Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! 
Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to 
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2003
- Messages
- 51,225
- Reaction score
- 8,193
- Location
- Huntsville
- First Name
- Scott
- Last Name
- Friday
This is a really good message,
He really lays out what I went through learning to ride a motorcycle. There was the initial phase of excitement, quickly followed by the, "what was I thinking...?" However, I broke down the essential skills and then just deliberately practiced them over and over until I could do them almost without thinking. This helped me get through that first phase where everything felt uncoordinated and overwhelming to the point where I wasn't spending so much of my time thinking about how to do and I could just do. Reaching that point was very rewarding and paved the way for learning future skills. Street riding came MUCH easier to me than did dirt. Unlike many riders, I did not start on dirt as a kid. My first dirt experiences came when I was in my late 30s and riding an 1150 GS
One of the things that often frustrated me on dirt was trying to figure out the baby steps to learn specific skills without getting hurt in the process. Falling down at 40 hurts a LOT more than at 10, and things didn't heal as fast when I got hurt. I have been fortunate to ride with some experienced and skilled riders that were patient with me and helped me learn a lot. I've also done a lot of reading and watching videos. Best of all has been the training classes I've done because they really do a good job of presenting you with those fundamental skills that you can drill on over and over.
So if you are a beginning rider, to street, dirt, or both, and you are feeling like maybe you should have tried something a bit easier than riding motorcycles, take heart. That feeling is going to occur in most anything you try to learn (except getting older and fatter...). Stick with it. Break it down. Focus on the essentials. Be patient. It will come and it will be worth it
He really lays out what I went through learning to ride a motorcycle. There was the initial phase of excitement, quickly followed by the, "what was I thinking...?" However, I broke down the essential skills and then just deliberately practiced them over and over until I could do them almost without thinking. This helped me get through that first phase where everything felt uncoordinated and overwhelming to the point where I wasn't spending so much of my time thinking about how to do and I could just do. Reaching that point was very rewarding and paved the way for learning future skills. Street riding came MUCH easier to me than did dirt. Unlike many riders, I did not start on dirt as a kid. My first dirt experiences came when I was in my late 30s and riding an 1150 GS
One of the things that often frustrated me on dirt was trying to figure out the baby steps to learn specific skills without getting hurt in the process. Falling down at 40 hurts a LOT more than at 10, and things didn't heal as fast when I got hurt. I have been fortunate to ride with some experienced and skilled riders that were patient with me and helped me learn a lot. I've also done a lot of reading and watching videos. Best of all has been the training classes I've done because they really do a good job of presenting you with those fundamental skills that you can drill on over and over.So if you are a beginning rider, to street, dirt, or both, and you are feeling like maybe you should have tried something a bit easier than riding motorcycles, take heart. That feeling is going to occur in most anything you try to learn (except getting older and fatter...). Stick with it. Break it down. Focus on the essentials. Be patient. It will come and it will be worth it
