Parking Lot Practice

Once it gets moving on a reasonable road surface, a GoldWing handles easily and you wouldn’t necessarily know your on a big bike – except of course for the comfortable seat and riding position, and other home comforts.  But at slow speed and especially on uneven or loose surfaces, a GoldWing becomes, in the minds of many Wingers, a frightening great beast, just itching to fall over and cause embarrassment or worse.  Most Wingers will have had a dread of slow speed riding, especially when they were new to GoldWings, including me.

Although its a skill which you have to keep reminding yourself to get right, and it also helps to give yourself some structured practice every so often, to keep up your skill level, I have found it possible to develop reasonable confidence with low speed riding.  And I’ve discovered – not least because I can do it – that confident slow speed riding on a Wing is within the capabilities of any rider who takes the trouble to learn and then to practise occasionally.

This article aims to help you learn how to avoid those buttock-clenching moments when you worry and wobble as you approach an awkward junction.

There is one absolutely golden rule when it come to slow speed handling of a big bike and so  may as well mention it at the outset.  Never (and I mean never) use your front brake at slow speeds unless your bike is perfectly upright and on level ground.  Even then unless you are practised and confident at slow speed riding you will be taking an unnecessary risk.  Even the lightest touch on the front brake will have the effect of pulling the bike to the ground like a powerful magnet.  Until you have become very confident in your slow speed skills, it is best to force yourself never to use the front brake at slow speed at all. Got the message?  Never!

Ah, I hear you asking yourself, but how can I get my feet down when I am stopping unless I use the front brake?  You see many riders taking both feet off the pegs early and even trailing them on the ground as the bike comes to a halt, presumably because they feel more secure that way, more prepared to be able to support the bike in a vertical position once it has stopped, especially if they have a pillion passenger who might rock the boat a bit.  With some lessor bikes, maybe you can treat them like a lightweight toy and assume you can stop then dropping just by resisting it.

But the idea that you can stop a Wing falling over at slow speed purely by dabbing your feet is really rather fanciful; sticking both feet out as you roll to a halt provides no useful safeguard and risks, sooner or later,  getting a foot crushed.  These bikes weigh a great deal and if they start going over while they are still moving, or if they have started to lean over by more than a little bit even when they are stopped, a mere mortal is not strong enough to recover the situation.  I know one Winger, who goes by the name of Big Big Roy, who seems to be able to plant his great big foot down in a way that looks more secure than a trike conversion – but then he’s something of a human mountain and his GL1800 shrinks to the size of a Honda C90 when he’s sitting on it.  For mere mortals like the rest of us, it’s best to forget the idea of relying on foot-dabbing and heaving back up again as a way of recovering from loss of balance and concentrate preventing it happening in the first place.  As far as dropping your Wing is concerned, prevention is much better than cure.

So your first piece of self-training, if you want to become a confident slow speed rider of a GoldWing, is to practise coming to a halt.  You might feel a bit silly just setting off and stopping repeatedly, but it really is worth making yourself do it consistently well.  It is one of the first thing I get trainee Advanced Motorcyclists to do, and they invariable speak well of the experience afterwards, even if their eyebrows go up a bit when I first suggest it.

Find yourself a nice big and quiet supermarket car park and pick somewhere where you can ride around easily in a nice big square.  No need to make any tight turns at this stage, just a find yourself a big enough area so that you will be settled comfortably riding in a straight line before you need to turn again.  Car parks have rows of lines painted on them, so you should be able to use them as a reference point to ride in straight lines and go round again as necessary, even if painted lines aren’t in quite the right place.

Then pick a spot about halfway down each long side and either mark the position with something (such as  a pillion passenger – you’re better starting this training off riding solo) or pick somewhere which you can at least recognise the spot each time you approach it – the idea being that you want to make yourself stop at exactly the same place each time as you go around, until you can do it accurately and smoothly.

Being able to bring your bike to a smooth, well balanced halt with only one foot going down, yet being relaxed and comfortable holding the bike at the halt  is what you are trying to achieve.  Of course it doesn’t really matter for purposes of normal everyday riding that you can stop in exactly the same place every time – what you are really practising is the ability to stop exactly where you want to stop every time.  That is useful in everyday riding.

