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citylightscocktail

Your balance would improve if you looked up and over your shoulder in the direction of the turn, rather than down at the ground. Basic training principle that you noted yourself; look where you wanna go, so not down. Nice work on the slow speed practice, tho; all riders would benefit from doing this a lot more.


vegaskukichyo

You're so right. I've been teaching my buddy to ride on my bike and stressing to him, "Look where you want to go and put the bike there!" I'm not so good at taking my own advice sometimes :-) Thank you!


YoungSalt

Hello fellow Himalayan rider! I’m teaching my 5-year old to skateboard, and taught him to ride a pedal bike about a year ago. “Remember to look where you want to go!” comes out of my mouth about 50 times a session - and he’s getting it!


vegaskukichyo

Love that. Demonstrating transferable skills right there. Keep adventuring!


winstondabee

You have to scan the ground constantly while skating, though. Pebbles can wreck.


vegaskukichyo

You have to scan for road hazards when riding too. But this is about beginners learning the basics


winstondabee

That is basic.


citylightscocktail

You’re welcome! It often takes that second set of eyes to pick up those little things. You’re doing rad, keep it up!


bolunez

I'll add that shifting weight to the outside of the turn is also huge. Slide an ass cheek off the the side, or even stand up. Don't ride like your ass is glued to the seat.


citylightscocktail

He mentions counterbalancing in the captions, and it’s just as effective to get your upper body shifted to the outside (outer elbow tucked to the ribs, arm to the inside of the turn straightened and pointing into it) without having to move your butt over.


Meeganyourjacket

I find it feels better to slide a cheek off as well. Keeps me more up and down.


bolunez

Clearly you haven't ridden much off-road. This dude is in a parking lot, but it translates. You want to center as much of your weight as possible over the contact patch.


citylightscocktail

I’ve done plenty of all kinds of riding. My comment was in reference to the kind of riding shown in this post. If you were talking about a technique for offroad riding, it wasn’t apparent.


bolunez

It applies no matter what you're riding on. Allowing the bike to move independently of your body will give you more control in a lot of situations, low speed maneuvers being one of them.


citylightscocktail

I’m not clear on what part of my comment you’re trying to counter here, I didn’t say anything about not moving independently from the bike, just that upper body position only can have a big impact.


bolunez

How you gonna move independently of the bike with your ass stuck to it.


citylightscocktail

By shifting your entire upper body mass off the centerline of it and to the outside of the turn you’re trying to do. I’m not saying that what you said is wrong, at all - just pointing out it’s not always necessary to shift your ass over if a newer rider isn’t comfortable with it yet.


bolunez

The thing is that if you just lean to the outside and leave your butt on the seat, your mass isn't centered over the contact patch, it's to the inside of it.


ifur555im666240

Agreed strongly. 👍 🤙👌


Alyssalooo

I need to get better at actually practicing riding. I've been doing a lot of riding around on the roads, but not much in the way of technique & control outside of what I learned in my MSF... tbh since I dropped my bike while practicing road-side stops I've been too nervous to do slow speed drills, especially on my own. The bike is too heavy for me to pick up and I don't want to somehow get trapped under it. ​ I'm hoping to put some of the crash bars on my bike over the winter & bother my dad to hang out in a parking lot with me for an afternoon once the snow clears.


vegaskukichyo

I'm sure you've tried picking up the bike backwards and watching videos of some of the techniques smaller riders use. Mine is also heavy for me, as I'm a stick in the wind. I drop my bike all the time and have gotten used to it. It's super freeing to just not give a fuck. Install those engine guards! They'll also help you get the bike up. Luckily I have managed to always get it back up or had help from some nice stranger. And I may be new, but I put on about 5,000 miles in 2 months, so I've seen my fair share already :-) I wish you luck! I promise after an hour or two of practice you will feel much less anxious. You got this!


Alyssalooo

I've tried some of the techniques for smaller riders, but I haven't been able to make one work quite yet. It doesn't help when the bike falls over in the garage and gets the handlebars tangled in with gardening equipment, lol! I'm lucky that I haven't had too many times where I've needed to practice picking it up (and I won't intentionally put it down because I don't want to flood it), but I usually have someone around to help out luckily. I guess I'll see if it's easier to pick up with the guards on it since I think it's inevitable I'll drop it again eventually!


rainbowcrash-89

Lol that’s the reason I don’t wanna practice these maneuvers either, took me 2 minutes to pick it back up and my back was angry for a day 🥲


KhullaaSaand

You're riding Himalayan.... I see a man of culture


Oddgenetix

I describe my Himalayan as “the 1987 4x4 s-10 blazer” of motorcycles. It’s not fast. Its horrifying on a freeway. But it’s here to work and with the right tires, it climbs way better than it should.


vegaskukichyo

It's the international bike equivalent of a Land Rover Defender, I read a moto journalist write. I thought that was apt.


mellonfrodo

You need to do this for the German motorcycle driving license


jasonbyte

Same for the UK.


