{"id":57,"date":"2011-09-08T08:32:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T08:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/?p=57"},"modified":"2011-09-08T12:10:49","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T12:10:49","slug":"learning-off-the-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/?p=57","title":{"rendered":"Learning off the Bike"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did read Roadcraft, the Police Motorcycle Manual, a few years ago. I picked up a few things, but it didn’t really gel for me. Likewise, I didn’t really find watching people’s YouTube videos on riding enormously helpful.<\/p>\n

But now I’ve done some observed rides, now I’m trying to put these things into practice, I find the book, and the videos, enormously helpful. The book fills in gaps in what I know, the videos give me great examples of what really good riding looks like.<\/p>\n

I find myself looking at different things. Not just looking at where the rider in a video is positioned, but looking ahead of him and imagining his planning process, so I can predict where he will move and when. Watching his head movement as much as possible, so I can see what observations he’s making.<\/p>\n

Alan sent me a list of great videos by a local police rider<\/a>. I particularly like this one, as its on roads we’ve been riding on, and it shows positioning for view and straight-lining bends really well. The rider is just so smooth and controlled.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

I just find I’m watching other riders so differently now. Just for a bit of fun, here’s an American police low-speed control competition. The riding is really impressive – what was my brain saying? Where is he shifting his weight? Is he on the lock there? Where’s his eyeline?<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

My next observed ride is on Saturday (after a morning at GoApe! in Aberfoyle). It may be the last one for a while, as I’m going abroad for work until early December. I’m going to be continuing to practice till we go, and I’ll have to find out if there’s a way I can get some riding done in Vancouver as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did read Roadcraft, the Police Motorcycle Manual, a few years ago. I picked up a few things, but it didn’t really gel for me. Likewise, I didn’t really find watching people’s YouTube videos on riding enormously helpful. But now … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrider.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}