Sports Cycle

Forget any idea of "one size fits all". Your bike has to fit you just right if you want to have precision control. To change down smoothly under braking, your front brake and clutch levers must be positioned right. For smooth starts and slick changes the clutch bite point needs to be set right. A badly set gear-shifter can make you wobble and your changes slow up or down the box. Little things do matter. Even two people the same size may need to set a bike differently to fit differences in arm, leg and trunk lengths as well as riding style and personal preference.



Adjusting the controls "spot on" gives you optimum control with maximum comfort. Each control action does its own job without disturbing balance or weight distribution, in an emergency that can be the difference between staying in control and coming off.

So let’s look at how to do it.

Set that Front Brake

- We want instant braking

- Good "feel"

- Easy throttle blipping for smooth down changes


OK, in your normal ‘at speed’ body posture, reach out for the brake. It needs to be angled so that it "falls to hand". Try it eyes closed. If the lever is too high your wrist will bend up uncomfortably and it will be even worse as you lean back into your braking posture. If the lever is too low, it might feel OK in your sit up braking posture but it won’t fall naturally to hand at speed.

Once you have found the small range of rotation of the lever that feels right for just braking, work on braking and blipping the throttle at the same time. Most times you do this, you will be in sit up posture under firm braking, slowing for a curve, but just occasionally you will want to brake and downshift while maintaining your ‘at speed’ posture. (I find this happens when aborting a passing maneuver and getting ready for the next chance).

Riding with 2 fingers covering the brake is a recommended technique – but it may require a different setting.

Perfect blipping is most critical when under heavy braking because that’s when rear tire is lightly loaded you are most likely to break traction with a bad downshift, so bias your final setting to favor this situation.

Set the Clutch

Easier than setting the brake lever because your left hand only has one job. For me precision clutch control is most demanding when maneuvering at walking pace, so I want the angle set for that.

The other thing to adjust is the clutch biting point. Two things are important here: low speed maneuvering and quick downshifts at speed. To get quick shifts, I want the clutch disengaged with only a part squeeze on the lever, not have to pull it up to the grip. For maneuvering and stopstart city traffic, you want the ‘just engaging’ point of the travel at the most comfortable and controllable amount of squeeze. Bikes with a heavy clutch or a long, draggy action can be a pain! One thing is for sure, you’ll always ride better with your best compromise setting than the way it came. And if it is still a pain, maybe you should see if there are any upgrades or modifications available for your model.

Set the Rear Brake

If you thought adjusting hand controls was fiddly, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

The rear brake is the third control that needs ‘feel’ and feedback to the rider. Motorcycles vary in the pedal pressure and travel that’s needed. You only need enough pressure to squeal, not lock(!), the rear tire at 70mph. The brake may be capable of more than this but you won’t ever be able to use it, even with a failed front brake. If you have the confidence and control to rear tire squeal from 70mph down to 20mph, I congratulate you. You truly are a rear brake maestro. If not, please don’t start practising at 70 mph unless you are feeling suicidal!

Unless you are a maestro already, set your brake for maximum comfort and control when using it fairly gently for low speed work and slippery conditions.

The correct way to make adjustments may not be obvious, check out the manufacturer’s instructions in the manual. Make adjustments a little at a time. Remember that a pedal set too low could reduce ground clearance and the available lean angle. Look what other settings (peg position for example) are available on your model.

Set the Gear Shift

There is probably more variation in travel, weight, feel, crispness and adjustment in gearshifts than in any other motorcycle control. Just be glad you are not forced to use hand gear selection that was popular in the old days. Read the manual to see how to make adjustments. Aim to be able to make quick, clean shifts both up and down without repositioning your foot or straining your ankle. Be aware of possible ground clearance issues.

When you reckon you have got the right setting just do a quick check to make sure selecting first at standstill with your other foot down still feels OK. This move is different because you are unbalanced and out of the normal body position. Sports bikes can be a bit awkward and tiring to ride in the city unless you get it right.

I hope you have got your bike set up to suit you now. I promise it will make a major improvement to your comfort and control. As you get familiar with the new feel, give yourself a little time to settle in, but don’t be afraid to make further minor adjustments that get the total package working in harmony.

Setting the bike for precision control is groundwork advanced riding.

Your choice of a bike can determine how much maintenance you’ll need to do. Sometimes engineers design motorcycles with certain high-maintenance features to increase the performance of a bike, but more often than not, features that make a motorcycle easier (and cheaper) to maintain are excluded just to save production costs.



If you’re after extremely high performance, you’ll have to accept the fact that you’ll have to spend more money on maintenance, but if you’re willing to accept a slightly lower level of performance, there are features you can look for and riding habits you can practice that will help you keep maintenance costs down.

Three elements in particular will affect your maintenance costs : the shaft drive, the centerstand, and the valves.


Read More : Buying Your First Motorcycle : Where to Buy Your Bike ?

Getting Shafted

Select a bike with a shaft drive. Chain maintenance is the most frequent procedure you’ll need to perform on your bike. It’s also the dirtiest.

Sporty bikes will usually have a chain, since chains tend to disrupt handling less than shafts. If you want such a bike, you’ll usually have to accept a chain as part of the package. But there has been a trend in recent years to use chains on types of bikes that, by nature, aren’t the best in handling, such as mid-sized cruisers. This is purely a cost-cutting measure on the part of the manufacturers. If you want to buy a mid-sized Japanese cruiser, my advice is to get an older, used one, since these usually have shaft drives.

