YOU SUCK AT RIDING MOTORCYCLES, and I do too / Motorcycle Trip RE Interceptor 650 

My friend, you made a video 5 months ago about the Honda CMX1100 Rebel (my same bike) and I left a comment there pertaining to this video in reference to your riding skills. I personally believe that even the most skilled riders can always benefit from a motorcycle safety course because there’s always new techniques to learn and improve on. Motorcycling is constantly evolving, so it’s a great idea to keep your skills honed and sharpened. Practice, practice and practice some more! There’s people who have been riding for decades but can’t do a figure 8 inside of two parking spaces in a parking lot. Read, study, practice and take a course. Stay within your skill level when purchasing a bike! Thanks for this most informative video. 👍🇺🇸✌️

In my opinion a 100 hp bike is a powerful bike. If you wanna trash it you need to use the track and now you can think about the 200 hp bike... That is not for everyone, at least my opinion. Great topic Miles. Keep going.

Oh man, I can relate to this video! I’ve not rode for a few years and because I know my skill set was never THAT great, I’m currently tearing around on a pit bike and looking to get a Honda CRF300l just so I can learn PROPERLY! Wheelies are also on my bucket list! Stay safe! Great content

Just discovered your channel. It is lovely to see honest self reflection and analysis. Unusual for most motorcyclists never mind "RU-vidrs". These qualities should mean you will be a quick learner once you find the correct teachers. For a couple of years I instructed for the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) here in the UK - Observer is the term used - and while I would always recommend it to UK riders, the emphasis is on riding safely on public roads - a good thing. But from your stated ambitions I do not think this is what you are primarily seeking to achieve. My impression is that you are keen to develop machine control in a wide variety of circumstance. I hope you don't mind a suggestion? Try to get professionally run off road and track training courses. Doing both will stretch your skill set in opposite directions as each requires almost completely different approaches. It also helps that the skills learned translate to much safer riding on public roads, although I would also recommend doing an IAM type of course as they focus on dealing with traffic. I would also say that from your description I do not think you "suck at riding" but it does make for a great title and it got me to click on it 🙂. I agree completely that riders, in general, do not spend enough on "training". Maybe we need to think of it more as really entertaining and fun day(s) out doing something that we love instead of being "trained".

Every rider should stick to their ride, which means stay within your skill levels. Training with a professional is always beneficial, if the professional is also a good instructor. Thanks for the honest video.

Interesting perspectives about teaching skills and also the repair tips - everyone just rattles off an answer. Yeah we all have a lot to learn, but it's ok to say we know enough to tell when some stuff is just wrong.

Being good at riding motorcycle means not having accidents. I much prefer to go way too slow over the bends than slightly too fast. My technique sucks anyway.

i'm getting older (60) and i did laps on the Nurburgring on my Kawa 1100. I did lots of car laps before, sub 10min. but the bike laps really scared me eventho i had track experience already . Now (a few years later) i have downgraded to a 800cc 2cil bike. It's much lighter and at my age that is becoming important, It still has 63hp so it is still fast enough if i want it to be. But the older i get the more i like the gentle cruising speeds. Nice videos!

I hope you did your research to avoid some areas in Athens if you can mate, especially around city centre (eg. Omonoia, Kerameikos) and after dark. Stay safe and enjoy your journey!

You should always allow common sense to limit your speed. That makes you smart. The old heads are heroes because they got old.

What really helped me progress was off-road riding which you hinted at. Being on loose surfaces developes body lean and when I fell off learning to drift, I got dirty! Doing that on asphalt can have catastrophic consequences. I took this a stage further and got involved in Moto-cross racing on a 2-stroke Ktm 250mc from 1980 plus racing license, until my bank manager reminded me of the state of my account after 6months. If possible, maybe 2 or 3 guys could share a secondhand 250 - 400cc bike purely for motocross riding. A converted off-roader with the lights, instruments, mirrors etc removed would be enough to learn how to drift and slide. Taking away the fear of that was fundamental for my road riding. I found your riding good when we rode together, it gets you to your destinations in one piece which is important. Personally, I wouldn’t take an Interceptor 650 off the asphalt so, big kudos for you in having achieved that 👍🏽

Well explained. I agree.

