Recently I've been a bit confused with where my project is going. I can't decide whether or not my 'idea' is worthwhile designing, or if I should be on the lookout for other design avenues.
To try and sort out this pickle, I organised a meeting with a rider training school in Dundee. This training school teach everything from CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) A2 & A through to advanced rider training for the people who get a kick out of learning. I wanted to ask them what they felt were the most significant issues facing bikers today, what the most prominent issues were facing learner motorbike riders, and how they, as instructors, attempted to overcome these.
The topic of other road users always comes up. Even the instructor that I interviewed had three crashes in the last four years - some resulting in broken bones and written-off bikes. This has always been and always will be an issue for bikers. Car drivers just don't look out for cyclists of motorcyclists the same way they do other cars, and because of this cyclists and motorcyclists are 65x more likely to be in a crash or die in a collision than car drivers are. Back when I conducted my survey, nearly 80% of hobbyist bikers said that the biggest issue facing them were other road users not paying attention.
When I asked what the most significant issues facing learner bikers were, it came down to two closely linked issues; slow manoeuvres and clutch control. Unlike in cars, the clutch of a motorbike is designed to slip - with some bikes even coming with 'rev assist' to encourage riders to slip the clutch without worrying about stalling the motorcycle. According to instructors, learner bikers with no previous experience riding motorbikes struggle most with clutch control. On a bike, the clutch is controlled with your left hand, and trying to control that lever while controlling throttle with your right hand and possibly break with your right foot all at the same time is much like patting your head, rubbing your stomach and doing backflips all at the same time. The issue with struggling clutch control means that it can profoundly impact your ability to control the bike at slow speeds without losing your balance. A lot of clutch control is done through instinct. Bike starting to pull, the engine note changing and the feeling of the biting point in the lever are all signs that your clutch is at the 'right' point and beginners with little to no experience with bikes will struggle to pick this up.
The instructor made the point that there is no way around this, apart from practice. There isn't some unique technique that allows people to master it within a day. Some people will learn quick, while others might need up to 6 lessons to master the clutch control - and needing that many lessons to cover one part such as clutch control isn't unheard of.
Near the end of the interview, the instructor mentioned how several times throughout his 35+ year career that he's thought on several occasions how useful a clutch control kit to help learners practice off the bike would be. He's thought several times that a game controller like device to allow learners to practice at home would enable them as instructors to speed up the whole process. This is an avenue I'm going to look into. Still, after some discussion with other hobbyist bikers, a product for learners, more specifically, learners struggling with clutch control, is almost to niche a product for an already somewhat niche market.
That's it for today's blog - hopefully, by the next blog, I'll be a little more unstuck...
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Cover Photo Image:
rotkvica0 (2015) Motorbike Handlebars. Available at:https://pixabay.com/photos/bike-motorbike-handles-chrome-1212489/ (Accessed: 4/12/2019).
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