My wife, the perpetual beginner

That is true! An "underboner" as they are called might be a good choice. They don't have a lot of gears I don't think and aren't as bulky as some motorcycles can be.

Maybe.....eh???. Still needs the refresher course though if she cannot remember her instructions because of time lapses on the bike.

That's what she needs to practice, not avoiding the issue by switching to a vehicle with no clutch.

She is not going to improve her operation of the clutch by riding a 2-wheeler that doesn't have one.

She does it fine in a training exercise. The problem is that in actual practice she has fails.

Gotta get her more seat time.

I know lots of people who have held a motorcycle license for years and still can't ride for shit ... sometimes I'm one of them

If she wants to ride dirt and wants to do it on a regular dirt bike then let her at it and butt out ... stop rescuing her. She will either have to woman up and deal with shit or give it up ... her choice. She is a grown women not a child. Tell her to stop being lil Miss Princess and HTFU

There ... is that better??

Well if she never rides except once a week or so, it doesn't matter when she got her license. she lacks skill and experience. Obviously "getting her license 10 years ago" hasn't helped her. You said she is confused about the gears. That is why some of us recommended a scooter. It's not a "fixation". It's a suggestion in what appears to be the absence of a sufficient answer to the problem on your part. You asked for help and started this thread. That is what we are trying to do.:huh. None of us are "there" to see what you are describing to us.

Now, if this "forgetting" that she is experiencing is spilling over into other areas, then it may not be an issue of "skill" at all. Only the two of you would know that though.

.

If she has a license....she needs to "GET HERSELF" more seat time. NOT YOU. She knows she sucks in real life situations' which could be anxiety. the truth of the matter is, other drivers don't know this and she needs to know the importance of not endangering others just for the thrill of riding a motorcycle. If she CANNOT handle it in real life situations and perhaps is not willing to take refresher course or classes on handling her anxiety....then she will be AND SHOULD BE restricted to parking lots. You are the one who seems to have a "fixation" with her being on a motorcycle. She may need to switch machines is all some of us are suggesting. She may not "need" to be on a motorcycle at all as a mode of transportation or sport.

I'm just sayin......

The she either needs to commit herself to more practice (without your intervention) or there is a "different" problem here after being licensed for so many years. Renewing the license without getting the practice is a recipe for disaster for anyone involved.

By the way, you never mentioned her gear before; just her injuries. That is why I said that.

Put a Rekluse clutch in if one is available.. it will eliminate one variable and makes the dirt a lot easier. It doesnt sound like she has had a lot of issues with clutch control but it might make her feel just a bit more comfortable and that could free up her obvious over thinking. I dont think she is having a problem with not thinking.. I think she is trying to over analyze everything because she is so uncomfortable on the bike?? But what do I know, never been married and notoriously wrong about women

I don't mean to be disrespectful or insulting so you have to forgive my rudeness, but this isn't a physical issue. Your wife is obviously very qualified physically. This is a mental issue and she just doesn't "get it." In my opinion, she never will and the risks involved are too great to "play/practice" this skill set until she does. You could ride on your own property for an extended period until she finally memorizes the sequences required, but to "practice" on a dirt road or in traffic could be lethal.

I have worked with a few people that are like this; not many, but some just never make the mental connections and in the case of riding, it's lethal. My best friend bought a Honda Shadow, many years ago, and he tried, but never managed to learn. Smart guy, very accomplished, but just couldn't do it, and decided without my suggesting that bikes just weren't for him.

Another comparison might be riding a horse and the skill set that goes with that sport requires a certain type of person. There is a saying in the western riding world that goes, "There are too many good horses in the world to waste time on a bad one." You may be in that group and the risks are just too high. Might be time to move on. I realize as I say this, that you want to share your passion for riding with your partner/wife, but may be risking both your safety and health. Your call...

Not aware that she's not aware is kind of a tautology, eh?

The one good thing about her (trying to) learn to ride is that it will in all likelihood improve her awareness. A car makes it easy to be reactive rather than proactive. Don't notice that the corner has a little gravel in it until you're in the gravel? No problem, just swerve more. A REALLY unaware driver may never realize there even was gravel, just that there was something wrong with the car, she had to steer more and the tires made a funny noise, maybe she ought to have the dealer check what's wrong with the tires.

