Motorcycle Skills Day 1

If the Chinese police could see me now, they would laughing with me all the way to the parking lot.  They would be saying something like, after all these years of illegal street motorcycle riding in Shanghai, this laowai (foreigner) has gone back to his home country and has now reverted to doing motorcycle skills training in the parking lot.

 

It is exactly like what the Chinese would do for their own driver training courses in the suburban parking lots with the pylons, cones, etc..  The only difference is I'm doing it with clear blue air and green trees as a backdrop, and with instructors who speak English.

 

Actually, as mentioned before, it's more to do with unlearning and relearning.  The initial 5 hour practice session today has been phenomenal in terms of getting the basic skills done right.  The skills have been so useful that I'd want to retain the new habits and apply them to the streets of Shanghai when I return there soon enough.

 

The instructors set us up on a half-dozen basic slow-speed drills

 

1.  Feathering the clutch and finding the 'friction zone'

2.  Clutch and throttle maneuvers

3.  Shifting 

4.  Gradual low speed braking

5.  Emegency low-speed braking

6.  Pylon slalom

 

Two of the things they repeatedly emphasize are shoulder checks whenever you start moving the bike, and an 'eyes up' posture.  That is to say, they always want you to be looking straight ahead with the eyes and head up, and not distracted by the pylons, the people waving, etc.  This has been my biggest challenge for sure as I'm always gravitating to what the people are doing, especially if the instructors are walking around and giving instructions.  It's also incredibly easy to look down at the bike controls or the cones.  But they tell us to keep focusing straight ahead.

 

In the Chinese context, this is the toughest one to unlearn because there are multiple things happening at the same time.  Survival on the bike in China depends on watching the precise movements of the other people and vehicles and reacting accordingly.  The notion of looking straight ahead for great distances would get you killed on Shanghai's roads, yet for here in Vancouver, it's something I have to learn to do.

 

Another thing is that I need to improve is my emergency braking.  The tactic of using front brakes for most of the stopping power is very good, and I need to learn to use fingertips and gradually increase the pressure on the front brake.  A bad habit to unlearn has been the one of stomping on the rear brakes and skidding.

 

When you coordinate this 'eyes straight' with clutch, throttle, and brake controls it can be very demanding as you have to do multiple things at the same time.  For example, I would work on the front brakes, but end up looking down.  It just takes a ton of practice to get it right, which we eventually did.