Best Tips How to Handle and Ride a Tall Motorcycle

The topic is how to handle a tall bike. Why would you want to know how to handle a tall bike? Maybe you are looking at buying a tall bike. Maybe you wanted a dirtbike and you go "ohhhh" "those are great but they're all too tall." Maybe you're just a perp (criminal) and the last time you went to steal bikes they were all tall bikes and because you couldn't ride them you figured that you'd get to the first intersection drop the bike and run and the angry mob would come to beat the crap out you because they could figure out that you probably stole it.

How to handle a tall bike

So maybe you want to learn to ride it for that reason whatever the case, I'm going to show you some of the tips I've learned from experienced riders. I've only had this bike for a year, gotten pretty comfortable with it. I'm only '", got a -" inseam I think its all pretty normal proportions. A lot of people look at bikes like this and figure, "Oh, "Oh, you gotta be feet to ride a bike like that, that's a bike for a tall guy." Not so. So let me start off, the first thing you got to know how to do is get on on the bike. That's where we start. I'm going to start also by lowering the camera here a bit. There we go, now we're in looking down mode which is what we are doing a lot right now. 

Let me start by showing you how people normally get on a bike. It's a pretty easy thing and how it doesn't work with a tall bike. Mostly you throw your leg over the back right? Grab the bar, throw your leg over the back of the bike. I've never gotten on that bike this way. Not sure I'll be able to for this noted. I'll probably burn my pants of on the pipe. I don't think I can do that. And most people don't on a tall bike. What they'll usually do is throw their feet right over the seat, so I'm going to try that. Which is also something i never do. 

So maybe with practice you could get better at it. Throw your foot over like that and kind of have to walk over to get on the bike. And to get off you have to either pick your leg up or scrape your shoe all over the top of your seat, make a big mess. I don't do that. Look at that, my seat's a mess! Who would do that? Here's how I get on my bike. I'm on the left side of the bike, left foot, left foot peg, grab the bars, watch my shadow here. I'm going to throw my leg over the back of the bike like that.

Nice way to Get On a Touring Bike

This is also a nice way to get on a touring bike that is stacked up with big bags. A variation of that, if you can't get your leg back that far because of the bags, is to do it with a bent leg. Get up on the bike, put the knee on the saddle and come around like this to get around all of your stuff. When you're done, you're standing on the bike. That's what I'm doing, standing on the pegs, which is what you're going to do a lot riding a bike like this on the dirt anyway. So it's easy to do. 

Alright now that we're sitting on the bike, the next thing you're going need to do is hold the bike up how to balance it while you're sitting on it. so let's take a facility to look at Let's look at how this bike fits me. Here I am, trying to put both feet on the ground. This foot is on a toe. THIS foot is on a toe. That's how I fit this bike. 

Some Advice dor Riding a Tall Bike

My advice is if a bike fits you like this, don't try to put two feet down. It does not work. Why? Well, if I am slightly off balance that's all I've got for traction. This foot can slip that easy. I've got nothing holding me up. The way to hold yourself up on a bike like this is to let the bike lean off to one side. I'm going to lean it to the left. the point where i can get the ball of my foot on the ground, meaning i can bend the toes at the toe joint. That means this foot comes off the ground. I think the mistake a lot of people make is they think that is just a useless foot, now. No, it's not. You put your foot on the foot peg and now 

I can balance my bike using both feet, one just happens to be using the foot peg to do it. Let me take my hands off the bars now I'm going to manipulate the bike using just my feet the ball of my foot and my foot on the foot peg. I have a lot of control. All of the movement doing here is just using my foot on the ground and my foot on the foot peg. And I am not moving the camera. I am not moving my helmet. That would look like this. 

Its just me balancing the bike. This is probably a good little exercise. I've found that this is actually a good way to hold up any kind of a bike, even bikes were I can flat foot both sides this gives you more control over the bike than having to feet on the ground using using your butt to do the same thing. 

So I always put a foot on the ground, a foot on the foot peg when I'm standing a bike at an intersection. One thing that helps me as i a handle a tall bike like this is thinking about the let that's on the ground I have to think of this leg as operating like a kick stand. Number one the bike leans slightly towards it when I have the foot on the ground. And that's about all it can do is serve as a kickstand, it can't be doing all the things like pushing the bike around (although I'll get into that later) in the same way you do with a flat foot. and the next thing you need to know how to do after you are on the bike and balancing it is how do you stop? 

Stopping a bike like this requires a technique called "pick a side". and "pick a side" sounds easy enough. Kind of intuitive, right? What it means is before you get to a stop you've gotta decide. Because you've got to lean the bike one way or the other and put only one foot down you have to decide at some point before the stop what side that's going to be so that you can shift you weight to that side and get your leg out on that side. So i'm gonna go ahead and do that here. 

