Practice Your Favorite Back Road
Everyone has some favorite roads that they like to ride often. Repetition leads to memory, which makes these roads excellent choices to practice your skills on, particularly your lines through the turns. Knowing that there's a sharp left turn immediately after this blind right turn means you can practice choosing a super late compromise apex on the right that sets you up for a great line out of the left turn.
Speed has nothing to do with this, either. You can practice your lines at any speed, including within the legal limits. Even at street speeds, you can feel when your line flows perfectly, or when you hit too early an apex and have to correct mid-turn. Lower speeds are better for this, actually, because you have enough traction in reserve to make such corrections without leaving your lane. As you nail the perfect line, though, your speed will increase as a natural by-product.
Parking Lot Practice
Assuming you took the MSF course, this is where it all began, a wide open area of pavement. You learned your basic skills here, and you can always come back to brush up. Sometimes you can even find an actual MSF riding range, with all the markings, to practice the same exercises as the class. You can also create your own exercises. Little bitty cones, which are friendly to motorcycle tires, are available for you to mark your own sweepers, lane changes, and slaloms. Another great alternative is tennis balls. Cut them in half, and you can run right over them without hurting the lane markings or yourself.
It's best if you have permission in advance to use the lot you're practicing in. If not, be prepared to get asked to leave. Sometimes, if security sees that you're responsibly practicing riding skills rather than being a hooligan, they might just look the other way.
Ask A Buddy
Riding is often a social activity. Most riders probably know someone who's a much better, more experienced rider than they are. You can always ask them to come for a ride with you, follow, watch what you do, and make suggestions of how you can ride better. It's free advice, and it's an excuse to go riding with a friend, so win-win.
Just be careful who you ask for advice. Make sure it's someone who really knows their stuff, not just someone who has a cool bike or fun stories.
Take A Class
You could also ask a bona fide expert and take a riding class. Yes, you took the MSF course to get your license. The MSF also offers an Advanced RiderCourse. It goes over the same material as the basic course, but this time you ride your own motorcycle, not some tiny 125 cc bike. It's quite a bit more challenging to maneuver a Harley Street Glide through those tight maneuvers than the bike you rode during your original class.
The MSF is far from your only option, too. Other people and organizations offer skills classes of all kinds, from street training to off-road classes. If you're confident in your basic skills, it makes sense to choose a class focusing on your preferred style of riding.
Take It To The Track
You should totally go to a track day. It doesn't matter if you don't have a sport bike. Our Kate Murphy took her Suzuki SV650 to the track and loved it. Like she said, it's not about setting record lap times, but about becoming a better rider. Speed is a natural by-product of that.
If you're not comfortable with the regular track day environment, you still might be able to find an option. For example, Tony's Track Days in New England offers one or two non-sportbike track days each year. The focus is strictly on learning and practicing skills for the street in the safe, closed environment of a track, allowing you to push yourself and your bike a bit harder than you should on the street. You can also practice the same turns over and over and gauge your improvement throughout the day.
This is a great option if you don't ride a sporty bike. My Honda PC800 sure isn't and may be the only PC800 to have ever hit a race track. I enjoyed it so much that I'll be doing it again in July.
Photo credit: Arcy Kusari
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