Another option is to select a bike with a belt-drive system. These can be a good compromise between the handling benefits of a chain and the maintenance benefits of a shaft. Belt-drive systems, like the one used by Harley-Davidson, require less maintenance than chains, but more than shafts. The main drawback of Harley’s belt-drive system is that fixing one can be an expensive proposition.


Read More : Buying Your First Motorcycle : What to Look For ?

The Benefits of a Centerstand

Make certain your bike comes equipped with a centerstand. Until recently, all Japanese bikes came with centerstands - it was one of the things that set them apart from Harley-Davidsons, which have never been equipped with modern centerstands.

In the 1980s, Japanese manufacturers began excluding centerstands from ultra-highperformance sportbikes, because the designs of the exhaust systems used in those bikes prohibited the mounting of centerstands, and also because centerstands hindered cornering clearance.

But in the past few years, they’ve also begun excluding them from bikes that already have limited cornering clearance, like cruisers. This is another cost-cutting measure. Combine lack of a centerstand with a chain drive, and I guarantee you will create new expletives while maintaining your bike.


Read More : Buying Your First Motorcycle : What’s It Worth ?

Hydraulically Adjusted Valves

One of the costliest aspects of maintaining a motorcycle is adjusting the amount the valves move up and down.

This is a critical (and often neglected) part of motorcycle maintenance, because if the valve doesn’t move down far enough during the combustion cycle, it can get bent and destroy the valve train. If the valve moves down too far, it can hit the top of the piston, destroying the entire top end.

It is also an expensive part of motorcycle maintenance. On most modern motorcycles, valve adjustment is too complex a job for an inexperienced mechanic to tackle alone. Most riders take their bikes into shops to have the procedure performed. If the motorcycle has any body work which the mechanic has to remove to gain access to the valves, or if the motorcycle is constructed in a way that requires the mechanic to go to heroic lengths to gain access to the valves, the mechanic will also have to spend even more time adjusting the valves.

And to a mechanic, time is money. Shops often charge $50 per hour for a mechanic’s time. On a multi-cylinder bike with body work, a mechanic can take several hours to adjust the valves. Valve adjustments seldom cost less then $100, and on certain complex machines, can run as high as $250. Remember, this is a procedure you’ll have to have performed at least once every year (even more, if you ride a lot). But there is a way to avoid this expensive bit of maintenance. Back in the early 1980s, Honda introduced several motorcycle models that had overhead-cam engines with hydraulically adjusted valves. Suzuki and Kawasaki followed suit, introducing cruisers with similar systems. All new Harleys come with hydraulically adjusted valves.

While such systems slightly limited the performance of the motorcycles using them, they also completely eliminated the costs associated with valve adjustments. And for most motorcyclists, the performance limitations of hydraulically operated valves were academic, coming into play only at extremely high RPMs. In the real world, motorcyclists seldom ride at such extreme speeds. If at all possible, select a bike with maintenancefree, hydraulically adjusted valves. This will decrease performance a bit, but that will only be an issue on bikes that demand ultrahigh performance. On cruisers and standards, the difference won’t be noticeable, and you’ll save hundreds of dollars each year on maintenance costs.

Once you’ve selected a type of motorcycle, you need to decide whether you want to buy a new bike or a used one.

Price is probably the prime determining factor in this decision. If money is no object, you can just waltz into a dealership and buy any bike that strikes your fancy. You can buy two or three of them if you’re that well off, so you don’t even have to make any choices. But most of us have to make prudent decisions when it comes to expenditures, especially when it comes to spending money on recreational activities like motorcycling. If you’re on a budget, buying a used bike can be a wise decision.


In general, though, modern motorcycles are pretty tough to destroy, and unless the previous owner really went out of his or her way to trash the thing, most used bikes are in fairly good condition. This is especially true of motorcycles that appeal to more mature riders, such as touring bikes, cruisers, and standards. It is less true of sportbikes, which tend to lead harder lives than other types of motorcycles. Dual sports can go either way. They are usually in fair condition, unless the owner has attempted to do serious off-road riding on them. One disadvantage of buying a used bike is that you are never quite certain what you are getting. Another disadvantage of buying used is that you don’t usually get a warranty.

But given the reliable nature of modern bikes, these disadvantages are fairly insignificant. The advantage of buying used is that used bikes are less expensive than new ones. This is especially true of Japanese motorcycles, which historically have had fairly poor resale value. For example, Kawasaki’s 1998 Ninja 500R retails for $3,200. At that price, the little Ninja represents one of the best values in motorcycling. But you can find a used fixer-upper for as little as $1,000. Nice, clean, used models can be found for as little as $2,000 to $3,000. These bikes may be 10 years old or more, but they are the same basic motorcycle as the new model.

Harley-Davidsons prove the exception. Because people have been waiting months or even years to buy new Harleys, the used market has gone insane. I recently saw a 1998 Sportster 1200 Custom, a bike that lists for $8,500, advertised in a newspaper for $13,000. A premium of $4,300 is quite a price to pay for being impatient. I strongly recommend waiting to buy a new one, given the current market climate.

Fortunately for buyers (and unfortunately for those looking to turn a quick buck), that climate seems to be changing. The current market boom, caused by demand exceeding supply, appears to be waning. Harley plans to step up production dramatically over the next few years. This means the future supply of new Harleys will meet demand. Already, you can find new Harleys sitting for sale on showroom floors, a situation unheard of a couple of years ago. When supply and demand equalize, only a fool would pay more for a used bike than a new bike.

While buying a used bike may make the most sense from a pure dollars-and-cents point of view, buying a new bike has its advantages, too. When you buy a new bike, you get a warranty. While the odds of a modern bike breaking down are slim, it does happen, and when it does, that warranty is nice to have.