Learning to ride back in 2004 (it was 8 years ago, nor 10 as I claimed earlier) DID greatly improve my wife's car driving. So it was worth it just for that. In our case her learning to ride was NOT about us wanting to ride together. It was that she wanted to see and experience all this great stuff I was always talking about.

I went through the exact same thing. I tried to teach my wife, and she never got comfortable. Every time she crashed off road we had to start from square one again. She would also just have brain farts about the basic operation of the bike. In the end I had much less patience than you. I told her the only way to get better is to stick with it. In the end we sold her bike a got her a little Honda rancher automatic. This solved the off road riding. As for the Street, it's just not going to happen. She is just too innatentive. Her exact words were "I don't want to learn to ride on the street, you have to pay to much attention to everything".

This whole episode really got me thinking of the diffetences between men and women. There was a complete disconnect between things being hard when you start and sticking with it and it getting easier. All she kept saying is that "it's easy for you, you don't understand". My response was do you think I was born knowing how to do this? I had to learn at some point. Ok rant over.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

I just read this thread, one question:

Did you marry my girlfriend's twin sister?

Seriously though, same problems. Mine took the MSF course and got her license. She has a 250 Ninja, I bought her a 'scratch-and-dent special' knowing it was going to get dropped a few times.

Here's the killer. She is an excellent rider, as long as she isn't on a public road.

On her TTR125 she can wheelie over branches, make WFO muddy hill climbs as long as it's not too technical, slide the back end around and clutch it out of a turn, etc. Nothing like amateur motocross level, but play-riding level.

On her ninja, at state parks and parking lots, again she's a good rider. Uphill starts in gravel, very tight figure 8's, excellent panic braking skills. Her figure 8's are tighter than mine, and I've been riding since I was a kid. She makes almost the whole turn at full lock by playing with the clutch and rear brake. No idea how, I can't do it.

Put her on the road, she's done. Last time she first went left out of the driveway. Missed the actual driveway and started out uphill from a drainage ditch. Went about 1/8 of a mile and decided the road was too scary. Pulled in my cousin's driveway, turned around on wet grass on the side of a hill, through another drainage ditch, and back on the road. Took a break in the front yard and wanted to try again. Went the other way and decided she wanted to turn around but dad's driveway wasn't big enough. It's paved and big enough to back a semi in. Went to the next driveway, again gravel, and took every bit of 40' of yard to turn around. 20 minutes later she was doing tight u turns in the hay field, same bike.

How in the heck can you ride a ninja 250 through wet grass, drainage ditches, and gravel, but not on pavement? At the same time, there's a straight section at the park where she normally gets the bike up to 50 or 60, but on the real road she won't break 30.

Well, maybe it's as simple as you not talking about it, then! ha....Perhaps she will stop on her own if she concludes it's not such a big deal to you afterall.. she may have wanted to do this because it seemed very important and enjoyable to "you". Doesn't mean she should keep trying without proper instruction.

I agree that until she gets the sequence in her head, she should not be in traffic. She can learn that on a private road away from potential accidents with you or someone else talking her through and then letting her do it on her own. I know that when you take the skills test here (I was there when my husband took his), they tell you exactly what they want you to do and in what order. The advantage of doing it like "that" on a private road is that you can make on the spot corrections. I know you say she does the practice just fine. If that is really the case, then it is probably anxiety. Some folks just don't do well on test.

She really needs to consider the safety of others in regard to this and not just her (or your) desire for her to ride a "motorcycle". There are all kinds of ways of getting around and having fun while doing it without endangering others. If she has a memory relapse every time she is in a real life situation...she clearly needs "some other" mode of getting around or having fun that is less complicated for her and less risky for others. :huh

I mean really, in your current condition...,,do either of you really need this kind of stress on top of it?? What's the deal? There are lots of ways to spend your remaining time together without it turning into a "thing".....isn't there?

So if you have all the answers, why the thread?

Maybe he just came to that conclusion of more seat time a few post back.

But it still needs to be "her" responsibility to practice on her own or with an proper instructor, move to a less complicated bike (scooter, even a Maxi scooter) if she wants to be able to go on the highways without having brain freezes about gear sequence, etc; (forget about the dirt), or park the thing and get aquainted with "Pat and Turner"; pat her feet on the concrete and turn the corners THAT way!

To vent, and share with others.

Just because somebody mentions something to you, doesn't necessarily mean they are asking you what they should do.

