poop
New Puppy Dawg
Posts: 3
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Post by poop on May 2, 2012 17:59:28 GMT -5
Should I learn to ride a bicycle before I ride a scooter?
I'm working on getting my driver's license and have practiced in a car and etc., but i've never been that interested in such large and expensive machines.
A friend of mine got me into scooters and motorcycles and now I keep borrowing books and magazines on such machinery. They are more eco-friendly. They are more agile. They are more attractive. They are more affordable!
So, my friend thinks it would be easier to have bicycle experience before trying out a scooter. He thinks bike experience would help me learn balance and get a hang of steering.
Is he right?
If he is, then I have a huge dilemma because I am terrible at bicycle-riding. I've tried it 3-4 times and I'm not improving at a high rate.
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Post by revweasel on May 2, 2012 18:07:51 GMT -5
i would recommend knowing how to balance at low speeds on a bike before you try to learn how split brakes work. or go 40 and not know how gravel affects the front tire of a bike.
learn to swim before surf right?
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Post by spandi on May 2, 2012 18:12:07 GMT -5
Should I learn to ride a bicycle before I ride a scooter? I'm working on getting my driver's license and have practiced in a car and etc., but i've never been that interested in such large and expensive machines. A friend of mine got me into scooters and motorcycles and now I keep borrowing books and magazines on such machinery. They are more eco-friendly. They are more agile. They are more attractive. They are more affordable! So, my friend thinks it would be easier to have bicycle experience before trying out a scooter. He thinks bike experience would help me learn balance and get a hang of steering. Is he right? If he is, then I have a huge dilemma because I am terrible at bicycle-riding. I've tried it 3-4 times and I'm not improving at a high rate. I think you friend is on to something. After I stopped riding for a number of years and then borrowed a scoot it felt "weird" (I felt the same thing on a bike.) but I found that being on two wheels of any kind helps get your "Sea legs" |
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poop
New Puppy Dawg
Posts: 3
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Post by poop on May 2, 2012 18:27:25 GMT -5
Oh, dear.
I guess it's back to falling in bushes again.
Do you guys have any tips on riding a bicycle?
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Post by rockynv on May 2, 2012 18:29:47 GMT -5
The local MSF chapter recommends being well balanced on a bicycle before taking their motorcycle safety course. I highly agree with them.
Keep working with the bicycle until it finally clicks. The bumps and scrapes you get from a 25 lb bicycle while learning can be pretty bad while those from a motorcycle/scooter can be many times worse.
If you can't get it right on a bicycle then do not go near a motorcycle or scooter except as a passenger. A few low speed tours of the neighborhood as someones passenger on a scooter may help you get a better feel for acing the bicycle but still ace that bicycle on your own afterwards before graduating to something with power.
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Post by larrball on May 2, 2012 19:28:50 GMT -5
i would recommend knowing how to balance at low speeds on a bike before you try to learn how split brakes work. or go 40 and not know how gravel affects the front tire of a bike. learn to swim before surf right? I agree on what jer, said. and mostly on the gravel part as you can make quick work fast if you drive a scooter off the paved road onto a graval road.. OUCH! is all you'll need to know. |
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Post by mnfitz on May 2, 2012 19:46:50 GMT -5
I personally would have thought prior bike riding experience would be essential, but the gal that TAUGHT my recent motorcycle training course never had ridden a bike before she bought her Harley. She seemed to be doing OK, but it still seems a lot cheaper (and safer) to crack up a bike a few times before you do it to a scooter!  |
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Post by mymomwantsatrike on May 2, 2012 20:22:40 GMT -5
I say yes.
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Post by rks on May 3, 2012 4:06:27 GMT -5
You can't be serious !!
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Post by revweasel on May 3, 2012 8:25:30 GMT -5
i used to race bicycles. i have ridden at least 76MPH (the cyclometer couldn't count faster than that) on tires that are 7/8" or narrower at 130psi. less than 3SQ/In or road contact total, both tires. i've done somersaults at 40+ on the velodrome. i would say my bicycling experience has been key to my motorbike safety.
my front tire hit gravel in a turn a couple months ago, the front tire slid out. i pretty much stood up and got off the bike behind it. scraped a knee through the denim. completely unhurt. if i haven't fallen off a bicycle dozens of times the recognition of "no way out" could have happened much later on not at all. instead of being off the bike behind it i could be in front of it. i might have tried to correct an uncorrectable situation and rolled the bike on top of me.
i'm great at falling. i do it with grace and i attribute that to bicycling and practice.
also you ask the question because you already know the answer and you just wanted us to confirm your right.