Another benefit of buying a new bike is that it can be easier to finance. Often the dealer will be able to finance the machine, saving you the hassle of procuring financing yourself. And many manufacturers offer attractive low-interest financing packages. Buying a new bike frees you from some of the worries of buying a used bike. Knowing the machine’s complete history has certain benefits. When you are a bike’s only owner, you can break it in properly yourself, and you know the bike has been properly maintained.

Plus, there’s the intangible benefit of riding a brand-new motorcycle. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of riding away from a dealership on your brand-new bike.

The Costs of Cycling

The most obvious (and largest) cost of motorcycling is the cost of the bike itself. New streetbikes range from a low of around $5,299 for a Kawasaki Ninja 300 ABS to a high of almost $34,000 for a Ducati Panigale R. Most new bikes will fall into the $7,000–$15,000 range.

Used bike prices can vary even more than new bike prices, but expect to spend at least $2,500– $5,000 for a good used motorcycle (unless you’re a skilled bargain hunter). No matter what type of bike you buy, or whether you buy new or used, you will find some unexpected costs. Some of these costs, like buying insurance, will become apparent soon after you write the check for the bike. Others, like the cost of basic maintenance, will rear their ugly heads only after you’ve racked up a few miles. These costs aren’t obvious to a new rider, and a little knowledge ahead of time can influence your choice of a bike. As you will learn, that choice will in turn influence those hidden costs.

Insurance Costs

Some insurance companies simply will not insure a motorcycle. Those that do usually use a completely arbitrary method of determining insurance premiums based on engine displacement. Basically, the smaller your engine, the lower your insurance costs are likely to be, and any bodywork will add to your premium. This may seem logical to someone who knows absolutely nothing about bikes, but once you understand more about engines, you’ll realize that engine size means little.

But that’s the way things are, so it’s a good idea to take insurance costs into account when selecting a motorcycle. Check insurance prices in your area before buying a bike. Rates for the same bike from the same company can double from one location to the next. For example, my wife, who has a spotless driving record, paid about $260 per year for full-coverage insurance on her Honda ST1100 when she lived in North Dakota. When she moved to Minneapolis, her insurance premiums (using the same policy) doubled, shooting up to nearly $600 per year.

Maintenance Costs

Even less obvious than insurance costs are maintenance costs. While modern bikes don’t require an annual overhaul like many older models do, they still require more maintenance than most cars. This is partly because motorcycles are so technologically advanced.

Motorcycle designers have to use sophisticated mechanisms to get a relatively small motorcycle engine to generate so much power. Thus, these engines require more routine maintenance than less highly-stressed engines. Add in the other procedures your bike will require, such as carburetion adjustments and chain and tire replacements, and you can expect to fork out some serious cash for tune-ups over the years.

And if you don’t do your own basic maintenance and instead take your bike in for things such as oil and tire changes, you can add a significant amount to your overall total. But there are some things you can do to minimize these expenses. The less you abuse your motorcycle in general, the less money you will have to spend maintaining it.

You are about to enter into a relationship with a mechanical object unlike any you have had before. Owning a motorcycle is a much more intimate experience than owning a car or pickup truck, perhaps because you meld into the machine when you ride, your body encasing the mechanical heart of the bike. You become part of the machine. You ride just inches away from the engine, the source of your bike’s power, and you feel and hear the internal-combustion event more directly than is possible in an enclosed vehicle.

And you control the direction in which you travel with your body, leading the bike down the road with your own movements just as you would lead a dance partner. This provides a much more immediate experience than sitting inside a glass bubble, turning a steering wheel vaguely connected to some invisible mechanism. Given the nature of this intimate relationship, it is vital that you choose the right partner. With the dizzying array of motorcycles available, choosing that partner might seem daunting at this stage, but it’s really not as confusing as it might seem. You don’t have to know every detail of every bike ever made - you only need to know yourself and your own needs.

What Do You Want to Do?

Before you select a type of bike, first you need to determine what kind of riding you want to do. If you have no interest in riding on public roads, if you just want a bike to ride through the swamps and forests, you should probably consider getting a strictly off-road dirtbike.

But you will probably want something you can ride on the road. Riding off-road is great fun, but by getting a bike that is not street-legal, you cut off a lot of your future options. Unless you already have friends who are into serious off-road riding, you’ll probably want a machine you can legally ride to the local hangout to visit old friends and make new ones.

Or maybe you don’t give a rip about riding off-road. You might have visions of riding through corners on a high-performance sportbike, leaned over so far your knees skim the surface of the asphalt. Or perhaps you envision yourself making epic road trips aboard the biggest touring rig available. Maybe you dream of conquering the jungles on a dual-sport machine.

On the other hand, you may not even know what you want out of a bike just yet. Whether you know exactly what you want out of the sport or you are still trying to figure that out, it’s best to keep your options open. Just because you want to see the world doesn’t mean you have to buy an ultimate-behemoth luxo-tourer. And just because you want to be the next speed racer doesn’t mean you have to buy the bike that won at Daytona this year.

While bikes have grown increasingly more specialized over the last 15 years, they still remain remarkably versatile machines.

Any bike can be a tourer if you take it on a trip. I’ve put 1,000-mile days on a hardedged sportbike. I’ve traveled the entire United States on a big V-twin cruiser. My wife once rode a 500cc thumper from the Canadian border to Mexico and back.

