motorbike.md

Warning: Time waster/Gatekeeping.

Original post

Hi,

I have been using a car for the last 20 years but recently I find I am not happy with the latest models. I tried a motorbike and it was fast and very exciting to ride, but I would like to ask some questions before I make the move from the car.

Here are my concerns:

1. The bike has no seat belt. Without a seat belt I don’t feel safe. Is there a way I can install a seat belt to the bike?
2. The bike has no doors. While I understand there are no doors on a bike, I would rather install doors to make the experience more like a car.
3. I find it hard to change gears with my foot and press the clutch with my hand. Is there a way to change that and make it more like a car: change gears with your hand and press the clutch with the foot?
4. Will I be able to use my key remotely to unlock the bike? I liked having this feature in my car.
5. I am not comfortable on the bike’s seat as there is no back rest. Is there a way to install one?
6. A bike has tires with round cross-section and I want to install tires with rectangular cross-sections, like in my car, but I cannot find any bike tires like that. Why can’t bikes also offer such tires, like cars do?
7. How can people ride a bike with only two wheels? Two wheels cannot stand up without the bike moving, and there is no way for the bike to not fall over when it’s stopped. How do bike users deal with this when such a basic function is missing?
8. I found out I need to wear my own helmet with a bike. I mean come on, a car has a roof, you don’t need to have your own helmet. I understand how not having a roof allows you to see the sky, and have the freedom to see in any direction, but I can’t imagine what they’re thinking if they expect every user to have to put their own helmet on.
9. Cars have cup holders and as such the coffee I buy from Starbucks can go onto one of those cup holders so I can drink it while I drive. Even if bikes had cupholders no cup can be used with the helmet. Why can’t we have bikes with cupholders and helmets that can be used with the same cups from Starbucks? I miss my Starbucks coffee.
10. I'm told with bikes you can see all the parts and you can even fix/repair or modify them because they're easy to work with. Can I still pay someone to do my servicing?

Friendly bike user response

Hi, welcome to bikes!

1. You don’t need a seat belt on a motorbike. It’s completely useless, but if you want you can install one yourself. Not sure what you need it for though.
2. I would suggest you try using the bike without doors and see how you adapt to the experience. You can take doors from a car and try to install them, but the experience is not that great and while you’ll get some of that functionality, you will find they’re not needed on a bike, and even if you use them, you will find it’s rather disappointing.
3. There is an extension you can install that connects a stick to the gear shifter and a similar contraption to the clutch to get the same usability as in the car. But the extension keeps breaking and it makes the operation of the bike rather weird as it was not designed to work like that. Again, I’d suggest you give a try and try to get used to it.
4. While you can have a key with remote operation, the fact that a bike has no doors, makes it rather redundant. You just put the key in the keyhole and start the bike, that’s it. A remote/keyless bike would not add to the experience and you’d have to have a place to keep the key (not much storage on a bike).
5. You will eventually find a posture that works for you. Resting your back on a bike is giving you a weird posture. But hey, there is an extension for that too if you insist.
6. Bikes cannot ride with car shaped tires. They just don’t work with rectangular cross-section tires. They need the round edges so they can turn in a corner. Some users have tried to install car tires and the results are very poor (turning radius is very large, dangerous when the bike leans). You can find guides online for this but it’s not recommended.
7. A bike has by definition only two wheels. It’s what makes it fun, great to ride, flexible in traffic, different and exciting to ride. You learn how to balance at speed and you will have to put your feet down when stopped to stay upright. You will learn and use it as expected, there is not much you can do to avoid this.
8. You have to wear a helmet to stay safe. The bike will still work without one but it is strongly recommended you get your own helmet and wear it. Not having a roof on a bike is part of the experience, and what makes riding it great, so having to wear your own helmet is not a big issue.
9. You will have to take it up with Starbucks why they don’t make cups for bikers. Not much you can do about that I’m afraid. There are cups designed for that, but they’re not the same as Starbucks. Try them though, you may find them just fine.
10. Yes, you can with some manufacturers, but most bikers learn to service their own bikes. At the beggining keep it simple, learn how the bike works and learn how to use the tools to fix it. Modifications make it harder to maintain, so keep it simple to start with.

OP Response

Hi, thanks for replying. I’m a total noob with bikes, so these answers help. I’ve now try most of those and I have some observations.

