Are you Right or Left Handed and how does it affect your Motorcycling ?

Bat left handed, bowl right. With the left on limited duties it's become apparent just how close to ambidextrous I am, very obvious now just how much i want to use the left for.
Once raced bikes at the same meetings - different classes obviously - with foot controls on opposite sides.
The safest way I found was to set them up so that down on either foot was brake or change down

Prefer left hand corners - but it's genetic. The old man was a professional speedway rider.....
 
Rossi and Hamilton talk about this when they swapped bike/cars. Go to about 2' 35"

https://www.gpone.com/en/2020/12/15/motogp/rossi-hamilton-ride-swap-all-the-secrets-of-the-day-
 
Normski said:
Do people have a favoured cornering direction right or left? and is this related to which hand, eye or foot is dominant?
Click to expand...

I reckon it would depend on what country you're in - as in which side of the road you ride on.

In Australia we drive on the left. I feel a little more comfortable in left hand bends for similar reasons as those expressed by Legs. When cornering right, there's a tendency to apex close to the oncoming traffic lane. Even if your wheels are on your side of the dividing line, you're leaning over so your head can be on the wrong side of the road. Also, if you have some kind of issue (like loss of grip) there's more of a margin to run wide in a left hand corner. As long as there's no oncoming traffic you've got the whole other side of the road to sort yourself out.

Obviously the opposite applies in countries that drive on the right side of the road.

On a race track it makes no difference. I'm just as happy going either way as long as the tyres hold their grip.

Sidecars are a whole different thing. But again, it depends which side of the bike the sidecar is on (which is determined by the side of the road you drive on). Actually I like cornering both ways with a sidecar for different reasons. My sidecar is on the left, so left hand corners are fun because you can fly the sidecar in the air. Right hand corners are also fun because you can chuck the outfit into the corner at a silly speed with low risk of tipping over. It's easy to break traction with the rear wheel in right handers because of the weight shift to the left. That can be fun too, smoking up the rear tyre in the middle of the corner. I like sidecars but I've never seen the attraction of trikes or those CanAm Spyders.
 
Absolutely depends on which side of the road your country has adopted. Way more comfortable leaning over a dirt verge on a country road than leaning into an apex on a right hander and leaving yourself exposed to oncoming cars that fail to take a good line (about 99% of drivers from what i see on our roads).

Reefton Spur east of Melbourne has seen many fatalities from overly enthusiastic sports bike riders coming to grief on the bull bar of 4WDs running wide. On a left hander that 4WD would be running itself off the road away from oncoming victims.
 
Must be an inbuilt self-preservation thing with us old (and not so old) riders. Do people who ride on the right-hand side of the  road have problems with left-handers?
 
Piranha Brother 2 said:
Absolutely depends on which side of the road your country has adopted. Way more comfortable leaning over a dirt verge on a country road than leaning into an apex on a right hander and leaving yourself exposed to oncoming cars that fail to take a good line (about 99% of drivers from what i see on our roads)
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree 100% just have to flip the images when riding/driving on the right. I learned to drive on the left but have lived in the US for many years. No issues swapping when I visit left-hand countries I do have to stop and think which way to around a roundabout :o
 
Nothing bothers me, EXCEPT, I absolutely cannot stand next to,  get on, or push a bike around or manhandle a bike from the right side. That's made crashing on dirt hills where it was impossible to do anything but be on the right side of the bike Flippen interesting. I remember reading an article in a Readers Digest, waiting at a Dr's appointment where while building that Flood Barrier thing on The Thames River they needed a specialist gang of Left Hander Plumbers as that was the only way that particular job could be done. Made me laugh. Seem this myself, awkward situation required a left-handed approach. Using a power saw cank handed was HORRIBLE for this righty.
 
Paul Marx said:
I don't give a damn, right, left, down for first or up for first.
When I stop, it's always my brake side foot on the ground so that I can select first without falling over.

Haven't got a hand change, foot clutch bike.
Yet.

Paul
Click to expand...




