What happened

[MissKim]

Secon Saturday I was out on my bike for practice. Was trying to make a tight curve and fell over. Don't do turns real good, was I going too slow or do I just not practice and wait for my class? Miss Kim

[Easy Rider]

Secon Saturday I was out on my bike for practice. Was trying to make a tight curve and fell over. Don't do turns real good, was I going too slow or do I just not practice and wait for my class? Miss Kim

It is impossible for US to know what you did wrong.....but the instructor at the class will likely be able to.

In the mean time, practice the stuff you DON'T have a big problem with.......and stay OUT of traffic. !! :tup:

[MissKim]

I was in a parking lot. Riding the bike back home was the easy part. No U turns or tight spots.
Well.... The big bruise on my leg made it a little tough. OUCH !!

[Water Warrior 2]

I will not even venture a guess why you fell but here is a suggestion. Pick up a copy of Proficient Motorcycling. Read it, practice and evaluate your riding skills. We all fall down now and again, some more often than others. No biggy, just don't get hurt.

[alanmcorcoran]

Perhaps you used the front brake or were going too slow. When you are doing tight turns at low speed you must learn what is referred to as "clutch control" which is the art of feathering the clutch a bit and using a little throttle to keep the bike under power (but not too much power!) The powered drive train creates a centrifugal force that keeps the bike upright, similar to that of a spinning top. You may have just let your "top" get too slow and then, wobble, and over she goes. If you are doing a tight turn with no power, you lose some of the ability to control/keep the bike upright.

Have you ridden a bicycle before?

[blaine]

Also a little rear brake while feathering clutch helps to keep balance at low speeds and turning.

[mrlmd1]

You probably squeezed the front brake to slow down as you went around the corner. That is a big mistake, the bike will go down almost every time. Set up your speed, ie., brake or let off the throttle while the bike is still straight up, BEFORE entering the turn. If you want to slow down in the turn, or if you are going really slow and do not want to fall over, use a little rear brake, it stabilizes the bike. You have to play with the clutch, the "friction zone" too. This may not make any sense to you right now.
Take the MSF class, you will learn what to do and how to control the bike, that's what it's for. No sense in getting hurt or damaging the bike trying to learn this yourself. And make sure you take the class, do not have a friend try and teach you how to ride.
Now that you have the bike, if you don't already, get a good fitting full face helmet, armored jacket, gloves, boots, riding pants, and get yourself ready. Read Proficient Motorcycling by David Hough while you are waiting to take the class. You practice AFTER the class, not now. :)

[5th_bike]

Was trying to make a tight curve and fell over. Don't do turns real good, was I going too slow or do I just not practice and wait for my class? Miss Kim

No harm in practiceing the slow stuff. Try to go walking pace. Part of the exam is slow, tight turns in a rectangle.

So, have the bike in first gear, clutch in, have it grab a bit to get a little speed, squeeze back in. Use the rear brake to slow down and keep off the front brake (yes I know everyone else already said).

In turns, when you are about to fall over (inward, I assume), you throttle up a bit and have the clutch grab a bit, and you'll stay upright. Don't let the clutch out all the way, have it just grab to get a little extra speed.

To practice clutch use you could also try to drive the bike with the engine idling (i.e. take off from standstill without using the throttle) once you can do that, you will have pretty good clutch control.

[mole2]

Secon Saturday I was out on my bike for practice. Was trying to make a tight curve and fell over. Don't do turns real good, was I going too slow or do I just not practice and wait for my class? Miss Kim

As everyone mentioned, clutch control, throttle control and rear brake. One other important thing. You MUST look where you want to go and not at the road in front of you. If you're making tight U turns then turn your head completely to look where you want to go. Look up. As the saying says, look down, fall down. You'll learn all that and more in the MSF course.


:)

[dannylightning]

there are a lot of things that can make you fall if you are going slow and making a tight turn, any kind of jerky throttle action can do it or hitting the breaks. the slower you are going on a tight curve the more likley you will be to fall over. i have almost went down a time or two on sharp u turns because of the things i mentioned,

why you fell over.. well its hard to telll

[oakies]

Hitting the front brake on a very slow, tight turn, will put you down every time...I've learned that from experience a long time ago...And this fact was pointed out to me back then by an experienced rider.

[TheWife]

Must be the rookie mistake to make. I did the same thing my first time on last week, pretty sure I was guilty of everything mentioned above.

[dannylightning]

one if the first things that i did when i got my bike was practice tight circles, at my house in Tennessee we had a half basketball court made out of concrete in your yard, probably smaller than regulation size. i would take my bike on that and i would ride circles around it. it was a challenging exercise, suddenly letting off the throttle would really throw off my balance, hitting the front break too hard would also throw me off balance, the slower i was going the harder it was to keep balanced, i don't know how many times i had to throw a foot down to keep from falling over. i did this a little bit every day for a week before i got good at it.

one other thing that almost got me a few times was riding down to the end of my drive way, turning the bars all they way to get ready to turn on to the street and hitting the front break to stop, that is a sure fire way to wreck. I did that 2 or 3 times before i realized why i almost fell over.

i remember one time right after i got my bike. i thought i was going to be cool and slam on my rear break and skid down my gravel drive way, for some reason i jammed on my front break instead, the front tire locked up and my bars turned sideways at about 20mph, i started to go down, some how i threw a foot down and saved my ass from hitting the ground. moral of that story is don't do stupid things or stupid things might happen.

one more piece of advice, if you ever hit the rear breaks hard and your rear tire starts to skid, keep the back break jammed on, stay in the skid until the bike comes to a stop, they claim if you try to let off the break and come out of the skid you can loose control quite easily.