1. I looked and found a bike with seat belts. I’m more comfortable with those, so I will stick with that bike for now. I wish all bikes had seat belts or at least had the option when configuring them.
2. I found some guides but they’re difficult to follow. It’s annoying that no bike comes with doors and not even one offers it as an option. I think bikes should be more friendly to car users and consider adding doors so that car users are more comfortable with the transition. Not having doors is scary.
3. Thanks! I found and installed the extension and now I can change gears with my hand and press the clutch with my foot. While the extension works, it’s a bit clunky and doesn’t work as well as a real car. Also it completely broke when I changed to another bike and I had to reinstall it. Also it makes turning a bit difficult and seems to be in the way when I get on and off, I keep kicking and breaking it. Why can’t it just be part of the bike?
4. I really miss my keyless key. It’s a shame key manufacturers don’t make keyless keys for bikes. Oh well.
5. I tried finding a posture but I don’t like sitting like that. I installed a third party backrest and now it almost feels like a car, but it’s not there 100%. I think cars will always be better at that.
6. I don’t like bike tires. I mean I try to get used to the idea of that curved cross-section but I think car tires are better, they just have a bigger contact point with the road. Surely that has to be better whatever bike users claim. All the guides I found are very complicated as a number of parts need to be changed. Why do these guides have to be pages long. Can’t they just make a simple to follow video on Youtube?
7. Only two wheels is a serious limitation, especially for new users coming from a car. Very scary, turns away new users and makes for a very steep learning curve. Bike manufacturers should seriously reconsider bikes with four wheels. There would be so many more users of bikes if bikes had 4 wheels like most people are used to. I have found stability wheels for bikes, but again, they don't come standard with any bike. And everywhere I asked about it, bike gatekeeping is showing the ugly side of biking. People are just nasty towards new users asking for simple things like stability wheels.
8. Not a big issue? I had to find a helmet that fits, is good enough, and in the end I had to do extra work for something that a car has anyway. While some bikes offer helmets as a package, I found those helmets were not always to my liking, or I couldn’t use them and I had to find a different one, or shift to another bike altogether. I can see why cars are so popular compared to bikes now.
9. Shifting the blame to Starbucks is laughable. Starbucks makes coffee cups for the most popular means of transportation. If bikers wanted Starbucks to make coffee cups so they can use them on a bike, they need to address all other issues with bikes. Then people can find bikes more user friendly and as bikes become more popular, Starbucks will consider supporting them. But not with a helmet. A roof to remove the helmet would help, so that the same cup would work. See my point on number 8. Also, if it’s not Starbucks, it sucks.
10. There is a lot to learn just to keep the bike working. Also with the extensions added I keep breaking things. Twice I had to get a new bike as it was impossible to fix after I added some extension. Is there a way to stop my additions breaking the bike?

To conclude, bikes need to be more user friendly. Especially for new users. Many things can be done with extensions and additions, but even then the bikes are not as good as cars. I think I’ll stick with cars for the time being until all these issues are addressed.

Two months later:

So I’ve been riding a bike for the past month or so, so I’m not totally new to it. Here’s my suggestions to bike manufacturers in random order:

1. We need bikes with seat belts. Installing one manually is an unnecessary step. All bikes must have seat belts.
2. We need bikes with doors. This is essential to new users. All bikes must have doors.
3. We need bikes with roofs so that we don’t have to get our own helmets. All bikes must have a roof.
4. All bikes need to change the gears to the hand and clutch to the foot. Or at least come with the extensions preinstalled to do the same.
5. We need proper seats, not just some padding between our legs. Cars had seats since the very beginning, how hard is for bikes to catch up.
6. Bikes need 4 wheels. It’s ridiculous to expect new users to go from 4 wheels to 2. If bikes want to be as popular as cars, 4 wheels is a must!
7. Long guides to install stuff like rectangular tires are not going to cut it, especially for new users. Bike manufacturers should invest the time to make these one-step installations, or come with it. It makes no sense to keep such features out of bikes, since so many new users are used to rectangular tires.
8. Modern features such as keyless entry are definitely a must. Especially once doors are part of bikes, keyless entry is a must.
9. If all these are done, the Starbucks may make a coffee cup for a bike.
10. It's impossible to maintain a bike if I have to add all these modifications. At least in a car you don't need these modifications and it doesn't break that often. If all modifications are part of the bike, it may be easier. Then you can limit the amount of modifications available to make it easier to maintain.

How can we expect to make bikes as popular as cars if we bikes are so unfriendly to new users. This is why we never actually se year of the bike on the road.

(Real) Bike industry:

We now have bikes with roofs, 3 or 4 wheels, keyless entry etc for new users coming from the car experience.

But we still (mostly) have real bikes for bikers. Bikes still account for less than 10% of cars on the roads (North Europe figures).