And in the right hands, any bike can be a sportbike. While riding an 18-year-old, 650cc Japanese bike, I’ve shown my tail to testosterone-crazed squids (sportbike racers) on the latest sporting hardware. And while riding a modern sportbike, I’ve been embarrassed on a twisty road by an old dude on a Harley that was older than I was. While any bike can be used for nearly any purpose, there is a reason certain types of motorcycles are used for certain tasks more frequently than others. I still suffer from wrist problems from touring on a sportbike, and my wife bought a larger bike within weeks of returning from her trip on the thumper. And that guy who smoked me on his old Harley would probably love riding a modern sportbike, if he ever tried one.

Choosing a Versatile Motorcycle

You might think you know what you want to do before you start riding, but after you’ve been at it a while, you might discover an interest in an entirely different form of riding. You might get a Harley Sportster thinking you’ll only use it to ride to the lake on the weekends, for example, and then develop an itch to ride to the farthest corners of North America.

That’s why it’s a good idea to get as versatile a motorcycle as possible for your first bike. The big dual sports are about as versatile as a bike can get. They can handle unpaved roads and worse, and they can be set up for touring. However, you might not be interested in this type of bike. You might be turned off by the looks of the machine. Another disadvantage of the dual-sport bikes is their height: They are tall machines. While sitting up high is an advantage, because it lets you see over traffic (and, more important, helps other drivers see you), it presents some challenges to those with shorter inseams. To fit on one, you need to be of at least average height, or you may find these bikes a bit of a handful in stop-and-go traffic.

If dual sports aren’t your thing, that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. There are many versatile pure-street bikes to choose from, too.

Getting a Good Fit

A big factor in versatility is comfort. If you are comfortable on a bike, you can ride it harder and farther. And different bodies fit on different bikes. You can’t really tell by looking at it if a bike is going to fit you, either. For example, I fit nicely on Yamaha’s YZF 600 and could ride one from coast to coast without needing wrist surgery. But Honda’s CBR600F3 puts my hands to sleep within minutes. Yet a new rider would be hard-pressed to see a noticeable difference between the two bikes if they were parked side by side, and many other riders find the Honda just as comfortable as the Yamaha.


Motorcycle ergonomics - the science of designing motorcycles that conform to the human body - receives much attention in the motorcycling press these days. Ergonomic considerations influence all aspects of motorcycle design, from the riding position to the placement of the controls, which in turn contributes to the overall versatility of a motorcycle. The better a motorcycle fits you, the more comfortable you will be. The more comfortable you are, the more useful your motorcycle will be.

Because choosing a motorcycle is as much an emotional process as it is an intellectual one, in the end, only you will know what type of motorcycle will be right for you. But once you’ve selected a type of bike, getting a versatile bike that fits your body will make your entire motorcycle experience much more rewarding.

Nothing surpasses the pleasure of seeing the world on a motorcycle, because on a bike, you are right there, in the thick of it. That means you get to smell the freshly cut hay alongside the road you’re riding down. The morning sun recharges you, just as it recharges the flora.




The downside of all this nature worship is that you will experience the world in its entirety, and you must take the bad with the good. That means being prepared for any kind of weather.

Rain Gear

Ride long enough, and your rain suit will become as much of a part of your everyday riding gear as your helmet : You won’t leave home without it. A good rain suit can turn a miserable, wet ride into a tolerable or even fun one.

Rain suits are either one - or two - piece suits, made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or nylon. I prefer the one-piece suits, since rain can seep in between the pants and the jacket on a two-piece suit.

When selecting a rain suit, choose as brightly-colored a suit as possible. Visibility is especially important when it comes to gear you will wear in low-visibility situations, like the rain. Do not buy a black rain suit. Face it, you’re not going to look cool while riding a motorcycle in the rain, regardless of how tough your rain suit looks. Since being cool is out of the question, you might as well be safe.

PVC provides better rain protection than most nylon suits, but because it is so sticky to the touch, it can be difficult to get on and off. To get around this, the best PVC suits have a nylon mesh lining that slides against your leather riding gear. Look for a suit that has such lining in both the upper and lower portions.






In my experience, the best rain gear is a waterproof riding suit, like the Alpinestars Durban Gore-Tex jacket and pants, which are made of Gore-Tex Cordura material. With these, you don’t have to bother putting a rain suit on when foul weather approaches and taking it off when it passes. Even the best rain suits are a hassle to put on by the side of the road on a windy day, and when they get wet, they can be real buggers to get off over leather.

As backward as it may seem, I’ve encountered a lot of resistance to rain gear. This strikes me as so odd. I know from long years of experience that few things in this world are as miserable as spending an entire day in drenched leather.

You can get a bare-bones two-piece rain suit for well under $50. Expect to spend over $100 for a top-quality one-piece suit.

Freezing to Death : Beating the Cold !

Motorcyclists tend to get cold more often than they get hot. Even on a relatively mild day, say 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the windchill on a motorcycle traveling at 65 miles per hour can approach freezing. Hypothermia (a condition where your body temperature drops to dangerously low levels) is a very real danger on a bike. As I said earlier, in cold weather, a synthetic motorcycle suit can be a real lifesaver, but even those who can’t afford such a suit can throw together the proper gear for riding on a cool day.

Thermal underwear is a given if you plan to ride when it’s cool. On a bike without fairing, I wear thermal underwear (tops and bottoms) whenever the temperature dips below 70 degrees Fahrenheit.


On really cold days, I wear jeans and a turtleneck sweater over my thermal underwear. I like to wear a sweatshirt over that, along with either chaps or riding pants. When the temperatures get too cold, the summer leather riding suits usually go into hibernation.

