h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: LOW SPEED MOTORCYCLE CONTROL - A87797362
Author: Freewayriding - U14998677

Hope this will help keep riders safe and answer a few perrenial questions!

Hi there Freewayriding!

What a pleasure to find a brand new member, who has already written something for Peer Review. What a great start!

I think you piece has merit, and given a bit of support from reviewers here we'll certainly be hoping this makes it into the Edited Guide.

What will happen is that people will give you some constructive, positive (hopefully helpful) advice to get this polished up and to conform to our Writing Guidelines. A53209

You may also like to take a look at two Entries that are on similar subject matters, so you can see other people's work that is already published

How to Ride a Motorcycle A271720
Motorbike Safety: 50 Ways to Save Your Life A87720005

Click on the A+number to take you to the Entry

The 50 ways Entry began life as a first person piece, rather as yours is introduced. However, as we prefer to write using the third person ( rather than 'I') it was amended to the smooth text that we now have/ So that would be my first advice - can you somehow remove the uses of the word 'I' and change it to meet our guidelines

eg

you write>>>> Owning a motorbike is rather like owning a large breed of dog: in my case a very large, clumsy German Shepherd pup called Cozmo. You see, if I let Cozmo do what he wants without any restraints,

We would prefer

Owning a motorbike is rather like owning a large breed of dog: ***you could say*** it is like owning a very large, clumsy German Shepherd pup called Cozmo. You see, ***if you let *** Cozmo do what he wants without any restraints.....


You see what I've done there? just a few tweaks. You can also get away by using 'We' instead of 'I' It makes the piece less of an opinion piece. I guess you actually are an instructor? so any advice you are giving is from experience, it is not opinion.

Could you go through it and edit all the uses of 'I' out, and perhaps put a few more line breaks in, to give your piece proper paragraphs, please?

Let us know when you've done that, and then we can help it on a bit more

Good luck! this is a great start, and we do have a few people who are interested in motorbikes, I'll try and get them to come and give you some support.

Lanzababy - Guide Editor

No worries (at all!) will have a go at tweaking, and yes I am a fully qualified riding instructor. Hope to get it up to scratch, love this site a real tribute to mr Adams.

Regards

FWR

had a tweekette.stop. please advise.stop. thanks.stop.

sorry been watching war movie!

I've been watching this Entry taking shape throughout the evening, and it's looking good


Sorry, I am not a , although both my daughters and their partners are keen riders - I prefer to watch bikes as racing, from my armchair

lil

Thanks lil, armchair petrol head eh!

Regards FWR

Had a read of both entries, see what you mean, though countersteer would take up a whole days training and really really upset the uk DSA if taught to novices, especially the weight on the opposite peg bit, must be a trans Atlantic difference? Lol

You are well on your way to controlling your Entry, Freewayriding

I did not see your earlier version, that is part of being in a global community. But from the comments, you have done a great job 'tweaking'.

One thing I might suggest is some section headers, I can see some great opportunities here;

'Training the 'Dog'

'The Clutch is our Friend'

'Preparing for Test Day'

I saw several others, but you get the idea. Please feel free to express them the way you want, this is only a suggestion.

You might want to expand your closing thought;

>Note, this article presumes knowledge of your motorcycles controls and safe practice

With the addition of 'Although the experiences expressed here are based in the UK - the methods can be useful to Bikers everywhere' or something to that effect.

I base that primarily on your comment about counter-steering. And no, I am not a if that matters, but I have driven many manual transmissions, so I understand the clutch part.

F S

Hi FS

Thanks very much for suggestions, tweak time again!

I've re read this Entry, and I can see big leaps forward here.

Have you been writing long?

It takes great skill to write with humour, most people fail abysmally - but yours did make me smile. I can imagine that humour is a great way to connect to your pupils too.

Please don't vanish now, will you? We have to wait at least a week before we can recommend this for the Edited Guide, and then there would be a gap while we have someone sub edit this.

Keep tweaking - eg adding some headers as suggested above. This is looking really promising so far.

humour may be optional....

