Photo by Adrian Williams on Unsplash

How riding a motorcycle changed the way I ride a car and cycle

Leszek Stachowski
Nov 7 · 3 min read

I’ve always known that having multiple perspectives is beneficial. Helps to understand others. But how much riding a motorcycle would affect me as a driver and a cyclist, I could have only imagined.

At some point this year I signed up for a motorcycle driving classes. Passed theory exam and was awaiting my first driving lessons. In that time I watched dozens of videos about “how to do this”, “how to do that” on the motorcycle. I was (and still am) terrified by amount of things to be conscious about and to watch out for.

One of the best examples is counter steering. At first I thought it’s some technique for advanced riders. Turned out to be absolute basics. Over certain speed (I won’t even try to give any estimate here, but it’s very low, so basically almost all the time) to initiate a turn you don’t actually turn the handlebars in the direction you want to go, but exactly opposite — you kind of push them in the direction you want to go! Sounds mind blowing in the beginning, but of course as you learn it becomes your second nature. Look it up if you don’t know it yet as it’s very interesting — also from scientific point of view.

And that is just a single example.

Since then I’ve watched hundreds of videos more. Here I’d like to thank DanDanTheFireman for his great job on teaching how to ride safely. For me the most important lessons from his channel are analysis of other people’s crashes. Sounds harsh, but he’s explaining what went wrong and how you can avoid such situation on your own. I’ve learned a lot from all these videos.

I drive my car every day as I’m brining my daughters to their school which is far from where we live. I’ve driven a lot in my life in many countries (Poland, Germany, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy… maybe more) and experienced a lot of different driving cultures (for example the absolute craziness of rush hours in Napoli).

I’ve cycled a lot mostly to commute while I was not working remotely. Whenever I get a chance I jump on the bike and cycle, I absolutely love it.

Both of cycling and driving provide with different perspective. I account for cyclists while I drive and I account for drivers while I cycle knowing pros and cons of both. I’m always as understanding and as watchful as I only can. This is also what I teach my daughters.

But here comes the motorcycle again. After having a bit of a break in cycling and doing the driving classes, few days ago I took my bike and cycled to downtown. On my way there I had this strange feeling that either something’s wrong with me or the bike. I checked it thoroughly but everything seemed just fine, so I continued. Only on my way back I noticed what was causing this. I counter steered it. I initiated the turns by pushing the bars in opposite direction. Guess what? It worked just fine. This also should give you some idea of how much speed is necessary to experience it as I don’t cycle fast (up to 20 kph). I would never think of an influence like this and yet — it happened.

Also bike felt really light, but we’re talking about 20kg vs 200kg here, so that’s pretty understandable.

That’s all just physics though. Lane positioning, being visible, looking not only at the car in front of you, but also as many cars as you can ahead, predicting other people’s mistakes before they even do them, head checks, rims rotation, wheel direction… There’s a lot of things more into that. Some of them I already knew or was doing unconsciously, but whenever I become conscious I’m doing something I try to apply that knowledge while using any other mean of transport. Most of it is applicable in every of them. Each single one brings more and more safety on the road.

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