On Monday, August 30, 2004 at 12:50:34 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On 30 Aug 2004 11:03:35 -0700, (dw) wrote:

Do the 2-wheel skills go along when you use a metal motor?

Dear DW,

It depends on what kind of riding is involved and what kind
of skills. Bicycling skills help a little, but they aren't
going to make you a good motorcyclist.

Usually, we learn to ride bicycles as children and then
tackle more complicated machinery after we master the basic
trick of balancing as we roll along on two wheels.

Three things make motorcycles dangerously different from
bicycles: they have much trickier controls, they weigh far
more, and they have engines powerful enough to get you into
far worse trouble.

To ride a motorcycle in a straight line down the road and
stop it, you need to work the throttle with your right hand,
the clutch with your left hand, the gear shift with one
foot, and the front hand brake or the rear foot brake. Both
hands and at least one foot are busy working the controls.

Meanwhile, the rider is busy trying to balance a two-wheeled
vehicle that weighs more than he does. Imagine trying to
learn to ride a bicycle around a parking lot with Lance
Armstrong hog-tied across the rear panniers--well, actually,
Lance doesn't really weigh as much as a motorcycle, but you
get the idea.

A bicycle is so light that you can pick it up with one hand
instead of worrying about being unable to keep it from
falling over even with both hands. The sheer weight of the
motorcycle demands an entirely different attitude--you have
to worry about it getting stuck or falling over on you.

(No one is more embarrassed than a motorcyclist who has to
push his machine backwards out of an awkward downhill
spot--unless it's the same motorcyclist who has to ask for
help because his machine is too heavy and the slope is too
steep.)

Cornering isn't terribly important on bicycles, despite our
proud claims to the contrary. You don't hear much about
Lance Armstrong out-cornering the competition because
bicycling is mostly slow-motion drag-racing. We usually
pedal around at speeds so low that we wouldn't catch the eye
of a traffic cop running a speed trap in a school zone.

But with motorcycles, you can get into far more speed and
cornering trouble in the blink of an eye--the much heavier
and harder to handle machine will happily go far too fast
with just a twist of your wrist. And bicycling teaches us
nothing about throttle control, which is crucial on a
motorcycle in a tricky situation. Outside of our dreams and
perhaps ice and snow, it's hard to pedal hard enough to spin
a bicycle's rear tire.

In general, bicycling is much simpler than motorcycling
because there's so much less to worry about. My daily
bicycle ride for about an hour through the countryside is
pleasant exercise, but it wouldn't tax the skills of a child
on a single-speed with a coaster brake. The same child would
need a good deal more training and experience before
attempting the same gentle path on a motorcycle.

Carl Fogel

I suppose that I agree with Carl to a certain extent. But I think it more likely that you will take your bad bicycle habits of not paying close enough attention to traffic laws with you than any positive attributes. Especially concerning corning where motorcycles corner all hell and gone better than a bicycle.