Theres a part of the CBT ( Compulsory Basic Training) where we have to talk about protective clothing etc, whilst doing my final qualification exams in a very cold and icy Bedfordshire umpteen years ago now, I dropped in the fact that the only legal item a rider is required to wear is a crash helmet, so technically we could all ride around stark naked if we chose, but we'd probably get arrested for flashing and or frightening old folk!

Passed with flying colours but had a comment on the debrief that my lessons, 'tended to include unecessary humour whilst discussing serious topics'.

That aside you should read my instruction manual! Every training body produces its own version,but jeez some are better than prozac!
I find a little humour tends to wake students up and keeps them interested.

I write for pleasure and as a kind of self medication, usually stuff for the kids ( Don't lick the bee Grandad is my fave!) and have attempted a few thrillers and one comedy based on a reality tv show , I got into trouble with Discovery Channel producers for! (actuality really IS a bizare process!) but thats another story..

FWR

Good writing!

I also recommend that you add some headers - not only do they make it easier to read, but they will concentrate your mind and possibly highlight areas where you're saying too much or not enough about a topic.

I think the title should be "Controlling a Motorcycle at Low Speed". What do others think?

Didn't want this to look too much like an instruction manual, giggles at Manuel and the awning, but headers it shall be,
please dont ask me to number them!
FWR

I can't advise on the instructional content of this entry, as I don't ride a bike, but getting that right is your biggest challenge. If I was thinking of riding a bike, then I'd like to read this with confidence that the advice you're giving is best-practice, as my life could depend on it.

We have experienced motorcyclists here, and I'll defer to them to review that side of it. But I would like to see links to official sites offering good advice.

When I'm confident that the advice is cast-iron, then I'll come back and talk about imaginary dogs, and whether that image is not only entertaining, but reinforces an important message. At the moment, I think it could work.

Icy

All the instructional value in this submission is based on years of training experience, each ATB , or riding school is monitored and approved by the DSA in UK, in addition each Instructor wishing to progress has to qualify at each level from novice CBT riders to Advanced Instruction.

You'll find each ATB has differing attitudes towards training, some just employ the lowest possible level instructors just to get 'bums on seats' others actively seek out the best standards. Riders who are instructed well from the word go tend to come back and do more training, stay alive longer and also pass tips onto their peers.

There are many sites on the web that offer very basic tips, some good, some wildly inaccurate or downright dangerous to the novice or anyone else for that matter.

Even the likes of RoSPA, DIA and BMF tend to offer advice for those who are already competent and omit the very early techniques that actually make better riders.

I understand that all entries need to be 'cast iron' and will endeavour to find some links, but the original purpose of writing this was to fill a gap that riders constantly ask about, especially those coming back to bikes after a long break .

Thanks for your comments...tweak time again.

The imaginary dog is actually sitting at my feet, wondering what to eat next as I type . I've used everything from dogs and horses to marching bands and ant colonies to get a hook for my students, give them an analogy they can relate to and the penny drops a lot quicker usually.

Regards

FWR.

This is grand stuff. And I can't even ride a bicycle (balance issue).

One tiny tweak: you said 'figure of eights'. I think it's 'figure eights'.

I liked the conceit about the dog - it's a great way to get us to visualise what you're talking about. You can always tell a teacher.

I think it is normally "figure of eight", but I don't know what the plural would be.

I think we may be on a US vs UK thing here.


I remember 'School House Rock'

'It would be great
If I could skate
a figure eight'

F S

Florida Sailor has it, it's a UK/US thing again. As Freewayriding comes from the north of England, we'll allow him to use 'figure of eights'

This is all looking great!

We do have one little line in the Entry Guidelines that the opening paragraph should not have a Header itself. This is only a point of style - but the Title is the first Header. In your case the opening header can be dropped without any harm to the Entry itself.

This could easily be sorted by the Guide Editor, but as I hope to see a lot more of your work here, it is best to give you as much help as possible

Give 'Cozmo' a pet for me

F S