tj0

I'm Thomas, and I am a new rider.

Recently acquired my permit and am now doing my best to get in as much seat time as possible. I ride a 2019 Suzuki SV650X, and am hoping to be able to go complete the endorsement test before the rains set in too heavy.

Gotta say, after years of dreaming about riding, it feels better to actually be doing it than I anticipated -- it's almost the best kept non-secret ever.

Looking forward to interacting with you all and improving!

TREX600

Welcome!

Naza

Welcome!

Transported

Welcome to the cognoscenti.

Sentinel

Nice choice. Wecome to your addiction. Remember -it's only money.

WarpShatner7

Hurrah! Have fun. Just remember, look where you mean to go, and that usually means 5-10 car lengths out, NOT at the road in front of your tire. Practice countersteering until your body understands it at a neuromuscular level, i.e. without having to think about it.

The MSF course is great, I hope you take it. You get a card that waives the riding endorsement test if you do. The problem is you never really go fast enough on that course to learn how the bike behaves under real world conditions. Mostly you're going so slow that it's hard to understand what the instructor's talking about when they say countersteering.

So when you find yourself on a big empty stretch of road, practice gently (and safely) dodging manhole covers or any other little spot you see or imagine on the road surface, using as little effort as possible. When you're riding the curves, really feel what the bike wants to do, and study how to make it do it with gentle suggestions from your whole body, rather than wrestling it into it with your straining biceps and clammy mitts.

And again, have fun.

Willow

Welcome to pnwmoto. Be safe and enjoy the SV.

Texasl

The BRC (Basic Rider Course) no longer qualifies a person to get their full endorsement, only their learner's permit. The endorsement requires a separate written and riding test. The best way to do that is to take advanced training such as the ERC/BRC2 or the ARC and then take the test at the completion of that training. The advanced test covers more demanding braking and cornering. OP, practice your emergency braking skills and build up to being able to really squeeze the brakes. I always tell my students to begin your approach to the front brake like they are shaking hands with their grandmother and when the pucks make contact squeeze the front brake to a 4 count to get the hang of the progressive squeeze necessary.

Tripledij

Flyboymedic

Welcome Thomas!

A2B

Welcome to the group! Congratulations on the new bike and taking steps toward a life long awesome experience. Great to see someone just getting started.

tj0

Thank you A2B!

Not sure what happened, I'd posted a separate reply and it hasn't posted yet. I figure there's probably some posting limit before replies are automatically posted, and maybe a further restriction on attaching images, so it may be lost forever.

Please know I'm not ignoring you all! new guy on the forum problems, ya know haha

tj0

Hey, that one went through! let's try the upload again...

My brother and I took a ride up to Lacamas Lake last weekend. Fun ride with entry-level twisties. He used to be on pnwrider as dragginknees929 i believe. Received some good feedback. He was on the Harley (adjusting to a cruiser from riding streetbikes for years).

Now I'm just trying to get seat time in whenever I can so I can confidently either take the endorsement test, and if that doesn't happen soon enough, i plan on taking the BRC2 course as the transition from those little 125cc bikes to riding mine has been an adjustment to say the least. The weight and balance are completely different, and I'm still struggling with slow speed maneuvers on mine.

To deal with that, I am hitting the parking lot at Clark County College with cones, just in case anyone wants to swing through and join in some practice. I'm down there on Saturdays mostly in the morning before traffic gets too bad.

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

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Texasl

One thing that will help is to bring the rpm's up and float the clutch. Start out heading in a straight line, spool it up, and ease the clutch out until it just begins to pull. Add 5% more clutch, get your feet on the pegs and knees clamped to the tank, and see how slowly you can motivate the bike down range. (If it is too jumpy in first try second) When you can keep your throttled fairly well clamped and are controlling the speed with the clutch start working on weaves and work up to the hard turns.

WarpShatner7

One weird thing I'm trying to overcome, in drive-on-the-right countries like this one, experience makes you eventually really good at slow left hand turns, but not so good at right hand ones. So practice those right-handers as long as you've got the parking lot time. I'm tempted to come join you. Despite my respectable lifetime mileage I'm still not as good as I should be at low-speed maneuvers.