I’m going to college soon, and have been considering getting a cheap motorcycle, maybe a Royal Enfield. I don’t have a driver’s license yet (not needed to get motorcycle license in my state), just a permit. Is it a good idea to learn to ride before you have much experience in a car? (I’d be getting professional riding courses through my state DOT). Can’t afford a car, and the campus is very scooter / motorcycle friendly.
Imo you shouldn’t get a bike until you’re like, 25.
Driving a car is a lot safer way to learn how to predict driver patterns. The hardest thing about riding a bike is everyone else on the road. Quite frankly, riding a bike is pretty trivial, as long as no one else exists.
But unfortunately a lot of dumb people do exist and they’re driving a couple ton machines that can kill you.
Also a few things to consider, small cheap bikes like what you’re talking about don’t handle well in bad weather conditions, ABS isn’t standard on bikes. You’ll likely spend about a grand on safety gear, so there’s a lot to consider about the finances and whether or not it’s actually reasonable for your situation.
I agree with the learning what to look out for on the road by driving first. I’ve got a younger sibling who’s learning to ride first before driving and is finding it difficult to look out for pedestrians and cars in our neighbourhood while learning to operating the bike as well.
Been practising very late in the evening to work around that but if you have a busy neighbourhood that may be a struggle.Saturday mornings before 10 or 11 and Sunday mornings between 8:30/9 and 11 (before the church crowd lets out) seem to be times for me when the roads are totally dead so you may have them consider those times.
You might appreciate the blind spots of a car first hand, understand how a car will brake, handle, etc so you can potentially predict them a bit more. Still, generally I don’t think it’s something you’d have to do.
Good catch, I didn’t think of that. Still,you pretty much have to assume that no one sees you, even if you know they can.
I don’t see any advantage to driving first. Maybe to get some experience with traffic w/o worrying about handling your bike at the same time? I’d say for that, just avoid heavy/dangerous traffic at first. Heck, avoid it forever if you can!
True. Like 16 years of riding, and I find I do less and less riding anywhere busy. My perfect riding day is forest or backroads.
I’ve still not got my car license, and I’ve been riding for a year now. So far it’s worked out pretty well, although I’m also in Germany where you have to do a full motorcycle license to be allowed to ride, so it’s not far off from what a car license is, just the vehicle is different lol
I say go for it
I learned to ride before learning to drive, but where I grew up car insurance was obscenely expensive for any male under the age of 25, but insurance on some shitbox 125cc bike was cheap, so that was the main motivator. I think knowing how to operate a clutch and shift gears on a motorcycle already made learning to drive a manual transmission car easier.
