need some tips

sup everyone...Im 23 years old and i just got my first bike! I baught an 03 suzuki katana 600 of my buddy for a great deal...i love the way it looks-sounds and i love the fact that i can open her up and its not going to throw me...now before a week ago i have never riden anything like this cept a manual car and just a regular bike. anyway after the first day i took it out in my development and it took me about a min to get a feel for the clutch enough to ride...after i got going it felt great...i can take off pretty fast, shift fluently up and down, use both front and rear brakes together even when slowing down modoretly to excesively, i pay attention to road conditions and look for hazards such as loose gravel and squirrels lol, and im just listing this stuff so you know about where i am as a learner u could say...i am having trouble with some turns though...mostly right turns...i get kind of uneasy because i feel like if i lean on a right turn im going to fall off, literaly i feel like the bike is going to slip from under me but left turns feel oddly natural i dont know why...also when im completely stoped its hard for me to go right without crossing over into the other lane...today i got out of work early and i took my bike out on some back roads which had freshly paved roads, some crappy sections of uneven pavement, moderate turns and some sharp turns and for the most part i did good...i was turning without even thinking about it and the bike was just following the road...now the thing that freaked me out was 2 times i found myself crossing over into the other lane...now this happened on a   straight section i think  and i could not bring it back over quick enough...what am i doing wrong..any and all advice is welcomed...write a me a novel i dont care...cause i love my bike and i want to become as safe and comfortable riding it as posible...thnks btw i have about 2 hrs riding time total maybe less at what point does one start to feel comfortable and not so nervous?!  

The best thing you can do is to sign up for a Motorcycle Safety Course. For more than one reason. You will get invaluble instruction on everything associated with riding. Most insurance companies give a discount for riders who complete the course, and in some places, Texas for example, you don't have to take the driving portion of your motorcycle license test.
The MSC I took worked on cornering over and over until it became second nature. There is no magic number of riding hours when you become comfortable on a bike, everybody has a different comfort zone. My best advice, ( and yes I am old enough to be your father) is to sign up for a MSC as soon as possible. It is well worth the time and money and will help speed up the process of feeling confident when you ride.  

It sounds like you are trying to guide the bike by shifting your body weight. It isn't a horse. You can't guide it with your knees or by shifting your weight. You have to steer it. You countersteer it into a lean and then you countersteer it back upright. At slower speeds, you countersteer it into a lean, then steer it around the corner before countersteering it back upright.

As the previous responder advised, sign up for a motorcycle riders course. You'll learn a lot about what you are doing wrong and how to do it right. The best courses are the ones that require you to ride your own bike through the course.

regards,
Joe  

One other factor that you are feeling. Except on interstate, the roads are crowned for drainage. This means to go right, you have to lean further to the right (I suspect you are steering by lean, not by countersteer).

If you want proof, find a piece of interstate (pick it quiet), and then swing from the far left to the far right, and back. It should feel almost the same either way.  

the best thing to do is to take the course.  but, did you try pushing the handlebar down the side of the direction of your turn? it works! BUT DO IT GENTLY!!!! LOL  

no question take the mss course  

PLEASE take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic RiderCourse.  You are going to hurt yourself!  Do not let your ego get in the way of getting an education in safe motorcycle riding.  You can get all of the info and find a local course provider here: www.msf-usa.org

Seriously: stay off of your motorcycle until you complete the course, even if it takes a few months to get into a class.  

A couple pieces of advice I can give you is:

-Look where you "want to go". The bike will go where you are looking with your eyes.

-The reason why you feel comfortable turning one way over another is simple body mechanics. Your body has a dominant side and will feel more relaxed one direction over another. This is EXTRMELY common with beginner skiers. The only way to over come this is practice, practice, practice,......and then some more practice.

I would recommentd that you find an empty parking lot to practice in as much as possible....practice slow speed manuvering and right hand turns from a dead stop. This is the single greatest thing you can do for yourself. It WILL come to you over time and you will realize how much you are learning.

You are doing the right thing by asking all these questions and understanding your limits at this time. Be smart and be safe. You WILL figure it out. Do not give up.  

Astone21,sell you crotch rocket tomorrow.or put it up on blocks till you learn to ride safely.buy a smaller bike with less HORSEPOWER and learn.IDIOTS like you get scraped off the bumper of trucks and cars everyday.mostly its because you have more balls than brains.  

Longrider, what's your problem here? Is it because he rides a sportbike, or because he's 23? Re-read the dang post.....he's looking for advice, he's admitting he's new, he's trying to learn, he's being humble....and you rip him like he's a criminal.

Not everyone learns the same way and I bet if you polled everyone on here you would learn that this "kid" is getting a better start than most (I never took the MSF course so am I an idiot as well?). Please do not be a hypocrite. Hypocrites seem to conveniently forget every imperfection in their own lives to bash others....basically Hypocrites suck.