I'm gonna stop. The side I'm gonna pick is the left side. So out goes the foot and I lean the bike over and I stop. Now there's more going on to it than that. People go "Well, just pick a side." A couple of things to know number one you've gotta be precise about your stopping technique, and how and where you put your foot down. If you're used to using two feet and doing a little paddle at the stop, you're not going to be a to do that on a tall bike. 

You've got to have that foot on the side that you pick hit the ground within what I call one stride of where you're ultimately going to stop. Foot down, and stop. As you get a good what you'll find is you can put your foot down exactly the point where you're going to stop anyway there's no need to stride boom there you've stopped. Now that we understand "pick a side" another thing to know about tall bikes is how they react under braking. tall bikes are tall because they have long to travel. And long travel suspensions exaggerate certain behavior about bikes that all bikes have but they rear their ugly head more on a long suspension bike. 

These are things you need to master anyway when handling a long travel bike, a tall bike. Number one is they react very differently the front and the rear brakes. I'm going to apply the front brake and keep my head level. And I don't know if that comes across very well very well, I hope it does. I'm getting brake dive. The front of the bike is diving down a lot when I apply the front brakes only really hard. If I apply the *rear* brake only, the whole bike squats the front and the back of the bike. And sometimes my ABS kicks in. 

Good Tips For Riding a Tall Motorcycle 

So this is important know so when you're stopping the bike it's nice to fly the rear brake or at the front and the rear not the front only you try to stop the buying applying from prego you're gonna have to deal with all that nosedive a separate guides as you coming to a stop and then when you don't come to a stop at least breaks if i would like to pop up but which isn't that terrible really but there's a picture day is good news you can eliminate that behavior the bike while you're stopping that's good the reason i mention that is because you can only use the rear brake when you play the left foot down here in the right foot down the obviously you know they have access to the rear brake anymore 

So at first it's going to be easier to stop with the left foot should when you say pesticide pick the left side as he's he's going to stop with first plus in america right on the right hand side the street and the road is corrupt and as a result it's a blessing to reach for your left leg to hit the pavement then for the right i'm gonna stop here intent to show you that america and wrote him off on the side program be pretty exaggerated and his wife leslie is down here's my rights that that i've got to do the again this minute come across how much more lenient that do to get that right foot left foot frightfully the vasily 

Should learn to stop with either foot you've left for the right foot down because you never know where your balance is going to be where obstacles might be a website what foot you might have to come down with i'd l_a_ favor the left foot but i force myself to use the right foot once a while sometimes when i don't have to just to keep myself in practice because you've also then got to be good at stopping smoothly with the front brake only lisa last little bit of the of the s dot past the curve live from breakaway and you have to have all the precision so it's a it's easier to start with the left foot son and move on to the right foot well i think if you are a couple our bikes and breaking is how they can also you had a hill sonicwall over here estoppel 

I'm facing down hill and i'm why in the rear brake only which is the uphill break befuddled won the rear brake only we'll break away the likes it's lower if i asked change instead of grabbing at the front brake the pike props up significantly higher bills that i wrote a spirited rear brake only it sits down preparatory pops up so if you want to keep the vital largest opt-out ifill favor the up no break and i said that way because it's reversed is not a front replicas uphill downhill break a tie returned 

If they see tocqueville ulduar beholden to the front breaking out the rear brake unordered have help the bikes at lower assertion about a black unclear on your car you carry only supper control you have a career break at the parking brake which gently controls that we are only so you can subsurface behavior on your bike or your car it's going to come through much more long travel fight one final tip i can figure out of for hanley atop lake is how to maneuver around we need to balance they've got back in a parking spot evidently the bike going to use them until the underground tendon wishing the bike around it like ever written at the new much is it was around 

When it's in neutral then it is when it's unclear and you're holding down the clutch so i've got a new from our work pushed the biker refusing to push forward wishing back as a prize is the issue and what i do they get way up to the side of the bike and even kept pushing up hill beer and especially condemn soviet sometime just dark doing this hit the flag moved around bc i got it right friend and sort of cooking around lag eventful rather off the side foldable bike up 

So I think we should that's just what you're going to be stark has just what you have to deal with when you're not that we have such a talk i can't wait all night different but despite here instead for i don't think the holy week let's do the same thing westerners which around where is the same technique though hood light over noted that we have been your footwear inside were struggling that and has been used effectively expo movements sales of some of the skills i've learned for more experienced riders applied myself and every state dined and comfortable

That's all about best tips How to Handle and Ride a Tall Motorcycle, Thanks for your visit

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