pat Brit Reg Pridmore is well-known for his popular CLASS Motorcycle Schools where he teaches his race-proven techniques of smooth throttle management and precise braking control. In the UK, his school is much less well-known than the California Superbike School and that’s probably why few riders have heard of this book.
Whilst the target market is both track and street riders, which is a difficult double to pull off, there’s one message that comes over as common to both riding environments – the need for smoothness. Pridmore points the finger at lack of smoothness at being at the bottom of some of his own worst accidents. Pridmore believes that all motorcycle inputs are governed by attitude, smoothness and control, and that without mastering these basics, we’ll never be able to ride at our best. Smoothness majors in the sections on braking and throttle management, but also gets its very own chapter.
Whilst the book contains a lot of good content and some ideas that run contrary to standard UK ‘advanced theory’, if I’m honest, I didn’t find it an easy read – I kept having to backtrack and re-read sections just to clarify what I thought I’d read. In theory, the book is laid out using one of the best methods for efficiently delivering new knowledge: introduce the material, teach it, then explain again what you just taught. So in each chapter, Pridmore briefly explains what you’re going to learn, why you should know it and what it will do for you. Yet in practice, the book reads more like a series of flash cards. Each chapter divided into short sections, themselves broken up by anecdotes from Pridmore’s racing career, check-lists and tips as well as mini-articles by his instructors and even former world champ Freddie Spencer. I’m a great fan of balanced discussions of pros and cons so I also found Pridmore’s approach a bit overbearing at times, rather too much “this worked for me so you should do it this way too” and not enough “consider these alternatives”.
The section on cornering also had me confused. He correctly identifies the problem of early apexes pushing the rider wide – something that’s overlooked in the standard UK texts which focus almost exclusively on the ‘right’ line but not what makes a ‘wrong’ line – but his argument that a line tighter to the inside of a corner gives the rider more space to correct problems really depends which side the problem comes from.
The section on Street Strategies may not be an in-depth exploration of town and freeway riding, but it throws up the need to position so that OTHERS can SEE US – a vital factor often overlooked in the quest for a better view for ourselves. The book rounds off covering two-up and group riding – often rarely-covered topic – and a chapter on ‘Special Situations’ has some limited information on tension, heat and cold, darkness and so on, as well as a slightly more useful section on bike set-up which is a good starting point for a new rider, if not an experienced one.
It’s Pridmore’s ideas on steering that are often seen as controversial. He talks about body steering. At that point, many riders react with a knee-jerk “but bikes steer by countersteering” response. So motorcycles do, and Pridmore doesn’t say that they don’t. The best way to find out what Pridmore means is to read the book, though I can’t help but thinking that his concept of body steering really means the subtle posture changes which influence the way the bike responds when counter-steered. Rather than smoothing out cornering, the big advantage of a change of body position whilst counter-steering is the ability to SPEED UP the machine’s response and make rapid changes of direction. Instead, the advantage of body steering is explained as increasing ground clearance. That might be relevant on the track, but how often does a modern road machine run out of ground clearance? In fact, I’d say the book is geared a bit too much towards track riding for a pure road rider. Overall, it’s a useful addition and an interesting book with some different ideas. But don’t rely on it as your only source, and it’s not the book for novices to start off with.
‘Total Control’ by Lee Parks
Lee Parks is another US racer-turned-writer. He has been holding his one- and two-day street-oriented ‘Total Control’ clinics on parking lots around the USA since 1999, and they run under franchise in the UK. His school was recently handed the contract to run rider training in California.
The intended audience is obvious from the back cover: “Parks demystifies the techniques used by top racers and demonstrates how to apply them to high performance street riding”. If that didn’t give it away, then the first section head should warn you: “The Problem of Learning to go Fast”. Hmm. The Survival Skills approach has always been “learn where and why to go slow”. That’s the only way to make an informed choice about speed.
All through the book, Parks makes very positive statements. For example, the opening chapter is on the vital topic of traction and rightly says: “it’s important to know what traction is and how it works”. A page follows on hot, cold, soft and hard tyres, then in quick succession he covers road conditions, suspension, braking, cornering, acceleration and lean angle. But nowhere is traction really explained. Why DO tyres stick to the road? He says we shouldn’t get “bogged down by oversophisticated academic theories”. Instead if we “stay focussed on the drills… traction will take care of itself.” Call me academic but I’d rather like to know what’s going on between the rubber and the road. “Do it because I tell you” doesn’t cut the mustard for me.