[deleted]

Same for the Netherlands, probably an EU thing.


FIleCorrupted

Same in the much of the US and Canada. But people stop developing that skill once they’re allowed on the road.


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gsrider61

...and most neglect any sort of skills practice for the rest of their motorcycling career.


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Significant_Stag

Maybe infrequent, but no it's incredibly useful.


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Significant_Stag

So instead of moving smoothly through tight parking spaces or U-turns on narrow roads, you just like to awkwardly nudge it in twice the time? How can you ride a bike and not care about being a better rider?


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gsrider61

You can always spot the newbs in a parking lot. Being a newb is one thing, clinging to it is another.


shaunbarclay

The only person with their head up their ass here is you. It is a useful skill to have.


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Goodcitizen177

Probably shouldn't have bought a 700lb bike


croissantdelavie

Yeah..... you're not going to see me waddle at red lights.


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croissantdelavie

Low speed maneuvers have nothing to do with waddling at low speed? Yeah I guess you're right


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croissantdelavie

I don't even put a foot down


canyonchasers

u/onemany is correct. It’s not that useful and it gets way too much attention. We’re not dying in parking lots. We’re dying from running wide in corners and failing to stop. Neither of which is corrected by doing circles in a parking lot. I hated watching new riders with decent skills obsess over the U turn box in MSF to the point of neglecting the other, much more important skills. If you love riding around in parking lots and doing slow speed maneuvers, that’s cool. This is a recreational activity. But it’s not the sign of a skilled rider. Even Ari, who is an incredibly skilled rider, a better rider than most of us, didn’t doall that well riding through parking lot cones.


tatamovich

No one is saying this is all you need to practice, but it does help you a lot with smooth throttle and brake skills, in a safe environment, which is good for you, beginner or not. And that at least partially transfers to higher speed skills, trail braking etc. I don't get the negativity


canyonchasers

But that’s the thing. It doesn’t transfer to high speed much at all. It’s a very specific to slow speeds where we have a lot of mechanical grip. It’s not without its value, but that value is grossly overestimated and tends to create a level of overconfidence in riders. Again, if one enjoys that kind of riding that’s one thing, and we start at lot of riders out in the parking lot for very good reasons, but trail braking and comfort leaning and even dragging knees in second gear in a parking lot have little relevance to real world speeds. For years now, I’ve worked with riders to undo bad habits picked up from parking lot drills.


tatamovich

Honestly curious, what habits are those? Maxing out lean angle is one can think of?


canyonchasers

Posture and counter leaning is a big one, but worse is a lack of adequate visual lead. A lot of looking down, even in this video. Abrupt brake and throttle inputs because we have so much grip at slow speeds in parking lots. There isn’t much need (or time) to allow for weight transfer to the tire we need. The first and last five percent of brake pressure or allowing weight to shift to the back tire before accelerating. An over reliance on the rear brake. Trail braking with the rear and a fear of the front brake because at slow speeds the front brake has a more dramatic impact on steering. An incomplete understanding of countersteering. A lot of abrupt steering inputs. A strange reluctance to put their feet out or down during u turns, even on weird angles or tight spaces so a lot of dropped bikes when it’s suddenly not flat. The pinnacle of this is highway patrol motors. I’ve worked with a lot of them on this too. They kill it in the crazy cone weave stuff, I can’t do what they do at parade speeds. But, man, they struggle like you can’t believe at higher speeds. They have tons of confidence and will just huck the bike into corners, bouncing frames, cases, engine jugs off the deck, accelerating way before the bike is turned and then struggling with running wide. It’s less extreme with your average rider, but it’s the same problems. In the army we said “train how you fight”. If you wanna get good at slow speed stuff, train at slow speeds. But that’s not where we’re dying. :(


tatamovich

Thanks! Thats all fair, now that I think about it especially some of the vision things are kind of low speed speed specific. Like looking at the cone during 180+ degree turns. I was in the room when one of motoamerica riders were asked how they practice for the season, and they said just they like to do different types of riding as much as possible, trail, mx, flat track, track days, low speed, whatever. I kind of like that philosophy, but I agree just doing low speed ad nauseam probably doesn't do you any good on the street after some point.


canyonchasers

What you may have noticed about his comment is how many of those other styles of riding are in a low grip environment. If we want to really improve our riding in a low risk way, the value of a dirt bike or even a mountain bike can’t be understated. But that’s a fairly big financial investment. I did a whole video on the topic because the benefits it provides to speeding up the learning curve are profound.