It should be your left foot which goes down as you come to a halt, because your right foot is being used to operate the rear brake.  You should normally use both brakes whenever you reduce speed until you are within a few feet of stopping – but from then use only the rear brake for the last few feet of travel.  Doing this routinely helps you to remind you not to use the front brake at slow speed and on many bikes (although not on Wings which have linked brakes) it also helps to bring the bike to a halt on an even keel – i.e. without compressing the forks and dipping the front of the bike which is what happens if you use mainly the front brake.  But we aren’t going to use the front brake when we are moving slowly from now on, are we?

Worried about the bike falling to the right as you stop, because you are only putting your left foot down?  Don’t.  Providing you are upright and well balanced as you come to a halt, the weight transfer of moving your left foot out and down will tip the bike to the left every time.  It doesn’t matter if there is a camber on the road; if you are balanced vertically the bike will always settle gently to the left as you put your left foot down.  If there is a camber on the road you just need to put your left foot down a bit further to reach the ground and then maintain balance, that’s all.

It this doesn’t happen it can only be that you were not upright and well balanced as you brought the bike to a halt.  Which is why we try so hard to get into the habit of getting the bike balanced in the vertical as we approach a halt.  You will have plenty of time to put your right foot down if necessary after the bike has come to a halt.

I haven’t so far mentioned what you should be doing with the clutch and gears while all this is happening. Clearly it is possible to stop in any gear simply by depressing the clutch as you bring the bike to a halt on the brakes.  On a Wing you can get down to really quite a slow speed even in fifth gear before the engine will start shuddering with objection.  But you will want to end up in neutral once you have stopped, or maybe in first gear ready to move off again, so it is good practice (and the mark of an Advanced Rider) to drop into neutral as you are stopping, rather than fiddle about trying to find neutral afterwards.

And there is a neat little peice of footwork called the Hendon Shuffle which you learn as a refinement of doing this if you wish.  It’s a bit tricky to get the hang of and it is by no means essential, but if you persevere you will (eventually, it took me ages) be able to slick the bike into neutral with the left foot just as you roll to a halt and then put it down on the floor.   It takes a while to be sufficiently relaxed about getting your left foot down as you halt (not earlier) so you can also be relaxed (and gentle) about feeling the gear lever just into neutral, no further.  As I said, it is not esential to acquire this skill, but it is very satisfying to use it when you eventually get the hang of it.

Surely, I can hear you thinking to yourself, I shouldn’t have to practise and fiddle about to this extent just to be able to stop the bike without worrying about dropping it?   Well, try stopping in exactly the same place time after time on a car park and you will find that it is quite difficult at first.  And it’s worth practising time and time again until you can do it smoothly and in the right place, time and time again because as you do so you will improve your bike control (and your confidence) very considerably.   This is one of the lego bricks of riding skill that you really need to master if you are to become confident in handling your Wing at low speed.  I have dropped my Wing coming to a halt, as lots of Wingers have done; it’s very easy thing to do unless and until you take the trouble to become practised at not doing it and then, at last, you stop being frightened of doing it!

Of course it helps to come to a halt smoothly if you are riding smoothly before you try to do so.  So riding smoothly in a straight line at slow speed is also worth practising until you gain confidence in doing it without feeling tense and awkard and there’s a trick to doing that too.

Either on a quite road or, if its big enough, on your supermarket car park, practise riding slowly and smoothly.  The secret to this is to focus your eyes well ahead and to keep your head up – look at something at head height in the distance, not down at the ground.  Then try to relax and to avoid turning the handlebars unnecessarily, and then only a little bit.  Avoid overcontrolling, as it’s called, which will cause you to weave from side to side quite unnecessarily.  Look up and relax.