The book has an annoying style – many of the illustrations opening each chapter involve Parks gurning for the camera. And despite what is says on the cover, this really isn’t a book for street riders – there’s little about riding on the road, particularly if you’re looking for explanations rather than just trusting in faith. The book never approaches the depth of defensive riding thinking you’ll find in ‘Roadcraft’ or ‘Be a Better Rider’, let alone ‘Ride Hard, Ride Smart’. Instead, it’s really aimed at street riders taking a bike on the track. If you’re interested in trackdays, I’d give the bike a qualified thumbs-up for a track novice – the advice in the book is a starting point and should make you a faster track rider, if not a more competent road rider.
‘Full Control’
‘Full Control’ is an ebook written by the Norsk Motorcykkel Union of Norway. Translated into English, it had a rewrite in 2013, and has recently been turned into a series of videos, at time of writing still only in Norwegian. “Everything you need to become a good rider” said the explanation alongside the original download link. A bold claim indeed! So can a free ebook deliver?
Mostly my answer is yes, and it’s really good to some areas of riding technique brought out from the shadows and discussed intelligently. The writers emphasise the classic combination error of turning too soon in a corner then not turning positively enough, the result of which is almost always running wide and either off the road or into an oncoming vehicle. This crash is the cause of many fatalities, and whilst the theory that we should avoid errors has its place, we all make mistakes. So getting out of trouble is vital and it’s good to see they offer a proper ‘brake in a curve’ exercise. All too often, here in the UK we treat braking into or mid-corner as a taboo subject. We either dismiss it as poor technique or something misplaced from the racetrack, or we insist it’s something a good rider should not need to do. If we spent a little more time accepting that mistakes happen and teaching riders how to brake effectively when leaned over, we might start to make inroads into cornering crashes. That’s the reason I’ve always covered the topic on day two of my Performance: SPORT advanced courses.
‘Full Control’ also emphasises the importance of posture, and explains how ‘anchoring’ onto the bike with the knees allows for the arms and shoulders to stay loose when steering and under braking.
A nice section explains the dangers of riding at speeds beyond our comfort level: “target fixation, tunnel vision and frantic search”. However, the chapter on ‘Dangerous Instincts’ is essentially Keith Code’s ‘survival reactions’ re-written. ‘Total Control’ does have a tendency to reinvent the wheel whilst failing to credit the original source.
Discussing cornering, the authors talk about four stages of the ‘ideal curve’ – a preparation phase, steering phase, throttle control phase and exit phase. This corresponds closely to my own ‘Point and Squirt’ system of cornering that I first wrote about online in the mid-1990s. Once again, I credit the sources – it’s a combination the MSF’s Slow – Look – Lean – Roll and Keith Code’s ‘Two Step’ found in TOTW2.
In just a few places, the thinking is confused. The explanation of gyroscopic precession in the section on steering is an example – whilst turning a spinning wheel left or right makes the wheel lean, in terms of the overall forces involved in generating the roll need to make a motorcycle lean, precession is a very small contributor. In fact, gyroscopic forces tend to keep a bike stable and upright. And occasionally I take issue with what we’re being told. For example, there is a claim that strong acceleration is available for overtaking by being in a low gear at high revs. Not necessarily, it will depend on where your engine develops its torque. And if you’re high up the rev range, you’ll run out of revs very quickly. If there’s a rule of thumb, best acceleration is likely to achieved by accelerating INTO the higher revs. Nor do I like the idea that it is “absolutely preferable to use only the front brake and let the rear wheel rotate to avoid a rear slide”. The book also claims ‘body language’ isn’t an efficient way to steer a bike but confuses the issue by talking about ‘weighting the outside peg’. They are both simply a way to express how a rider can move around on the machine.
Frankly speaking, some critical overview of the content would have been good. Not every instructor agrees with every other one, but perhaps some of the more glaring factual errors could have been eliminated. This statement, for example, is just plain wrong: “You keep the weight on the outward peg. This gives the bike stability because your weight is fed into the bike low down.” It’s a common misconception but your body mass doesn’t move. It’s basic physics.
There are also some over-complex explanations which probably result from the translation into English from the original Norwegian. Nevertheless, it’s definitely worth downloading and reading, and then going out and doing the exercises. Costing nowt is a bonus.
Summary
There are two times of year to be reading books on better riding. When the evenings are long and dark, and the bike is parked up for the bad weather. And all the other times when the weather is fine and we want to be out and about on the bike. Reading a book won’t magically turn you into a ‘better biker’. But you can get plenty of information about the way you can move forward and develop your skills, knowledge and – dare I say it – attitude.
And then all you have to do is to go to work on incorporating everything you have learned into your riding.
AND OPEN UP ACCESS TO HUNDREDS OF BETTER BIKING ARTICLES?
SURVIVAL SKILLS RIDER TRAINING 