I would dearly love to get the training these officers get, just not at the expense of dropping my own bike. It certainly takes dedication and skill:
Man.. watching guy #1 over and over through this video I kept saying to myself "head and eyes! More speed! More throttle! Use a little rear brake!". He doesn't seem to have a good feel, he's timid/scared and keeps going too slow so he loses it.
I think that means it sucked, and sucked a lot. But good job on embracing the suck.But it was fun, in a nostalgic way.
I would dearly love to get the training these officers get, just not at the expense of dropping my own bike. It certainly takes dedication and skill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldY_qZWeTPI
The trick is to keep your momentum and not stop with the front wheel/fork turned. As long as you are rolling, you will not drop it (unless you lean it too far). Mentally this is an adjustment but once you learn the limits of your bike, you will gain confidence......just not at the expense of dropping my own bike.
You just said the magic words! Comparing yourself trying to learn with the Motorcops learning is not a fair comparison.
The cops don't have to pay to fix their bikes when the damage occurs with dropping them 100 times while in the class. We DO have to pay for the damage we do to our bikes. That complicates learning for us. Do you need to lean it more? Do you need to look behind you farther into a U-turn(with the possibility of losing balance while doing so)?
Plus, those bikes in the videos are Harley Davidsons, with crash bars that limit damage(not completely though) to the bikes. The BMW's you guys ride don't have that protection. Heck, some of them don't have ANY protection!
I'm a motor officer and was fortunate to receive 3 months of training (most motor schools are only 10 days long), and you can become very proficient following the advice on videos like "Ride Like a Pro", BUT, to get it real tight and get real good, you need to drop the motorcycle. You need to find it's limits and push the motor past it. What many units do to protect their motors during training is to use old fire hose and cut them to size and attach them to the crash ties with zip ties or wire. Also, remove the bags and top cases. The crash bars on Harley's and police outfitted R1200's and ST1300's are much more stout than what's on our K1600's, but it can be done.
This video isn't going to teach anyone anything, but it's the video that they played at our "Wheel School" graduation and I think it's pretty cool. This training is the the NYPD Highway Patrol and also includes high speed vehicle training (hence all the car stuff). I had the pleasure of attending during the months of December to February and rode in enough snow to satisfy me for the rest of my career!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka-Wh7i62Bc&list=PLwTVzBftUDsRYi46IcrNkQ2cImzTOOPi2
I have thought this school looked interesting, but never found the time to sign up. The civilian classes are similar to the police classes minus the things like traffic stops. They also offer an option to use their HD police bikes.I would dearly love to get the training these officers get, just not at the expense of dropping my own bike. It certainly takes dedication and skill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldY_qZWeTPI