I'm a weird one in that I rode motorcycles/dirt bikes for a VERY brief time when I was a kid, goofing off-street. I didn't properly learn how to ride, just thinking it was a big bicycle, i.e. nobody taught me about countersteering.
I wasn't very good, and didn't have any real fun. I put it away for decades.
Enter the Spyder; I buy it, I love it. It gets me interested in two-wheelers again-- the OPPOSITE direction for 99.9% of Spyder owners, I'd venture-- so I go ahead and take the two-wheel MSF and buy myself a bike.
My Spyder experience has both hurt and helped my two-wheel riding. It hurt me during my BRC class-- I had to ride my Spyder to and from the class, and both days it took me an hour or so to get out of the direct-steering mindset and into the countersteering mindset. That wasn't a problem my first day-- you're just rolling the bike back and forth for most of the morning-- but the second day was a different story. I just could NOT get my hands to follow my head. I *know* how countersteering works, but it was hard to consciously convince myself to do it, coming from the Spyder-- again, the opposite of what almost every new Spyder rider coming from two-wheels experiences.
That said, I figured it out well enough to pass the class, and I bought my Ninja a few weeks later, and started practicing practicing practicing my two-wheel riding, step by step, slowly but methodically.
So, how has owning a Spyder first *helped* me ride two-wheels better? The main way is how it convinced me that counter-steering is the only way to turn a motorcycle. If I try to ride two wheels like three, it doesn't work; likewise, if I try to ride three wheels like two, bad things happen. It's taught me how both machines, while similar looking, are VERY different, in uniquely fun ways. Chocolate and vanilla, love them both.
Another way? I ain't gonna lie, the Spyder's "training wheels" helped acclimate me to the fear of traffic and high speed. A few years navigating the road left me unafraid (but still respectful, of course) of riding in traffic. Thus, once I got on the Ninja, I had one less factor to intimidate me, allowing me to focus more on the mechanical differences of riding two versus three wheels.
Anyway, long rambling, but the bottom line is, many, MANY riders ride both two AND three wheels "intuitively"-- which, IMHO, is actually a *really bad way* to ride. Riding *deliberately* gets the most out of each machine, and is, in fact, the only way the physics works, i.e. every rider does it, even if they don't know they're doing it. Appreciating that difference makes all the difference in the world. Switching between two and three wheels on a regular, alternating basis, keeps me from being lazy and relying on "muscle memory" and intuition as a crutch-- every time I switch, I have to "unlearn and learn." A little less effort each time, but just enough that I feel that it really improves my riding on BOTH machines. :thumbup:
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