hiro

Please tell me I don't need to pull the caliper off to clean and lube it. I'm guessing that the cylinders aren't fully retracting. https://youtu.be/I2zteQ6pO9o

Ah, good. Do you have any round-abouts out there? They're fun. See if you can set the lean angle once and do a 360. ^_^ One time I was going around and a woman in a car drove through. Didn't even look.

Note: I'm a first-year rider talking to another noob, so if I'm wrong, let me know! The MSF class is pretty good. I took it in May. One downside is that it's hard to get a feel for counter-steering at the lower speeds that they drill at. Just have to get out on the road and zig-zag around. Counter-steering is weird. It mainly controls the amount of lean. It's possible to lean and not turn. The lean angle mainly keeps the bike from flopping to the outside of the turn. After you counter-steer and /relax/ on the bars, the bike "drops" into the turn and it will just keep moving in an arc. To turn right, first the front wheel turns left. That causes the bike to lean right. As you /relax/ on the bars, the front wheel will automatically turn itself to the right. If nothing interrupts it, the bike should now keep turning to the right pretty much on its own. (Unless it slows down too much. Then it'll just fall over. heh Give it a little gas.)

Right. My engine is engaged as I slow down using the front brake, then I downshift and engage the engine again. I just don't use the engine to do all of the braking. I might coast when getting close to a complete stop, but I always try to be in the proper gear. My bike is usually in gear, even sitting at a red light. From what I hear, inline-4 engines don't engine brake as hard as twins. Looking forward to finding out.

I guess there are different opinions about engine braking. My little bike engine brakes hard. (Parallel twin.) Sounds cool and it can be useful on hills, but I have this saying stuck in my head: Brakes are cheap, engines are not! heh I typically slow down using brakes then downshift to match the speed. (It's probably funny seeing me mess up a throttle blip that a slipper clutch can't smooth out.) Being in the proper gear, just in case, is a good idea!

Maybe I have no business saying anything considering I slid my bike out in a slow speed turn on Christmas day. haha I just noticed in the video that you turned wide then wrote that you thought you should have leaned more. That may or may not be true. Just keep this in mind: The LESS you lean the bike, or the less /time/ you lean the bike, the more traction it has and the faster it can go. A racer, for example, leans their body into the turn so that the bike itself can stay a little more upright. (If you consider dragging a knee more upright!) To avoid running wide, you might just need to turn in a little later and a little quicker. Point the bike and go. If you turn early and slow, you might need to lean more and for longer. Then if you find yourself running wide, you might want to lean it even more. Trust me, you don't want a 90-degree lean angle! It's worth practising leaning more, but also leaning less. Unless you're on a dirt bike.

Thanks! ^_^ Oh, the thing about the fuel injectors, maybe that doesn't make sense. heh It isn't like the injectors would keep firing after the engine stops turning. It stops pretty quick. Maybe if you're sitting in traffic and want to switch the engine off multiple times to keep the engine cool, the kill switch is better. If you're just shutting down completely, the key makes sense.

Maybe the difference is between fuel injected and carbureted engines? Mine is fuel injected and I believe my manual says to use the key. Someone mentioned that the key shuts down the fuel injectors instead of just killing the spark. So I've been using the key, just in case it actually makes a difference. Using the kill switch does makes sense as a way to ingrain the motion in case of emergency. (Stuck throttle?) Maybe that's why MSF teaches it. Similar to the reason for teaching the use of both brakes for routine stops. In an emergency, the habit of controlling the rear brake might help. (I mainly use the rear brake for slow speed maneuvers. I might add it when coming to a stop when I think about it. Back to the point about creating habits in case of emergency when there is no time to think!)