Comprehensive Bike Riding Guide for New Learners

As a new rider, your impulse and passion for riding your machine often exceed the pursuit to actually learn about riding. This often leads to problems when you hit the road and causes road accidents and mishaps. As a self-drive vehicle provider, we understand the invigorating passion that new riders possess. Hence, to aid them in our own manner, here are a few mistakes that most new riders commit and their solutions.Through these, we aim to resolve and simplify the various maxims and issues that riders face while starting out in their training journey.

Failing to learn the Basic Aspects of Riding a motorcycle

It's possible that a new rider might be well aware of the basic techniques of riding a bike, its also possible that you might have learned about bike control and bike riding in control situations.  But the possibilities and chances that the road brings In are pretty different than the ones you might have trained for. Being unable to feather the clutch, and use the throttle and clutch correctly, can lead you into big trouble.  The web is full of videos of novice riders failing to understand the power of the vehicle; due to the failure of stalling the bike, they often rev up the engine too high, and while dumping the clutch, the bike launches itself into a full-on lurch. 

As a new rider it's important that you practice in empty grounds and parking lots first and then use the same knowledge in the practical world. Drive around on roads you know would not be that crowded and use the vehicle as much as possible there before heading over to the highways. Further, it's important that you gain as much knowledge about your vehicle as possible to be fully capable of working on it in any kind of danger or issues.

Panic Braking

A Common issue that a great deal of new riders face while riding. In such matters often being startled by a certain situation the rider breaks with great intensity and, leading to either a collision from the Backend or slippage due to wheel lockup. Here are a few of the ways through which you can easily ride without getting into such situations.

Riding at a safe Distance from other Traffic

While riders might equate this with riding slow, it's a completely different thing. Riding at a safe distance from the ongoing traffic would allow you to have enough time to react and brake before rear-ending the ongoing traffic. Riding behind a big vehicle would often impair your vision of the road and hence push you to fail at braking while riding. Riding at a safe distance would allow you to have enough room to take evasive action in case the vehicle ahead stops abruptly.

Braking in wet conditions

When riding in wet conditions, the bike's breaking capacity reduces drastically. Hence, while riding in wet and foggy conditions, it's important to ride slowly. Break in a gradual manner, especially if your bike does not have an ABS system. In case you grab onto the breaks suddenly, it's possible that the wheels will lock up, and the vehicle might slip. So Beware.

An experienced rider can gain a feel for whether the bike is on the verge of slipping or not and, hence, modulate the braking accordingly. As the speed slows down and the front tyre is able to gain grip, you can occasionally increase the force of braking by adding additional load to the front end. This is a task that gets easier with practice if you were to grab the breaks instantly. Its also essential to apply the rear brakes as well. Certain vehicles also come with combi brake systems that would help you in such ordeals.  If you have been planning for a bike ride and are confused about which highways you should plan a ride on, here is our blog that would help you.

Choosing a powerful bike

If you have never ridden a bike, we would recommend that you start with something that is about 100 cc to 150 or slightly above. As these would have enough get-go power for you to ride around. Choosing your fist bike to be something a bit more powerful than 150cc- 200 can land you into trouble.  A bike that is more powerful than 150cc would be heavier and have very different handling dynamics than a smaller lighter bike. Starting with a smaller bike should not be something you should be ashamed of; plus, with these small bikes, you would be able to get better fuel efficiency, and you would be able to ride farther for lower charges.

With the rising prices of bikes and two-wheelers, it's possible that you might want to spend money on a big motorcycle once so that even if you were to plan trips in the future, you would have a bike with enough get-go power to take you around. In that case, you can probably start riding by riding bikes from your relatives or friends that too only with a learner's permit in hand. Once you have time behind the handlebars you can always make a decision as to what kind a bike you want to buy.

Riding While Unprepared

It is often the small rides to the neighbourhood shop or anywhere else that prove to be fatal; the distance of the ride does not matter. You should always wear a helmet and shoes. Of course, I would recommend wearing a full-on suit for a ride around town, but being covered in tough denim and wearing leather boots would protect you in case of collision and other problems.  You should abstain from riding in shorts and slippers even if it's to the neighbourhood shop.

Riding with a Pillion Too Early

Abstain from riding with a pillion way too early as it would not only put you in danger but might also injure the pillion you try to ride with.   Having a pillion sit behind you changes the dynamics of handling the scooter willfully, and hence, it's imperative that you take them along only after you have had considerable experience of riding a bike. If you are someone who plans to ride a bike with a pillion quite a lot, we would advise that you buy insurance that provides coverage for the pillion rider as well.

In case you want to start riding a bike but you don't have a bike, we, RenTrip, could be of service; we provide the most affordable bikes and cars on rent. So if you want to learn you can ask someone with a permanent license to rent on your behalf and ride in parks and grounds but not on roads. This will help you gain some experience of what riding is all about.