Beauty Vs Brawn...Can a tiny woman conquer a 900 lb. bike in an hour? Part I

this is megan o'connor from meg's motorcycle journeys here on youtube and you're gonna get to meet her in just a few minutes you're gonna see how i took her from just about beginner level on this sportster to riding a 900-pound motorcycle with the ease of a child's toy better than about nice little tiny things that come to mind as you see size and strength has no bearing on a rider's ability it's all technique you don't have to lower your motorcycle you just have to really learn how to ride it using the three techniques i teach head and eyes the friction zone and a little bit of pressure on the rear brakes heavyweight bike it only took this young lady about an hour and a half to master these techniques and these skills three hey motorman here and i am here with megan o'connor she's from maryland and there's a very interesting story she's got a new youtube channel called megan uh meg's motorcycle journey meg's motorcycle journey that's a nice name and you might not know this but women are the only segment really growing in motorcycling but anyway she gives me a call and she says i you know i've been watching some of your videos on youtube and i i got to come down there and and train with you because i don't want to look like a doofus on my channel i said well of course i said when are you going to come down she said this weekend i said but you're up there in maryland there's a blizzard coming she says i don't care to train with the motor man i will ride through that blizzard i'll put snow chains on my motorcycle and i'll ride i'll even go uphill both ways right right that's right here and i said wait a minute take your car and when you get down here i just got a new motorcycle a training motorcycle i'll let you use that tell the folks what you want to do with your channel you know i want to explore the country on my bike and i want to improve my riding skills and i want an outlet for that part of my personality where i get to just get out there and ride all right and we're going to do exactly that today and we're going to start with a little one-on-one lesson probably two three hours and then tomorrow she's going to go through the regular class so pay attention and here's the demonstration okay ride it like you rented it all right she's steering through without leaning and dipping the motorcycle very common and more speed you gotta lean the bike you see how you jerk that bike up that one time that's what i want through every one of them that's getting that bike dipping and turning so the head and eyes are up and you're really turning those bars fast and then you're looking way ahead [Music] so that was pretty damn good i hope it wasn't dumb luck we'll find out if you could do it twice in a row it's not dumb luck serious tip give me a serious tip snap the head over here so right now on a scale of one to ten she's up probably about a seven or eight much better than average how are you feeling so far really great actually um i haven't ridden a sportster in a while i did have a sportster before i had my lowrider s so just getting used to this bike but i am really um surprised at how well i'm doing with the tips you guys are giving me i did not think that i could easily do u-turns in 24 feet well you know with with the low rider it has a very similar riding position as far as your legs and where your your uh your butt is sitting on the bike what it doesn't have is the nice pull back risers that your this bike motorcycle has there's a lot of pullback which is why i suggested you get mini apes because on my low rider even with pullback risers five and a half inches high and an inch and a half back it still wasn't enough i mean i'm six foot two and you know well i identify as a six foot two person yeah i'm five seven but it was still a stretch it wasn't comfortable for me yeah so uh i think the the mini apes would be better like the ones that come on the heritage that'll put you in just about the exact position you'd be on this bike and the weight doesn't mean anything yeah yeah that's 100 pounds bigger the heavier this bike but it's the technique that matters since she's able to nail the u-turn so quickly i decided to move her on to the 24 by 36 intersection that's 24 feet wide by 36 feet long this is about her third time through and she nails it on the third time way better than average and yes right now she's on a small bike but as you'll see she'll move up quick not bad first time ever on an electric glide better than about 95 percent of the guys that come to my class [Music] what's that i've never ridden with forward controls before forward there's not forward these aren't forward floor boards okay that's my room it's actually fits you better because your legs are much closer and a little further down so you don't have your knees up in the air actually the turning didn't feel any harder right now it's actually easier on this one because there's a little more pressure to turn it so it's more feel to it give the intersection a track okay and by the way if you drop this bike who cares just let it go down it's equipped with these motorcycle drop guards you can't hurt it okay so just step off the bike all right so do you try just the one you turn no to try to run the whole intersection it's actually easier yeah just not the figure eight but okay right all right and remember your techniques now head and eyes shoulder down don't be quiet so i had a feeling i would get her on a heavyweight bike before this day was over didn't hit a single cone first time ever in a 24 foot intersection and i have a i put a little extension on there just i just put that on there this morning for you because i had a feeling that you're going to be riding this bike and i said she's a little and you know unlike me six foot two she needed a little stretch on it what'd you think it was awesome actually it was really smooth i mean the the clutch is a little different and getting used to like where the clutch is yep but like riding it was awesome super smooth and i didn't think that the turning maneuvers were harder necessarily i just need what needed more practice on where i touch and throttle but yeah i'm so surprised that it was as nimble as it was because it seems like riding this bike would be you know cumbersome but it's not it's actually easy and smooth and comfortable i get people men here been riding for 20 30 years they come here on a bike like this because this is what they have who cannot after four hours do what you just did they'd be knocking cones over putting the foot down so you've got talent that i think you might be able to get into one of our ride like a pro shows if you keep practicing i wound up spending about an hour and 45 minutes or so one-on-one with megan this is the following day this is sunday and you can see from the clouds in the sky there was a storm coming this was a class with mostly very experienced riders people in ryden for many years we decided after the first 50 to 20 minutes of the class that we took her off the sportster and put her on a white road king you're going to see her coming up here in a moment and you'll see does it matter how many years experience do you have or just technique show you what really matters remember it's just three of them head and eyes friction zone little pressure on the rear brake this is megan on the road king first time ever on that motorcycle going through the first exercise the slow cone weave please subscribe and stay tuned for part two which will be coming up on friday

Channel: Ride Like a Pro Jerry Palladino

Views: 178,633

Keywords: motorcycles, how to ride, how to make a uturn, ride like a pro, sportbikes, harley, crashes, learn how to ride, bikeweek, daytona

Id: TsEjl8V5Qfk

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020