FLYING A MOTORCYCLE
Riding a motorcycle is kind of like flying an airplane. While the machines themselves are obviously different, the mindset to operate them, surprisingly isn’t. In the late eighties, I determined to earn a pilot’s license. I remember climbing into the cockpit of a Cessna Sky Hawk for the first time. I sat there rolling the yoke from side to side, pushing it in and out. I thought back to those grainy black and white WWII films I had seen as a kid—Heinkels and Messerschmitts versus Spitfires and Hurricanes dog -fighting over those White Cliffs of Dover. I was sort of hoping that flying Cessnas could be like that. It didn’t take long for my green stomach to tell me otherwise. There never was and there never is an occasion to manhandle flight controls when flying an airplane. Instead, my flight instructor shared the concept of “pressuring the controls.” I’ve been operating motorcycles and airplanes this way ever since. Continue reading »
© 2007 by Jim Ford
There were six of us recently riding to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania including a husband and wife couple. Dennis rode a R1200GS and Becky was on her F650CS. Everybody knows what a great bike the 12GS is. To my mind though the sleeper is the F650CS. What makes the bike so great is its low seat height and easy handling. With a small radius front wheel coupled with tubeless street tires, it’s my choice of second-generation F series motorcycles if what you like doing is riding paved curvy roads. We had two F650CSs on this Workshop that were ridden by women. Becky rode hers well. Liz improved her CS riding once she embraced a particular skill I’d like to explain.
Over the course of a Workshop, I like to ride behind each rider. I become their “wingman.” This way I can add easy, relaxed suggestions as we ride along that will give riders immediate awareness of what they are doing. (I use a powerful transceiver; each rider is furnished with Etymotic ER-6 radio ear buds.) I am communicating in real time. That’s what makes the instruction so useful. Riders get immediate feedback on the quality of their riding. I give riders ideas on what they can improve and what they are already doing well while they’re riding. I speak easy like. No badgering. I understand that it’s not easy trying on new skills so everything I say is low key and relaxed. Continue reading »
SOFT HANDS
By: Jim Ford
Published in BMWMOA Owner’s News
Downloadable PDF
So I am motorcycling up into Pennsylvania to an orchard I know on a mission of acquisition – a goodly size stash of tree-ripened apples. It’s a lengthy, straight-line run, roughly 180 miles port to port, but routine. I make the trek during harvest season taking advantage of this orchard’s produce. Peters Orchard has won Best in Show at the Pennsylvania State Fair several times which tells me a lot of how well they grow things out of the ground.
Often when I am riding I plug into an iPod and today is no different. A song comes on that rips me up. The tune is “John’s Other” by a group calling themselves Hot Tuna. Folks who came up in the late sixties/early seventies may remember Hot Tuna as a spin off from early Jefferson Airplane. Two of that band’s early players, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady formed Hot Tuna when the Airplane flew off in a different direction. The Tuna is still hot, playing locally this past summer. Anyway the tune bowled me over for its’ locked in, rhythmic groove, so precise is their musicianship.
“What’s this got to do with soft hands, much less motorcycling?” You ask.
First, I say it takes soft hands to play music well. I say Jorma and Jack have got the touch (their decades of success proves it,) as do other artists and craftspeople that have mastered their skill. The irony, of course, is that having soft hands has nothing to do with literally having soft hands. Often, it’s quite the opposite: hard, sinewy hands honed by years of practice. Soft hands are the result of study and handling anything requiring manual dexterity. It results in a certain light touch. The touch allows you to communicate through whatever medium you’re working with and it’s not just with musicians either. Think of a sculptor with clay, or a painter with canvas. Think of Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception or a certain boxer who stung like a bee. Mastery is communicated in the finished result by someone with soft hands.
By Jim Ford
Published in BMWMOA Owner’s News
Downloadable PDF
I have observed over the years that I have been in the motorcycle biz, that there are as many reasons to purchase a motorcycle as people buying them. Some folks just love to look at them, all shiny and new. Others buy them in anticipation of sunny Sunday afternoon spins saddled up with their sweeties. Some want to mosey on down to the nearest watering hole and admire their chrome wonders from a barstool. And there are those who buy motorcycles to capture a memory—there are so many reasons…
Buying a BMW motorcycle is different. I like to think the folks who purchase them want to ride!
By Jim Ford
Published in BMWMOA Owner’s News
Downloadable PDF
Over the past several months, I have (for once) gotten into the good habit of waking each morning, stumbling to the basement and mounting my treadmill. I’ve been consistent too. What’s helped is being plugged into my iPod. I’m getting in shape for the 2006 riding season.
Recently, I have been listening to the Frank Sinatra Songbook. Whether you like his music or not is not my point. Personally, I came up listening to 1960’s and ‘70’s pop/rock from the Beatles, Bruce, to Bon Jovi. Then Sinatra, a vocalist from my parent’s generation (b. 1915), blasts on my scene. What a discovery! Early in his career he was nicknamed “The Voice” and clearly, what distinguishes Sinatra was how tightly he controlled a song. In this, he was a master—the Chairman of the Board.
Dedicated to The Prince of the Parkway
Dan Rodriguez
By Jim Ford
Published in BMWMOA Owner’s News
Downloadable PDF
Whenever I conduct The Rider’s Workshop, I stress the importance of creating memorable riding experiences for oneself. You decide what’s memorable. By doing so, you will always have motorcycle memories to recall and share with your friends. Decide to ride this way and make it a habit. Otherwise, if what you normally do is mostly “ride around,” then riding around becomes your habit, and, like the saying goes: “Habits are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” Since riding around is mostly what you do, and since this usually means riding around to the same places, before long you’ll get bored with motorcycling and (pardon the pun) cycle off toward something else. I’ve seen this happen many times.
So get in the habit of pulling out your maps and/or firing up the GPS and create some interesting motorcycling for yourself. That‘s how you’ll keep in the game, and that’s how you’ll continue riding.