Even if you can’t afford a jacket with electric liner, you can still benefit from electrically-heated clothing on a budget. Ansai, as well as several other companies, makes electrically-heated vests you can wear under your jacket. These vests can keep you toasty on even the coldest ride. On super-cold days, I’ve worn an electric vest under my rain gear, even though it wasn’t raining. The vest warmed up the entire inside of the suit and kept me as warm as if I’d been driving a car.




Keeping your hands warm can go a long way toward keeping your whole body warm. Most of modern companies offer electrically heated handgrip kits, and also offers them as an option on its bikes. You can also purchase something called Hand Mitts (Click on the picture above), sheaths that attach to your handlebars and surround your controls. These devices may look odd, but they provide superb protection against the elements.

Baked, Boiled, or Fried : Beating the Heat !

All motorcyclists have to deal with the heat. Riding all day under the hot sun takes a lot out of your body. You can become dangerously dehydrated and even suffer heat stroke. At the very least, you may become tired, and your judgment and riding skills will suffer.

One of my most dangerous riding experiences occurred because of dehydration. I got a mild case of food poisoning in Las Vegas, but didn’t realize it until I was headed across the Arizona desert. At the worst possible moment I could imagine, I realized I couldn’t keep down water. I spent a difficult (and dangerous) day making my way from gas station to gas station, until I finally had the sense to call it quits and get a motel room.

Since that episode I’ve learned a lot about riding in heat. The most important thing to remember is to keep hydrated. Always drink plenty of fluids, and on really hot days, drink fluids especially designed to rehydrate your cells, like sports drinks. Remember that Caffeine is a diuretic, and will deplete your body’s store of water rather than replenish it. If you feel thirsty, you have already gone too long without a drink. If you ride much in hot climates, you should really invest in a Camel Back or some other brand of water reservoir. Fill these with ice, and in addition to providing you with refreshing water to drink, they will keep you cool during the day.

Another method for keeping cool is to soak your shirt under your riding gear. This works especially well with a heavily ventilated jacket, like an Alpinestars TGP Air Jacket. You can control the rate of evaporation of the water on your shirt by opening and closing vents in the jacket.




The right gear is crucial for hot weather riding. Most leather makers now offer perforated leather riding gear, which lets air flow through the garment. There are even a few companies that offer mesh jackets with protective armor, sort of like the gear worn by off-road riders. These help you keep cool but still provide reasonable abrasion protection. Joe Rocket’s Phoenix jacket (Click on picture above) is a very popular jacket of this type.

Again, like I said in How To Choose Your Riding Gear : Jacket, Pants, Gloves & Boots ! , synthetic riding suits make excellent hot-weather riding gear. You can remove the lining from most of these and just use the outer shell, which still retains all the armor and protective qualities. The suits themselves have many zippered vents, allowing you to control airflow. I recommend wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt under its suits, since theoretically its Cordura can melt under extremely high temperatures, but in all its years of manufacturing suits (and examining and repairing suits that have been through crashes), they have yet to find one case of this happening.

While I can’t condone this practice, your risks would probably be minimal if you chose to wear just shorts and a T-shirt under your Alpinestars suit on an extremely hot day. You would still have far more abrasion protection than someone riding in jeans and a light jacket.

Although we can do a lot to make motorcycle riding safer, the fact remains that motorcycles tend to fall over more often than cars. Think about your soft skin hitting the hard pavement, and you start to see why we wear special clothing when we ride. The following list describes the bare-minimum amount of protective gear you need to wear when riding :

- Over-the-ankle leather boots
- Leather, full-fingered gloves
- Long pants
- A riding jacket




This list defines the absolute minimal amount of clothing you can wear to ride safely, especially concerning the last two items (pants and jacket). You may have seen people riding in shorts, tennis shoes, and nothing else. My advice is to not become attached to these people, because should they survive even the most minor spill, they will not emerge from the experience as people you’d want to look at on a regular basis.


Denim actually provides a fair amount of abrasion resistance and should be considered the lowest acceptable standard for protective pants and jackets, but many riders prefer the safety (and style) of a purpose-designed riding suit. These suits, usually constructed of leather or special synthetic materials, like Kevlar and Cordura nylon, offer superior abrasion resistance and often have built-in armor to protect vital areas of a rider’s body.

Make certain that your riding gear is constructed of competition-weight leather (leather that is at least 1.3 millimeters thick) : Leave the fashionweight stuff to the supermodels and biker wannabes.

Looking Good in Leather

Competition-weight leather (leather that is at least 1.3 millimeters thick) provides the best crash protection of any material, period. That’s why it’s the material of choice for racing suits. I can guarantee you (from personal experience) that buying a new jacket is much less painful than road rash, which is what riders call the abrasions from a crash.

Not all that long ago, a motorcyclist had one choice when it came to protective gear : the traditional leather biker jacket, like Marlon Brando wore in The Wild One. This lack of choice had its advantages: Back then, you knew who rode a bike and who didn’t.

The variety of styles and colors now available for leather riding gear probably has a lot to do with the increasing popularity of leather in the fashion world. No longer are motorcyclists forced to choose between Marlon Brando’s biker jacket or nothing at all. Today’s jackets and complete riding suits are available in as many styles and colors as are motorcycles themselves. And traditional black leather riding gear is now available in shapes and styles to complement every body type.

Synthetic Riding Suits : Ties Optional

While leather is still the optimum material for crash protection, an increasing number of riders choose synthetic riding suits. The advantages of leather are most apparent at extremely high speeds (which is why racers choose leather), but at speeds under triple-digit velocities, synthetic suits provide all the protection you are likely to need.