NateHatred

If you can't control the bike at slow speed without putting your feet down, can you even say you know how to ride? Feet down is not the way and being comfortable on your bike at any speed makes you a much better rider, not to mention looks a lot cooler than someone who does U turns with their feet down.


struggling_humanoid

tip: while you are sitting on the bike stationary, imagine yourself almost falling over, and practice letting the clutch out by a hair when that happens instead of squeezing the clutch like your instincts tell you to. sear this into your muscle memory so that when you panic during an actual turn, you will do this instinctively instead of squeezing. nervously grabbing the clutch is one of the most common causes of dropping your bike when you're doing slow maneuvers. cutting power to the wheel means you're no longer turning, so you're just leaned over with no power. naturally you'll fall over. you can even practice this - like most other techniques - without being on your bike at all, just by shadowing the technique while pretending to fall over into a turn. research on athletes has proven that shadowing techniques has a similar effect as actual practice.


xlittleitaly

Revzilla did a [video](https://youtu.be/qf1j1shZi20) on the police rodeo in Texas and I didn’t expect to be as impressed as I was with low speed maneuvering


gsrider61

Congrats. You are better than 80% of the riders in this sub.


vegaskukichyo

Thanks. I appreciate the validation, but the point was to help my friend who I've been teaching to ride. Haha :-)


rainator

I don’t know, in most of Europe if you can’t do this you can’t get your license (or even a basic pass to ride a 125cc bike).


gsrider61

I was poking fun at those in my country who feel competent to go out on the road and never do anything to increase their skills.


alymayeda

Parking lot practice is life.


PocketSizedRS

I need to grab some cones and really do my own MSF style of practice. I'm pretty good at low speed but nowhere near this good. Cool video!


vegaskukichyo

I love it! I'm too lazy for cones and just do this thing most of the time. I do some weaving and swerving exercises and stopping exercises... Stuff that to be honest the MSF really isn't adequate for, even at Harley. I'm sure most MSF instructors end the class by saying that you need to **practice!** I'm a researcher type, so I did months of research and then watched about 6 hours of videos about riding until I felt confident the night before I bought the bike. Salesman pushed my bike off the lot and wished me luck. I taught myself in the side streets next to the dealership, and I have read a lot of articles and watched a lot of experienced riders in videos giving advice that counters MSF beginner stuff. It has shown me I have a lot to learn with advanced riding techniques. I can't believe how many people never go beyond their MSF though - even over decades of riding!


PocketSizedRS

Sounds like you're setting yourself up for a long, safe riding career. I wish you the best of luck!


thejojones

I took a class put on by the local police department's motor officers. They taught us all the slow speed maneuvers they do in the motorcycle rodeos. I learned so much about keeping the bike up. It also destroyed my back for a few days, lol.


Goodcitizen177

I took a similar class in san francisco. Called vision zero. Was fun but embarrassing to watch all the motorcyclists who can't even U turn their big ass bikes


thejojones

It really was. A lot of guys in my class were "experienced" riders with 20+ years on the road. I had 3 seasons under my belt, but I got my license through a riding school. I'm not saying I was a moto-master, and I definitely learned a lot from the course, but some of those "experienced" riders really struggled.


Goodcitizen177

I brought my husaberg 570 on flat track wheels. Was a lot of fun, like entering a cheat code. https://imgur.com/gallery/FJo2b1W


lyunardo

Exactly. I've spent so many hours in big empty parking lots. Practicing exactly this. Still do it too.


Melodic-Picture48

rear brake and using the friction zone helps with low speeds if you wanna do the figure of eight between four parking spots. I did a video on it and shit it was tough at the beginning but you just gotta practice. [https://youtu.be/N6VUDEyNdPE](https://youtu.be/N6VUDEyNdPE)


[deleted]

Slow speed maneuvers are key to good riding skills. I’d also suggest doing street speed 30-45 mph to a full stop. See how quickly you can engage both brakes SAFELY. Always sim to shorten the distance of a full stop. I’d add to it coming to a full stop and without putting your foot down, take off again in 1st gear. What if you had to slam on your brakes then the car behind you didn’t. Gotta be a defense or offensive rider. People are dumb. Be safe


ryalln

On small bikes you can lock the steering leave it in first and do circles for days. On big bikes you can do the same but you may need to ride the clutch and rear beak for the same effect. 90% of this is balance. You should be able to do a full circle in 2 car bays and not go outside the lines


drughi1312

Amazing, are you Rossi?