Pillion passengers are useful for this raining exercise too, get them to stand at the very far end of the car park or straight road, as far away as possible.  Then stare them in the eyes (litterally) as you ride slowly towards them.  Once you have got the hang of keeping your head up and looking straight ahead, use your pillion to walk alongside you, to make you slow down to a walking pace.  (You migh need to buy her a coffee afterwards if it’s cold, but involving your pillion in this way is good psychology; it makes her feel involved and shows her you are trying to improve your skills in the interests of her safety and peace of mind too.  If your buttocks clench when you do a wobbly stop, it happens to her’s too.)

The classic way to control your speed at slow speed is to “stay in the friction zone” – which means a combination of slipping the clutch all the time and dragging the rear brake when necessary.  Use a steady throttle setting and rely on lutch and brake in combination.  You will be using gentle and intermittent dragging of the rear brake, so you won’t wear your pads out.  Likewise a GoldWing has a wet clutch, so you won’t wear that out prematurely using this technique either.  Using this technique as you ride the bike slowly towards a red light (so you can keep moving and get away smartly when the light changes) has the advantage of keeping your brake light on, making you more conspicuous to following traffic.

However if you ride a GL1800 there is an alternative, and easier, approach you can use to help you to become smooth and relaxed while riding slowly.  GL1800s have fuel injection which is controlled electronically to very precise standards, and this stabilises the engine speed at tick-over to a remarkably accurate degree.  You will find that if you get going and into second gear and release the throttle (i.e. allow it to close completely) the bike will keep moving quite contentedly and at a steady speed on level ground.  It will even maintain the steady speed up and down slight inclines, more or less.  This allows you to stop worrying about throttle and clutch while you are practising slow speed riding, so you can concentrate purely on your balance.  A GL1800 will maintain a steady speed in any gear on level ground, so once you have got the hang of riding smoothly in second gear drop to first – which will give you a nice slow speed at which you can hone up your slow riding skills.  I am not suggesting using tickover while riding in the ordinary way on on the roads, just as a way of getting the hang of well balanced slow speed riding.  (If you want to try tickover riding on a GL1500, which has no ECU, you will need to increase the tickover engine speed to 1300 rpm.)

Don’t believe the GL1800 will keep moving smothly on tickover?  Well allow me to let you in on a like trade secret I picked up from the American Drill Team at the 2008 Blackpool Light Parade.  They use tickover riding in second gear as the basis of all the tight circles they incorporate into their displays and the ECU controls the bike’s speed so well that four bikes can follow each other nose to tail around a 25 foot diameter circle – I’ve seen them do it in practice and, once they taught us how, I and three other UK riders did it too!  Maybe we’ll get to 25 foot circles a bit later on, but in the meantime try tickover riding to help you practice slow speed riding, it will help.

So persevere with slow speed riding (down to walking pace) in a straight line until you can do it comfortably and smoothly by keeping your head up and looking well ahead, not at the ground in front of you!  Then try to do the same with your pillion passenger on board and keep practising that until you are relaxed and comfortable with it.

By the way, when you are at a halt with your left foot down, in neutral, waiting to move off, there is an IAM way of getting moving again too, if you are interested.  As an Advanced Rider you stay on the ball while you’re waiting, eyes everywhere looking for useful information, including about when the lights are about the change.  As this is about to happen you apply the front brake (to stop th bike rlling back or forwards) put your right foot down and at the same time lift up your left one to knudge the bike into into first gear, then as a continuing smooth movement swap over feet again and relwease the front brake.  All this happens in not much more than a second and you are now holding the bike on the rear brake again, in gear and ready to go.  Sounds like fancy waisrtcoats but the idea is that the bike is under positive control throughout. As with the Hendon Shuffle it works and, once you get the hang of it, it is very satisfying to use. (Before moving off you also check what’s behind you both sides, of course.)

Some IAM techniques are more straightforward than others.  At the first classroom session, when I was doing my IAM training, one of my fellow Associates (students) asked whether it was permissable to put both feet down when stopped because he always rode with his wife and she always wiggled about when they were stopped.  The Senior Oberver, Ian Margison,  replied, with barely a moment’s hesitation, “Well, give her a slap then”.

Enough for now; more about anticipating (and dealing with) situations in which you might easily drop your bike in another Article.