These suits have certain advantages over leather. Most of them are machine washable, unlike leather, which must be sent to a cleaner. And many of them are waterproof or water-resistant, eliminating the need for special rain gear. Plus, these synthetic suits can easily be worn over regular clothing, a tremendous advantage for people who use their motorcycles to commute to work.

Most synthetic suits are constructed with removable liners, allowing the rider to use them over a broad range of weather conditions. In hot weather, riders can wear light clothing beneath their suits, and as the temperatures drop, riders can put in the liners and wear extra layers of clothing.

Gloves : How Much Blood Can You Lose Through the Palm of Your Hand ?

Many riders - even those mentioned earlier, who wear nothing but a pair of shorts and some sandals - wear a pair of gloves when they are riding, if for no other reason than for comfort.

Always wear a sturdy pair of leather gloves, preferably a pair with gauntlets that extend over your wrists. A good pair of gloves designed specifically for motorcycle use will have extra leather on the palms, knuckles, and fingers. This provides additional protection against abrasion in case of an accident.

Riders who like to consider themselves tough often wear fingerless gloves. While these will provide some palm protection in the event of a crash, they really offer very little hand protection. Plus, while you are riding, the wind stretches out the finger openings, and bugs can get blown in. Getting stung by a bee on the palm of your hand can make your ride home a painful and dangerous experience. Full-fingered leather gloves prevent this. In fact, bees are one major reason to wear protective gear. They are a major part of the riding experience; sooner or later, you will get stung. Wearing gloves is one of the most effective ways you can avoid bee stings. I especially like gloves with large gauntlets that go well past the sleeve opening on my jacket; this keeps the little buggers from flying up my jacket sleeve and stinging my arm.

Fancy Footwear

Even choosing footwear for riding requires you to think. You need to wear a pair of over-the-ankle leather boots to protect your ankles from being burned by the exhaust pipes and from stones and other debris. You also need to take other factors into account when selecting a pair of boots.

On a motorcycle, your feet are an important part of your motorcycle’s chassis : They are what hold up the motorcycle when you are at rest. In effect, when you aren’t moving, the soles of your shoes are like an extra set of tires. Because of this, you’ll want to wear a pair of boots with grippy soles. While fashionable cowboy boots provide adequate ankle protection, their leather soles are far too slippery for them to be safe riding shoes. If you wear cowboy boots, make certain they are work-style cowboy boots with grippy rubber soles. That holds true for any style of boot you choose.

I prefer a pull-on boot over a lace-up boot, and not just because they take less time to put on. I worry about laces coming loose and getting caught in moving parts. Motorcyclists seem to develop unnatural attachments to their boots, perhaps because they are such an integral part of riding. I have a couple of pairs of riding boots that I’ve elevated to the status of pets.

My favorite boots are a pair of Durango Men's Work boots I’ve had since few years ago. These are the big, up-to-the-knee black leather boots that scare people when you walk into the room wearing them. I’ve ridden through thousands of miles of rain and snow in them, I’ve even crashed in them, and they still have the original pair of soles.

Topping your list of essential items should be your helmet. The issue of helmet use causes more debate than any other issue in motorcycling, which is insane : It’s like arguing for or against smallpox vaccinations during the nineteenth century.




Make no mistake about it: Not wearing a helmet is stupid. According to a long-term study conducted by Professor Harry Hurt for the University of Southern California’s Head Protection Research Laboratory, you’re five times more likely to suffer a serious head injury if you have an accident while not wearing a helmet than you are if you crash while wearing one. Every study ever conducted backs up Hurt’s findings.


Given the overwhelming evidence supporting the effectiveness of helmets, you’d think everyone wears one, but you’d be wrong. Stand on any street corner in a state without helmet laws, and you’ll see as many bare heads as you will see helmeted heads. People go to extreme lengths to justify their choice to not wear a helmet, but none of their justifications hold up in the face of all the available research. The arguments that helmets break necks, block vision, impair hearing, and cause overheating have been proven myths by every study ever conducted.

I believe most people who don’t wear helmets make their decision based on peer pressure. Otherwise reasonable, intelligent adults seem more afraid of facing the ridicule of their comrades than they are of living out the rest of their lives as produce. I actually had a man at the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis tell me he always wore a helmet but wasn’t wearing one during the rally because his friends weren’t wearing theirs. I was a rebel, I told him, and I wore mine anyway.

I was once in his position. I rode for over a decade without a helmet, mainly because when I was young, I hung out with hardcore Harley bikers, and they would have thought I was some kind of wimp had I worn a helmet.

When I was 25, I took a job working as an orderly in a rehabilitation hospital, in the head-and-spine-injury unit. One patient I worked with was a victim of a motorcycle crash. He didn’t break a single bone in his accident, and had he been wearing a helmet, he would have walked away with nothing but his pride injured. But he wasn’t wearing one, and he hit his head on a rock.

While his body was perfectly healthy, the patient couldn’t remember where he was from one minute to the next. One of my jobs was to lead him to the cafeteria every day, because he forgot its location from one meal to the next. That spring, my wife and I both bought motorcycle helmets, and I haven’t ridden without one since.

Besides protecting your head, a good-fitting helmet actually makes riding more comfortable. Helmets reduce road noise, keep the wind blast out of your face, and keep bugs and other debris out of your eyes.

How Helmets Are Made

Helmets help keep the contents of your head on the inside rather than the outside by using four basic components in their construction:

- The outer shell. The outside of a helmet, usually constructed of fiberglass or injection-molded plastic, disperses energy from an impact across a broad area of the helmet before that energy reaches your head.

