Well, Ian and I had our first day of motorcycle lessons today. I had no idea they were so complicated: fuel valve, reserve tank, ignition, engine killswitch, engine starter, throttle, front brake, rear brake, clutch, gearbox… and that’s not even covering the turn signals or headlights or horn. Ideally you should be able to operate the critical ones by muscle memory. All this while keeping track of balance, making turns, managing the clutch and throttle and brakes, keeping track of what gear you’re in, and not crashing into other things. I’m surprised you don’t need four brains to drive one.

They started us out with 3 hours of classroom instruction on basics of maintenance checks, safety, turning, and how to START the beasts. After a quick trip out for lunch, we went out to “the range” and practiced basic clutch exercises, figuring out where the friction zone is and keeping our balance from a start. Let me tell you: while it doesn’t take long to figure out if you’ve driven a manual transmission car, those of you with mopeds have it insanely easy.

Here’s an example: to start riding a motorcycle, you first pray that you had the presence of mind to leave it either in neutral or first gear when you stopped. (The gears can only be reached in linear order: 1-N-2-3-4-5 and so on; to shift up you pull on the selector with your left foot, with the clutch disengaged, and shifting down involves pushing down on the selector. Neutral is a special case; you’re supposed to move it a “half-click” between 1st and 2nd gears.) Anyway, where were we? Oh yes.

Let’s assume your motorcycle is started, and you’re in neutral, and you’re actually on the bike. While squeezing the clutch (left hand), push the gear selector (left foot) until it clicks. Now ease out the clutch while giving it a bit of juice by twisting the throttle (right hand). Do that all gradually and in moderation, mind you, lest the whole thing take off from under you. Okay, now hopefully you’re moving, and upright, and fully balanced, with both feet on the controls, and not about to crash into something. You didn’t look at the controls when you put your feet on them, did you?

Okay, now we want to shift up. While not crashing into anything, squeeze the clutch (right hand) in all the way, and pull up on the gear selector (left foot). Pull hard, because if you do a half-assed job you’ll be in neutral, and that’s no fun. Remember, keep your head up the whole time. And keep your balance.

What’s that? You want to stop? Well first you need to be going reasonably straight, or the bike is going to fall over as it stops. Okay, what you need to do is let the throttle go back to normal (right hand), and then equally squeeze the front brake (right hand) and the rear brake (right foot) while squeezing the clutch (left hand) to make sure you don’t stall. Oh yeah, and you want to stop in 1st gear because changing gears while stopped doesn’t really work that well. So push down on the gear selector (left foot) to downshift as you come to a stop. If you’re in a gear higher than 2nd, you’ll need to press it multiple times. I hope you remember what gear you were in. And then catch yourself as you stop (left foot and/or right foot). Don’t look at any of the controls as you do this.

With all of this Twister meets Hokey Pokey action going on, it’s amazing it’s even possible for a regular human being to drive a motorcycle at all. But once you get past the basics, and you get into the rhythm of starting, stopping, turning, and shifting smoothly, it’s a pretty amazing feeling. Maybe it’s like riding a really fast metal horse; but then again, I’ve never ridden a really fast metal horse so I can’t say. Maybe it’s more like flying. Anyway, I think I now understand why some people drive across the country on motorbikes. It’s FUN.

News flash: Carmen Sandiego finally found by Google. Image here. If you don’t believe it, just do the search yourself.