What is the point of taking motorcycle training courses?? I recall a first experience with skiing and my first ski lesson. I started skiing as an adult and had skied several times without taking a lesson and had an absolutely terrible time. I had zero confidence and no real clue what I was doing besides trying to snow-plough down the hill. I had a friend who wanted to ski also and we talked about it and decided to get lessons. What a game-changer that was!!
During the lesson I still remember clearly being perched at the top of this blue downhill and being scared witless. 10 minutes later I was at the bottom looking back up and thinking to myself, “that was easy“. Taking lessons gave me the confidence I needed to progress and get better at skiing.
In my opinion, taking motorcycle training courses is an essential part of your experience regardless of your riding skill. One of the biggest advantages of taking a training class is feedback. An achievable standard is explained and sometimes demonstrated and then you are given immediate feedback that includes constructive criticism and tips on improving your technique.
Taking a New Rider Course:
I highly recommend new riders take a training course for a variety of reasons:
- The training provided is specifically tailored towards teaching you how to demonstrate the skills required to obtain your motorcycle license.
- Most reputable schools provide a motorcycle to learn on throughout the training and for use during your skills and road tests. This can be valuable in helping you decide on your first bike!
- You will be learning to ride in the safest way possible with other like-minded people at the same or similar skill levels.
- The training is confidence-inspiring, allowing you to progress through the skills one at a time until you can link them all together into “riding a motorcycle”. Confidence or lack thereof has a major impact on whether you will enjoy motorcycle riding.
- You will meet other new riders and maybe wind up with a riding buddy or three.
Experienced Rider Training:
Sometimes called Experienced Rider Course or Advanced Rider Training, these courses serve a variety of purposes. Unless you are extremely lucky and can ride 12 months of the year, most of us usually have to take a break of varying length between the riding seasons. Taking an experienced rider course annually acts as a refresher. Newer riders should absolutely take these courses. Using words like experienced or advanced can make it sound intimidating but they are really designed simply to take your riding and your understanding of your motorcycle to the next level.
The benefits of taking a course like this are:
- Expand your limits by pushing you out of your comfort zone.
- Annual brush up on low and high speed maneuvering.
- Learn new techniques every year as things change.
- Meet new riders!
- Gain the confidence to ride at the top of your game right from the start of the season.
At the very least, I think you should take one of these courses any time you change motorcycles. I’ll give you an example of the Experienced Rider Course I take annually. The course runs two days in all weather and features the following:
- Take the bike onto the drag strip and accelerate until you engage the rev-limiter.
- High-speed maneuvering.
- High-speed braking in a straight line.
- High-speed braking in a corner.
- Engage your ABS brakes (if you have them).
- Fast starts.
- Low-speed maneuvers.
Cornering and Track Courses:
These courses are advanced training courses aimed at really stretching out your skills at higher speeds in corners. Having said that, I want to emphasize that even newer riders should feel comfortable taking on this training.
I have a friend who is in their first year of riding who took a cornering course and found it immensely confidence-inspiring and their riding completely changed as a result.
The TL;DR:
Whether a new or experienced rider, taking courses annually is going to make you safer, inspire confidence and make riding far more enjoyable.
You will learn something new every year, whether it be a new riding technique, or just a tip that a riding instructor casually puts out there.
Taking an annual training course keeps you humble and that’s exactly where you should be at the start of every riding season. Over-confidence leads to mistakes and mistakes can have drastic consequences on a motorcycle. Safe Riding!