- The impact-absorbing lining. This area inside the outer shell, usually made of a dense layer of expanded polystyrene, absorbs most of the shock caused by an impact.

- The comfort padding. This innermost layer of soft foam and cloth conforms to your head and is primarily responsible for how comfortable the helmet is.

- The retention system. This consists of the strap connected to the bottom of the helmet that goes under your chin and holds the helmet on.

Helmets come in a variety of styles, from small, bowl-shaped half-helmets that protect your brain stem and not much else, to sleek fully enclosed helmets that protect everything above your neck. In between are the three-quarter, or open-face helmets, which cover most of your head but leave your face unprotected. These give better protection than half helmets, but should your face contact the pavement at speed, an open-face helmet will provide you with a one-way ticket on the ugly train. Neither half helmets nor open-face helmets offer the comfort full-face helmets provide by shielding the wearer from the elements.

Whichever type of helmet you choose, the important thing is to choose a helmet. It is the single most crucial piece of motorcycle gear.

Choosing the Right Helmet

Helmets come in a variety of styles and prices. You can get a full-face helmet for under $100, while high-end helmets can run over $500, or even more than you thought for brand new "hi-tech" helmet.

Why do some helmets cost more than others ? There are a variety of reasons. Paint schemes add to the price of a helmet; expect to pay more for a helmet with fancy graphics than for a solid-color helmet. (If the paint scheme replicates the helmet of a top racer, expect to pay more yet.) Some expensive helmets are more comfortable than cheaper helmets, while others are not.

Some helmets cost more because they use more expensive material in their outer shells. This may contribute to comfort by making the helmet lighter, but it doesn’t make the helmet any safer.

Safety First

All helmets have to meet minimum safety standards set by the Department of Transportation (DOT). Two other organizations, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Snell Memorial Foundation, also certify helmets. A Snell certification is something I look for on a helmet. Snell won’t certify a half or open-face helmet, as DOT will, and it also has more exacting standards for the retention system than DOT.

If you choose a half helmet, be certain you are getting one approved by DOT. Lately, unscrupulous dealers have been placing DOT stickers (stickers applied to the helmet listing the helmet as DOT approved) on unsafe novelty helmets. Genuine DOT-approved helmets also have a label permanently attached to the inside of the helmet displaying DOT information, like the date of manufacture. Make sure you’re getting the real thing.

Getting a Good Fit

When you get used to wearing a helmet, you will not feel comfortable riding without one. Of course, that assumes that you’ve picked a helmet that fits you well. A helmet that is too loose might flop around while you’re riding, obstructing your vision, and a helmet that is too tight will live up to the worst predictions of the anti-helmet crowd.

If all heads were the same shape, choosing a helmet would be simple: You’d just match your helmet size to your hat size. Unfortunately, helmets have to conform to your entire head rather than just a ring around your forehead.

Because of the difficulty involved in selecting a properly fitting helmet, I strongly advise you to purchase your first one from a store where you can try on different models and sizes. While you can often save money by purchasing accessories through online shop, you won’t be saving any money if you can’t wear the helmet you order from a online shop ads because it doesn’t fit.

A helmet should feel fairly snug on your head to prevent it from sliding around and possibly obscuring your vision or falling off in an accident. It may feel too tight when you first put it on. When in place, a properly fitting helmet should not slide around on your head. At the same time, you need to watch for pressure points - places where the helmet pushes uncomfortably against your head.

When you try on a helmet, wear it around the store for a bit, and when you take it off, note any soreness or red spots. Wearing a helmet that exerts pressure on your head can turn into a brutal form of torture after an extended period; improperly fitted helmets have permanently turned many riders against helmet use. If the helmet you are trying on touches pressure points, try on a larger size or a different brand or model.

Originally, people modified their motorcycles to improve them in some way. In the early years of the sport, for example, many motorcyclists added a windshield, some saddlebags, or perhaps a sidecar to their bikes.

After World War II, customization in the United States focused on improving performance. Young American men and women had been exposed to lightweight, high-performance European motorcycles during the war. When they came home, the old U.S. bikes just didn’t cut it. Most motorcycle riders had to figure out alternative methods to get higher performance out of their bikes.




How’d they do it ? They simply lightened their bikes. They unbolted every non-essential part they could unbolt or torch. This became the pattern for customization in this country, and to this day, the bobbers, as the original chopped customs were called, still set the pattern for U.S.-style custom bikes.


As the performance levels of stock motorcycles climbed, it became less necessary to customize a bike to attain more speed. But people now customize for other reasons, too.

Some people customize for style. Modifications like lowering a bike’s suspension, altering its steering geometry, and adding ape-hanger (tall) handlebars - the modifications that have come to define the term custom for many people-actually detract from a bike’s performance, but scores of people do these things to their bikes anyway. (Many of the radically customized motorcycles you see in bike shows are actually unrideable.

But there’s an alternate movement in the realm of motorcycle customization. Many people still modify their bikes to increase their usefulness. People add aftermarket suspension components to improve a bike’s handling. They mount windshields, more comfortable seats, and hard luggage to make a motorcycle a better long-distance tourer. They add aftermarket air filters and rejet their carburetors, not only to make their bikes faster, but to make them more efficient. In a way, customization has come full circle.

Comparing Customs

Ask a typical American to describe a custom bike, and he or she will most likely describe the radical chopper-type bike. Such bikes account for the largest segment of customization in the United States, but elsewhere in the world, other types of customs have been more prevalent. In the past few years, some of the other styles of customs have been gaining in popularity in the United States, especially the café racers and streetfighters that have long been popular in Europe.