Actually that's a more common experience with women speaking to men. The woman will complain that she tried to tell her husband/BF about something that was bothering her, and then he suddenly started telling her what to do. Like if she tries to tell him how hurt she was that her best friend since high school snubbed her at a wedding reception, and the husband starts to tell her how to send unwanted pizzas and magazine subscription to the other woman's house, or how to poison her dog. But the wife never wanted advice at how to "get back at" her friend, just wanted to share how upset she was.

Well, then it would have helped had you started your thread with "keep your ideas to yourself cause I ain't asking for them"! ha


Now we ALL know(men and maybe two women on this thread)....you really didn't want any answers or suggestions!
ok then.....! We got it now.

You're projecting, and you have it backwards.

What she LIKES is to ride dirt. She used to even ride TRAIL, but the trails around here are generally very technical and she thought it prudent to give them up after some injuries. She has no desire to ride on highways except as little as possible to connect scenic dirt segments.

It's not going to help her improve her clutch handling to ride a bike without a clutch, any more than somebody can learn to drive a stick shift by switching to an automatic transmission. She handled a clutch and gear changes when she first learned to ride in 2004. She handled a clutch and gear changes when she took it up again in 2008. She handled a clutch and gear changes when she used to own & drive a clutch car. But she is having trouble with PROPER clutch handling on the bike this time.

Just because YOU gave up on EVER learning to use a clutch, and think that dirt is forever beyond YOU, doesn't mean that SHE should give up on something she's done TWICE BEFORE. Besides, if she didn't ride on dirt, she couldn't ride at all, since both our driveway and the road we live on are dirt. There are probably 25 houses on our road now, but that's in 5 miles and the middle three miles or so only has 3 houses that are all off the grid, there being no grid power there. For her to NOT ride on dirt would be completely counterproductive.

If she turned one way out of our driveway she'd reach pavement pretty quickly since we live nearer to one end of the road and both ends are paved. But that only goes to the state highway which has higher speeds, tractor trailers, and no shoulders. She prefers to turn the other way where she gets maybe 4 miles of dirt before it tees off at a less heavily trafficked paved local road.

I bought the XT for myself (as my "sick bike"), normally it would be too small for me. It had about 4,000 miles on it. I was told it had been owned by another noob. It looked like it had never seen dirt. Didn't have a scratch on it, the tires were worn flat in the middle and the side knobs had no wear. This isn't a matter of just lean, it's that in mud or loose dry material the tire will sink in some and then get spun, causing wear to the knobs higher up. A knobby used in dirt will still wear out in the middle but there will be SOME wear further up the sides.

It wasn't just a matter of fresh plastic, the tank didn't have a scratch on it, and the frame near the footpegs showed no wear. Somebody must have only ridden in soft shoes, and never gripped the tank with muddy gritty knees. People do put fresh plastic on beat up dirt bikes to sell them, but who the heck changes the tank or totally strips & repaints the FRAME (for an XT-225).

Anyone, the one worn thing on the bikes was that the clutch only engaged toward the end of the travel, but there was the specified amount of freeplay in the lever. A noob rider might have done a lot of "friction zone" exercises, or a lot of unintentional clutch slippage. I think the clutch is worn, though not enough to fail to engage. My wife's hands are smaller than mine. Today I had a brainstorm and went out and put even more slack in the cable. Now there is way more than the proper amount of freeplay in the lever, but the clutch engages more in the middle of the travel.

Maybe that was the problem all along. All the engagement was too close to her fingertips for her to easily control it.

Well,

That wasn't the case with me (the giving it up part).....I just prefer to ride what I ride right now and be safe about it.

At this point, I think we are just wondering (as someone has already said) why the thread?? Especially if you don't want any dialogue about what you are saying.

Going round and round about this certainly hasn't resulted in a suggestion or dialogue that you approve of. So.....

what's the point?? We've heard you if that's the only reason you posted the thread in the first place.

Mission accomplished! Well done! . Glad we got that figured out. And by the way....I was not the only one on here that suggested she move to something less complicated like a scooter. So, don't make this about "me". You started this thread. Not us!

MoveON.org!

Not that you're asking for advice, but eliminating one variable that seems to be causing issues would be beneficial, no?

Let her get comfortable on the bike without having to worry about all that clutch in/out/sorta in/sorta out stuff. Betcha it'll be a world of difference. After all, all ya do is put it in 'go' and go. Right?!

M