[InvisiBill]

Originally Posted by VaFish

My daughter that has been riding for 10 months now says the most important thing is to accept that you will drop your bike.

I disagree. I accept that I'm a bigger, taller guy, but I've managed 6 years and 3 bikes (the smallest being my EX500) without dropping/crashing any of them in any way, including a number of months on my permit before I could get into the MSF class. (I'm knocking on soooo much wood right now.)

It's not the end of the world if a new rider drops their bike. Mistakes happen while you're learning. But I think just accepting it as inevitable makes it a lot more likely to happen. I hate making mistakes and damaging my things, so I'm very careful to do whatever I can to avoid dropping my bike. I think not dropping my bike has a lot more to do with me paying a lot of attention to those little details than it simply being that I got lucky.

Originally Posted by csmith12

Confidence level - It is the key to overcoming the unknowns that come up from time to time.

A healthy respect for fear - It puts the brakes on venturing too far, too fast.

There's a fine line between confident and cocky. Realize that you do know what you're doing, and you're able to handle the things that come at you. At the same time, realize that there's still a lot for you to learn and room to improve. Being too timid or completely fearless are both bad for learning and enjoyment while riding.

Originally Posted by Dave Wolfe

Target Fixation!!!!!!!!!!

This is a big one. Once you get past thinking about the most basic controls of a bike, you just tend to go where you're looking. It's a natural reaction to focus on a threat. You need to recognize that and deal with it, either by actively looking away from the threat or by actively steering away from what you're looking at. Both require some form of action to avoid riding straight into the threat. A lot of accidents could've been avoided, but the rider panicked and rode directly at what they were trying to get away from.


And finally, as many others have said, get professional training. The MSF BRC covers a lot of things mentioned in this thread. It teaches you how the controls work. It teaches you how to inspect the bike before you ride. It teaches you the fundamentals of how to ride. It's definitely a beginner class (at the end of my class, the instructor literally said, "Congratulations, you're now beginners!"), but I feel it did a great job of covering at least the basics of all the areas relevant to riding. Once you've got some seat time and are comfortable riding, check out the ARC or similar classes to learn even more. While there are a few natural-born riding experts, you're most likely not one if you're reading beginner tips on a message board. Trust that the people who have lots of experience and have done lots of studying in this area do know what they're talking about, and most likely are much better at it than you are. Even if your method manages to get the job done, there's probably a benefit to doing it their way (they're going to teach you the best way to do something, not an inefficient way that happens to mostly work out).