Choppers

Choppers define American motorcycle style. The original bobbers were American hot rods, stripped-down Harleys, and Indians built for speed. As other, faster motorcycles became available, custom Harleys evolved from the bobbers of the 1940s into the choppers of the 1960s. By then, chopper style had become carved in stone: extended forks; high handlebars; a low, fat tire on the back; a tall, skinny tire up front; and a tall backrest or sissy bar.

In the 1970s and 1980s, choppers evolved into low riders, becoming longer and lower. Now lowrider–type customs are more common than traditional choppers, although the original chopper-type customs have been making a comeback in the past few years.

" I don’t recommend building a chopper-type custom. Such bikes tend to be so foul-handling, they are unsafe on the road. Riding a motorcycle is challenging enough on a bike you can steer. If you want to own such a machine, I recommend buying one from an established customizer who knows what he or she is doing when building the bike. "

The original bobbers were either Harleys or Indians. When the British began exporting large numbers of bikes to the United States in the 1950s, these, too, became popular bikes to chop. Initially, customizers also chopped Japanese bikes, but by the early 1980s, Harleys once again ruled the custom-bike market in the United States. But due to the difficulty of obtaining new Harleys, along with their soaring prices, Japanese bikes have begun to regain popularity in the custom scene. You can now buy aftermarket customizing parts for a variety of Japanese cruisers.

Café Racers

While Americans were busy chopping their Harleys, the Europeans took a different approach to customization. For many post-war Europeans, motorcycles were the only form of transportation to which they had access. In Europe, motorcycles were (and still are) used more frequently as practical transportation than they are in the United States.

Thus, customization tended to be more heavily focused on practical improvements. That, combined with the more liberal attitude toward driving fast in many European countries, meant that Europeans were more interested in building faster, better-handling customs than they were in adding higher apehanger handlebars and taller sissy bars.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, a discernible European style of custom began to emerge. These bikes were inspired by European racing motorcycles. Owners moved their footpegs toward the rear and lowered their handlebars, often using handlebars that clipped directly on the fork legs (clip-on handlebars). This placed the rider in a crouched, forward-leaning position. Some owners adapted small fairings to their bikes to mimic the fairings used by racers.

These bikes became known as café racers, supposedly because their owners hung out in cafés and raced each other from café to café. Such bikes have always had a cult following in the United States, a following that continues to grow over time. There are probably more café racers in the United States right now than at any time in history. In some cities, like Minneapolis and San Francisco, the popularity of café racers rivals that of custom Harleys.

" Café racers are motorcycles modified to resemble racing motorcycles from the 1950s and ’60s. They are called “café racers” because their owners supposedly raced from café to café in London, where the bikes first appeared in the 1960s. Converting a stock motorcycle into a café racer is known as doing a café chop on a bike. "

Although when taken to the extreme, café racers can be as uncomfortable to ride as choppers, when modified correctly, café racers handle much better than choppers. Another benefit of building a café racer instead of building a chopper is that it’s much cheaper. To build a respectable chopper, you’ll either need to start with a Harley-Davidson or with one of the big Japanese cruisers—an expensive proposition, either way.

You can do a very nice café chop on just about any older Japanese motorcycle—bikes you can pick up for less money than you’d spend on tax and a license for a big new cruiser.

Streetfighters

While Yankees progressed from choppers to low riders, in Europe, café bikes evolved into streetfighters: stripped-down, hopped-up road warriors of the type the original post-war customizers in this country might have devised if they had had access to modern technology.

Streetfighters are all function. They have no bodywork, no fancy paint, and no chrome. They owe their very existence to practicality. As sportbikes became more and more complex, they also became more expensive to buy and more expensive to repair after minor crashes. Insurance companies began writing off perfectly functional sportbikes rather than replacing expensive plastic pieces.

" Streetfighters, or hooligan bikes as they are sometimes called in the United States, are bare-bones sportbikes, stripped of all extraneous body work. "

European motorcyclists, with war-bred practicality, started rescuing those damaged bikes, but instead of replacing expensive body parts, they just trashed all the plastic. Like American customizers in the 1940s, they chopped off all the extraneous parts, replacing only what was needed, like the headlight. In fact, they often bolted on a couple of headlights. When the whole thing was ready, they applied a coat of flatblack paint (to protect the surfaces of the exposed metal, not for any cosmetic reasons), then went out and rode the wheels off these streetfighters.

These bikes proved to be so popular that the manufacturers got in the act. A variety of companies began marketing sporting bikes without any bodywork, but no one got the streetfighter look down as well as Kawasaki. The latest Z1000 embodies the streetfighter look.

So You Want to Customize Your Bike ?

If you are interested in customizing your bike, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do I want from my bike? Do I want to improve some functional aspect, like comfort or handling? Do I want to improve my bike’s performance? Do I just want to change my bike’s appearance? What you want from your bike will guide you when deciding what changes to make.

2. What compromises am I willing to make to get what I want? A motorcycle represents a series of compromises made by the designers and engineers who created it. They made those compromises for a reason. Altering one aspect of your bike can cause unintended consequences in some other aspect. Honestly assess what you are willing to sacrifice before making any changes.

3. How much am I willing to spend? There are many small, inexpensive alterations you can make to your bike that will improve its comfort, handling, appearance, and performance. But making major alterations usually costs a lot, and there’s no guarantee you’ll achieve your desired results. Before embarking on a major modification of your motorcycle, make certain that you know what you want, that your intended modification will achieve that goal, and that the results will be worth what they’ll cost you.

Only after you’ve answered these questions should you make any major modifications to your bike.