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Post by jwalz1 on May 3, 2012 9:29:48 GMT -5
Oh, dear. I guess it's back to falling in bushes again. Do you guys have any tips on riding a bicycle? My wife never learned how to ride a bike. I would like her to, but she does not want to. But if she were going to learn, the best way is really adult training wheels. It will look silly, but if you can spend a couple days on a solid weekend riding up and down the street getting the hang of it, you can probably be rid of them fairly quickly. There are a couple styles out there if you google it. |
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Post by jonglauser on May 3, 2012 12:29:46 GMT -5
With my 4 year old, we took the pedals off her bike. She pushes it around with her feet. She is getting rather good at balancing on her own. No big falls yet either. I think she'll be ready for pedals soon now that she can balance. Skip the training wheels, they're just a crutch.
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Post by leo on May 3, 2012 13:18:27 GMT -5
If he is, then I have a huge dilemma because I am terrible at bicycle-riding. I've tried it 3-4 times and I'm not improving at a high rate. you need to know how to balance a bike before you EVER get on powered 2 wheels. get a bicycle, and ride it. everyday. ride it. you crash, get on it again and ride it. no "training wheels", that's how i learned. i remember those days well. "i'm riding it! i'm riding it!" CRASH. get right back on it and repeat. couldn't even get my leg across it standing on the ground. a crash course for sure. ;D but i regress. yes, you DEFINITELY need to know how to ride a bike. |
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Post by WarrenS on May 3, 2012 13:51:06 GMT -5
In one way a scooter is easier than a bicycle. You don't have to pedal so you aren't shifting your weight back and forth as you ride. But you should learn to balance as it requires something called counter steering to stay straight up as well as turning.
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Post by jimh on May 5, 2012 21:27:23 GMT -5
If you can't ride a bicycle you can't ride a scooter.
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Post by D-cat on May 6, 2012 22:11:07 GMT -5
I had ridden bicycles for many years, and had my share of breakdowns and crashes. I have ridden just about every type of bike (single, 3, 10, 21, 5-automatic; town, touring, solid racing, dual suspension mountain...). I learned many things from riding and crashing on bicycles that apply to scooters.
Even after you are a master on a bicycle, a scooter or motorcycle will feel like the you're learning for the first time all over again. The first thing that got me was the weight difference; a heavier vehicle will require some more strength and finesse. The second was the hand brakes being opposite sides (scooter only; legal motorcycles have a foot brake for the rear). These are actually both things you can get used to rather quickly.
One of the things learned was the counter steering and more specifically, gyroscopic precision. You get those wheels moving fast, they start acting like gyroscopes. I learned this hard by one particular crash on pavement, and it was only about 20 mph (in a 10 mph parking lot; WPI Summer 1994). I took a hard left, that was supposed to turn to an immediate hard right... instead I heard a "poink." My bike was lifted off the ground about a foot to a near perfect horizontal position, now in a bee-line for the curb. I landed still horizontal with the left handle bars first, followed by the left pedal and then the wheels finally touched ground. This of course happened very quickly but it was all in slow motion to me who was experiencing this Oh S(murf) moment first hand. I'm not sure how many feet of metal was left scraped on the pavement, nor my pants or left knee for that matter, but that feeling while the bottom half of the bike was literally lifted in the air over my center gravity while the rest was in the mercy of gravity's grip taught me just how powerful gyroscopic forces can be even at a speed I thought would be far too low for such a demonstration. It took about a week for the skin on my knee to recover enough to ride again, and between the moments of cleaning and pulling out ingrown hairs from the wound and class work, I was resting, deep in thought, in awe of this experience. I remember one witness there who helped me up saying that I really knew how to crash. I can also say I have a LOT of respect for those MC racers that put their knee to the pavement nearly every turn at blinding speeds; I know just how much they are relying on their tires and suspension to keep them gripping the ground when leaned well over 45 degrees, even if they don't (yet; I suspect most of them do, and those that don't will learn).
Anyway, that long tangent was really just to say that the lessons learned on a bicycle, including the hard ones, are applicable to power riding. Just with a bicycle, you are more likely able to apply your knowledge on future rides. Any mistake on 2 wheels can have permanent consequences, but when you have a hot and heavy engine under you, the probability of higher severity of those consequences goes up dramatically. Do learn to ride the bicycle first. I don't think my story above would have come out so well had I been as reckless on a power scooter.
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Post by dkw12002 on May 6, 2012 22:45:46 GMT -5
Take a 12 year old kid who can ride a trial bike and he would be riding a scooter in about 2 minutes and riding it very well. May not know all the rules of the road to be safe, but since he would have the balance and braking down, it would be a piece of cake. I don't see how you could ride a scooter and not a bike and conversely a good bike rider is going to be a good scooter rider. It wouldn't dawn on me to try to ride a scooter if I couldn't ride a bicycle.
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