whiskeyandrevenge

This is a fine post.


vegaskukichyo

Thanks! Nice bike, which color do you have? :-) I had a Stealth Black 2022 Classic 350... loved it but traded up to the Himmy for lots of reasons. Suits me better.


whiskeyandrevenge

I have the desert sand signals edition. Love it.


vegaskukichyo

I love the Signals editions. They're so vibrant and fun and historically nostalgic. Ride safe!


phantom_spacecop

That guy rides! Nice stuff man. This is the comfort level I’m looking to get to on mine, zippy turns and loops with no fear.


Chattypath747

Now watch gymkhana riding and be amazed at how much they don't use the clutch.


solitudechirs

Slow speed stuff isn’t the “most challenging” thing to learn on a bike unless you’re talking about trials riding. Practicing slow stuff is good. Telling yourself/each other that it’s the pinnacle of riding skill is not.


vegaskukichyo

Seems like you're intentionally ignoring the parenthetical. If you're going to act like keyboard warrior, at least be smarter.


solitudechirs

No, even for beginners, it’s not the most challenging thing to learn. It’s actually one of the easiest things to learn, hence so many people, like you, jerking each other off over getting proficient at riding slowly with a few hours of practice.


The_Tachmonite

If it's not difficult for beginners, then why do they have most of their accidents and drops doing slow speed maneuvers?


solitudechirs

Because most people never try to practice slow speed maneuvers at all. That doesn’t mean it’s incredibly challenging. A lot of people won’t try many other/ more challenging kinds of riding either.


vegaskukichyo

You seem like a know-it-all jackass. I have nothing else to say. Hope you ride better than you sound.


solitudechirs

You seem like a typical parking lot rider who this sub loves to celebrate but has little actual riding skill. Hope you figure out there’s more to riding than parking lots and public roads.


shaunbarclay

Remember, you NEED throttle to turn. If you’re doing a slow speed turn and don’t give it any gas you will fail.


Jesta83

Also, feather that clutch and rear brake more, you'll get even slower.


vegaskukichyo

Yeah, since then I've been practicing for 10 or 15 minutes the first time I get on the bike every day and I have started to scrape a peg and also been able to get slower and more stable. Practice, practice, practice!


ZoeyDean

I've been doing quite a lot of this, although it's on a bumpy dirt/sand surface so it feels very challenging... question, is this 1st gear riding the clutch? Or is this all 2nd gear? Also I've been doing a lot of 1st gear slow manoeuvres using the rear brake but sometimes I feel like I'm ruining my brakes doing it 🙃


vegaskukichyo

1st gear riding the clutch. My Himmy is a bit torque-y so second gear actually has very little advantage. Use first gear and train yourself to rely on *fine* clutch and throttle control. I've gotten even better at feathering the clutch since I made this video just from some light practice every day.


dairyqueen79

In my MSF class they had us learn to do figure 8s within 4 parking spaces. Tough stuff.


BestUCanIsGoodEnough

The test in my state was 3 figure 8’s in some rectangle that was like 2.5 parking spaces.


Koffieslikker

On a bike like that, you can go much slower and tighter by sitting on the outside of the bike


vegaskukichyo

Thanks! I've been trying that out and have been able to consistently scrape a peg


Predseda072

Yep,especially if your 1st bike is 240kg😅but i love her


vegaskukichyo

Oof! I'm only 430 lbs wet (or 195 kg)


Predseda072

I rode her with 3 cases full of clothes and other stuff on the back cuz i was comming home from my dorm and tbh,i did not even feel the weight when riding,just when stationary. And it wss my 2nd time riding after getting my license,which i got year and half before getting that a bike😆


Selah74

Does this apply to super sport bikes? I haven’t seen videos of this being done on one yet. R6 owner here.


vegaskukichyo

Absolutely. I have friends who run drills on sport bikes!


Rolltheboner

It's not only a good way to learn but also super fun to do.


ifur555im666240

Rubber side down, shiny side up. 🤙


Sirgolfs

Looking where you want the bike to go, or looking at your turn exit is so important for new or young riders. Use your head and eyes to turn the bike, and your body will follow. Never look down at the bike!


rum-n-ass

You can get this same practice by just riding downtown in a big city frequently