Ride safe Kid. Keep practicing and you will figure it out.  

an 03 katana 600 is not a beginners bike.it puts out approximately 116 horsepower.this bike was built for use on the race track by guys who can handle it.i had a chat with a co-worker who races in the 600cc class.he came off his ride doing 120 mph leaned over with his knee on the pavement.with full leathers he slid 50 feet on his back until he hit the grass and started to roll.this kid is going to die young.i think the NEW GUY was a bit politer than me when he said please take an MSF course.of course maybe "the kid" wants to be like james dean.live fast,die young.and leave a good looking corpse.im not a hypocrite.i started on a 250cc yamaha with 28 horsepower.im a realist.  

"Beginners bike" .... bah!

So many people out there want to limit the opportunity of people by limiting their equipment "for their own safety" or "their own good".  Did you know that slavery was justified by the same token?

Stunt airplanes are by design aerodynamically unstable so they can do their tricks.  One should not learn to fly in a stunter.  Motorcycles are NOT stunt planes.  Unless there is a design flaw (the Katana is a proven design), there is no inherently dangerous motorcycle.

To the contrary, motorcycles that are built to handle lots of power and lots of speed are actually designed for those conditions.  Take a motorcycle that can do 180mph and run it at 60.  You have a 3:1 safety factor over what was designed into the bike to begin with.  Now take a 125cc bike and flog it up to highway speeds.  You need to be racing just to keep up with traffic.  Tell me which situation is inherently more dangerous?

As I said before, the Katana is a proven design with a good track record.  A fine choice.  If he is a learner, then he needs to understand that he is a learner and stay within the limits of his skills.  It sounds like he is doing that.  Furthermore, he is seeking to better his skills and asking more experienced riders for advice as to the best way to go about that very task.  Altogether, the original poster has shown excellent judgement and now he gets some thundering jerk to insult him and the very judgement others are praising.

By the way.... the MSF course is a good idea.  Even if the whole thing goes by as "yeah, yeah", the student gets a set of drills to practice for later, independant skillbuilding and a short course in applied risk management.

The only thing not candidly admitted by the original poster (it was tacitly admitted) was a knowledge that the bike can do far more than he can.  As long as our new young rider shows restraint in how he rides, his practice will be as safe as this activity can be and he will have a bike ready to handle his growing skills.

MY first bike was a Road King.  I traded in less than a year because it was too small for me, at a financial loss.  Why should he have to suffer because YOU can't control your right hand? <ahem>

Paul Podbielski
the TrailBarge  

Myself I´m 53 and has just bought a Kawasaki VN800 Drifter after not riding any bikes in 30 years and has read the discussion with great interest. I had figured out the beginners/reactivating part myself and the discussion has made me even more sure that I have to wait until 090615 (when the course starts) before I do anything special with my new love in my life. (Isn´t the bike beautifull!!!) If you live in the countryside in Sweden you have to develop patience.
Rest assure that I´ll spend several hours to read various fora on this side!  

Had the 800 Drifter for 6 years, and 36,000 miles. I did a 2 week tour of 3,000 miles in 2 weeks on it (stopping a couple days to visit my mom, a day to visit my brother, and a day because it was pouring all day.
If you keep the rpms down, it's a pretty good starter bike (little heavy), but, in 2 months after you've got the reflexes down, you're going to think it's too small. At that point, it'll be time to remember the bike redlines at almost 50 in 1st gear. If you upshift out of 1st at 30-35, you will have the more powerful bike. I only got rid of mine because the wife has decided she likes riding on the back, and after 100 miles, it gets a little tight.

As far as whether a Katana is a starter bike, it does have one problem for a beginner. It's sensitive to input. It responds quickly to good input, and just as quickly to bad input. While it's true of all bikes,the smaller bikes tend to cut you more slack. You can horse them, and they take it. Larger, more powerful bikes aren't as forgiving.  

Hi,

...a few things...  I've never taken the MSF course but I wish I had.  I am going to sign up for it when life gets a little less hectic.  Read as much as you can on the web and from books.  It's not a good substitute though.  Try to learn as much as you can from more experienced riders.  Remember that even guys with 80k on their bikes may not know what you are talking about when you mention countersteering.

You may be going wide on your turns because you are looking at the pavement just in front of your tire and the yellow line...  Slow down a bit and look as deep into the turn as you can and forget about the stuff 10-20 feet in front of you.  So...keep your bike straight, then turn your bike and your head at the same time looking at the road's horizontal horizon...

Counter steering is pretty neat.  I thought I knew what it was about until I actually figured it out... It makes turning a cruiser a whole lot easier and it makes the day physically less tiring over the course of a long ride.  I don't know what it would feel like on a sport bike because I've never been on one...

Practice countersteering on an absolutely dead rode or in a parking lot.  Get up to about 20 mph and sit straight up.  Push your right handle bar forward or pull your left handle bar back.  Your bike should turn to the right if you are sitting straight up.  Then try it the other way.  It's really a lot of fun when you get it right.

There are some videos on you tube that demonstrate countersteering and may be helpful.

Good Luck...

PS.  Don't throw the bike away.  Drive slower than you think you are capable of and learn as much as you can.