Auto 👍, great video!!

2 more axis on a motorcycle. Gotta keep the front wheel down too.

Here in West Carolina I find very technical roads and trails and ride them very intentionally. Paying attention to my mistakes very carefully. On these back roads most people drive down the center of the road until they meet another car. So riding on the fog line all the time when approaching the many blind curves is very important. Unfortunately the fog line has fallen off the mountain in alot of places.

9:00 impressive animal casually walk across the street

Skills are great to have , as you say bikes are dangerous at times , so many Hazzards that in a car you’ll survive , but on a bike they’ll take you off . Riding to the conditions can really lower the risks . Here in the uk we have a lot of small country roads that are badly maintained and high hedgerows so blind corners !

When you can drift a ZX10R on bitumen, with all the aids turned off. Everything is easy after that. Also the golden rule. NEVER break with more than 2 fingers. If you can't get the power shift the levers in so you have your fingers closer to the end of the lever and scare yourself often(:-)

Imho a "good" streed rider can be recognised by the line he's using. I often wonder how riders with 20+ years experience can't ride a safe left corner (in countries where you drive in the right lane). +90% of all riders are way to far on the left side of their lane in the mentioned situation - that can go wrong (and often goes) in tight corners / hairpins, when a bus or truck is coming towards you. Beside that, riding a corner fast and with a high lean angle does not mean, that you're a good rider. Riding fast can be fun, but only if it's safe too. Riding too fast on a public street is just stupid in most cases. A good rider for example is a guy called "Varahannes" (an Austrian guy) -> check the video "2019 08 10 Demofahrt Liesertal" from him and you'll see what I mean.

I am taller and on a tall bike. I mostly counter lean it. Adv dad style.

Just learn to survive with a vespa px (no fancy breaks, small wheels, hand gears..) and you will gain all the training you need!

You're raising some good points. There are many subcategories of motorcycling. You need to focus on one at a time. Anybody can open the throttle at a straight but may get cucked at the first corner. *looks away* Also, please get some sunscreen, I can tell you got sunburn on some spots.

no, we don't suck on riding motorcycles. We watch too many videos how best ones rides and we compare to them. And this is dangerous.

A lot of the things you talk about wanting to learn in the first 5 minutes are things that rider training can't actually teach you. They are the types of things you only learn by actually doing them. The biggest barrier for most is having enough money to afford fixing your bike when you break it combined with the fear of not laying it over repeatedly. You also have to not have the fear of injuring yourself. If you really want to become a good motorcycle rider you would buy a dirt bike and take it to MX tracks or sand pits. There is a reason people make jokes about the really good/fast motorcycle riders having giant balls. You have to be completely unafraid of the bad things happening to you because it's through that experience you learn what not to do. As far as the braking power/efficiency thing goes, don't worry about it. At all. Obviously, it's shown that in a controlled environment a person can become extremely good at reaching near max stopping efficiency. But it turns out in the real world when you would actually need to do that you go into panic mode anyways and don't accomplish it. It's been tested again and again.

Advanced Tipp! Auf die Strasse fokusieren 😎 Weniger reden , machen! Du fährst durch Griechenland und lamentierst rum ... Ein besserer Fahrer wir man nur durch Fahren. Wieder zu Hause kannst Du Dich ja mal nach Lüneburg zum ADAC Fahrertraining begeben - bevor Du mit den Wheelies startest 🤣 Und ein guter Schrauber wird man nur durch Schrauben ... Eigentlich einfach, man muss nur machen. ✌️

If you wanna improve yout riding skills Miles you need to ride in a big city at speed every day.