mentoring reluctance

I am almost sure it was me.
This friend of mine recently took the MSF class, and then promptly went out
and bought a ujm.
Now he's calling me for advice about this and that.
If it were up to me, NO ONE would learn to ride an MC in the City of San
Francisco. Nobody.
When I think of all the hazards, asshole drivers and just the usual risks,
it is just too much.
The dilemma I am in now is that there will be some big time pressure to act
as a mentor to him, and to teach him the finer points of staying alive while
having fun. But dammit. I wish it weren't me. The responsibility issues are
quite immense when you consider it.
Please keep this guy in your prayers. I know he's going to need it.

 

You have no responsibility for anyone you're mentoring. It is
understood (and if not you drill it into their head) that they are a
grown adult in charge of their own decisions. Thusly, they pay for
their own decisions too.

All you can do is point them in the right direction and hope they
don't smash into anything. Critique the bad and reinforce the good.
The rest is all them.

That said every newbie is allotted a certain amount of luck from
somebody upstairs.

 

It is important to remember that "none" is a member of the set of certain
amounts of luck.

 

Luck is a fickle thing to some... but to others the harder a person
works at riding the more of it they seem to have... luck boils down to
careful planning and execution...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

Used Japanese Motorcycle = ujm
;void

 

A real mentor's responsibility is in part to be honest. Tell him
the truth. The City is no place to learn, and learning, if taken
seriously, isn't necessarily fun. Start him somewhere else. Fun
comes later. If he can't accept that he's either a genius or a fool.
If the former you're not needed, if the latter best you run now.

What would you think of a piano teacher who put an ambitious (but
possibly unwise) new student on the stage at Carnegie Hall? With
the New York Philharmonic? Granted, that's not a life-threatening
mistake, but consider the feelings of the audience.

bob prohaska

 

Fabulously put!

ab

 

It's definitely a high-hazard environment. Heavy traffic. Red light
runners. runaway cable cars. Steep grades with cross traffic. The
works. About the only thing you don't see much of there is ice. So
help him find a reasonably safe route down the peninsula to someplace
he can ride meeting one hazard at a time at intervals long enough to
let him recover.

Like, say, San Benito.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

heh.

my 'learning' (in addition to MSF) started with numerous sessions of doing
parking lot maneuvers in my rather large and wide driveway (big enough for
a BMW R1100RS to execute figure 8s), then I graduated to riding 'around
the block', which in my case means up Graham Hill Rd (Santa Cruz county),
a country 2-lane road that has only a couple stops in 5 miles, and 35-45
MPH speed limits, then down highway 9 (6 miles, no stops, 45 mph limit on
most of it, with winding turns and little traffic). I did this numerous
times (not back to back) until I felt comfortable with my admittedly
too-big-for-a-beginner BMW, THEN I started riding around town and out into
the farther stretches of the central coast (including San Benito, going to
Coalinga was one of the very first long rides I did). I've been riding
for 5 years now, and 50,000 miles, and downtown San Francisco still leaves
me on edge.

 

I've always considered my bike to be basic transportation, and if your
pupil is going to use his bike to get around the City, he's going to
have to learn, sooner or later, to deal with urban hazards. I spent a
couple of weeks driving in Palo Alto on a borrowed Honda 50, and then
bought one of my own to commute from Douglaston to Wall Street.
Probably totally against the advice I'm seeing here, but the mishaps
were minor enough that I could learn from them.

That said, I wouldn't want to start a pupil with Financial District rush
hour traffic, but I wouldn't be keeping him or her away from it for too
long.

Rich, Urban Biker

 

If he's bound and determined to ride, will he be better or worse
off if you mentor him ? My bet would be better off. If he had
an accident, would you feel better if you'd done nothing ?

It's OK too to let him know why it worries you that he's riding.
Do it right and maybe some of it sinks in.

You're not his mommy. Give it the best shot you can and hope for the
best. If you really think he's unteachable or dangerous, tell him.

 

Of course he shows up tonight right after work , bike parked in the front of
the house, him smiling ear to ear, new helmet tucked under his arm on my
front porch.

....An hour later I am adjusting the clutch, bleeding the brakes, spraying
wd40 on it's special rust spots, and giving mentorly advice about braking
and spending time practicing slow speed maneuvers in parking lots. And you
know...the rest.
In a few months it will be taking him on a bakery run to Marin...
explaining the finer points of late apex cornering ,choosing a turning point
and ...
ohmygawd.

 

On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:41:16 GMT, "jim stinnett"

Just make sure he gets more of your technique than you do of his...

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

You're a good man Charlie Brown. Don't know what kind of bike
we're talking about, but any chance you could find an easy
stretch of dirt road someplace ? That's always good for some
interesting experiences. Kinda helps get rid of the freeze in
panic mode instincts.

On the coast south of you there are a few short stretches. Probably
a few more north of the city.

 

Good. It sounds like you are mentoring him. I didn't want to say
anything if you decided against it but - if you hadn't mentored him and
he went down HARD, imagine how badly you would have felt.

Now that you're showing him what's what (I know this sounds awful for a
mentor) take him on some EARLY Sunday morning rides - before the nutcase
cagers wake up. In safe places, let him lead (so you can check out his
riding); in challenging areas you lead (so he can see how you handle
it). Single bikes are easily overlooked by cagers but two or more
bikes attract attention (in fact, three or more bikes is a 'gang' and
the cagers get scared

If I ever am a good enough rider to become a mentor I'll tell beginners:
Don't work on speed - work on technique and the speed will come.