Ditto
 
I slightly prefer rh corners, that may be because my formative biking years were on a bike on which the main stand was a little easy to ground on the left. My master eye and foot are left, but I?m right handed. Adverse cambers really mess me up.
I  took an advanced riding course back in the day c.1980 - riding training was based on the police training book ?Roadcraft? they would advocate much different positioning than on the apex for a right hander. We were also taught to come to a halt with the gear change side foot down and the other on the brake pedal,that may be a legacy of drum brakes when you couldn?t so easily hold the bike on a gradient on the front brake.
Gear changing I can go from right to left quite easily but struggle with different up and downs.
 
My wife is left hander. She rides bikes shit, her mechanical capabilities are worse than you could ever think of and when we stop, she puts no foot down (at least if she is on the passenger seat). The same is for my sister. My brothers and I are half way OK riders, OK mechanics and put the correct foot down.

So - what does that tell? All right handers of my family are good mechanics, know how to ride bikes and put the correct foot down (shifter foot). All left handers are the opposite. Oh - and all left handers are female. At least in our family (my mother was left handed, too, btw....)

Statistics...  ::)
 
Vince said:
Nothing bothers me, EXCEPT, I absolutely cannot stand next to,  get on, or push a bike around or manhandle a bike from the right side. That's made crashing on dirt hills where it was impossible to do anything but be on the right side of the bike Flippen interesting.
Click to expand...
I am with you on that!😢
 
I prefer right-hand bends because the consequences of getting the alloy generator cover down are generally less severe than getting the steel stuff on the left on to the tarmac.
 

Attachments

  • Ground clearance.jpg
    Ground clearance.jpg
    94.3 KB · Views: 132
Vince said:
Nothing bothers me, EXCEPT, I absolutely cannot stand next to, get on, or push a bike around or manhandle a bike from the right side.
Click to expand...

I'm happy getting on from either side but, like you, I hate having to push/manhandle from the right.
I wouldn't lead a bull or a horse from the right, either.
Incidentally, that's why we drive on the left, in the old country, because it's the side we mount a horse from (the kerbside, not the traffic side). Do LHD countries mount from the right?
 
Laverdalothar said:
My wife is left hander. She rides bikes shit, her mechanical capabilities are worse than you could ever think of and when we stop, she puts no foot down (at least if she is on the passenger seat). The same is for my sister. My brothers and I are half way OK riders, OK mechanics and put the correct foot down.

So - what does that tell? All right handers of my family are good mechanics, know how to ride bikes and put the correct foot down (shifter foot). All left handers are the opposite. Oh - and all left handers are female. At least in our family (my mother was left handed, too, btw....)

Statistics...  ::)
Click to expand...

It tells that there is huge scope for progress for sex equality in education.

Paul
 
I am predominately right handed, but (as I discovered when about 14) I am left eye dominant, so shoot from the left shoulder, but because of serious trauma to my right arm and elbow (the worlds first totally wrecked 750 Laverda 30/06/1973) I have had to adapt a lot of operations to the left hand, working a screwdriver for example, but I play cricket left handed, because that is how my dad did it and he taught me.

here is an interesting fact, UK road race circuits are predominantly right hand corners, and the blokes that do REALY well are almost all lefties, flat track and speedway are always left hand corners (all two of them) and the blokes who do well, (including current British thunderbike champion and bike builder, including the chassis, my son Tom) are all right handed
as a rightie I also prefer left handers and that means I will never  be or never was a top flight UK road racer, but nobody, not no one, could get past me on left hookers except Toddy at devils Elbow Mallory.
CLEM
 
Early Indian motorcycles had the throttle on the left,the story is that it made it easier for police riders to draw and fire their pistols (easier that is assuming they are right handed,dive for cover if they`re not),although I believe the real reason was that it was thought easier to control the ignition with the right hand (again assuming most people are right handed).
Riding a bike with left clutch and right gearchange seems more natural to me,maybe keeping both sides of the brain in balance ,or something like that,when you walk for example it`s left right,not left left.
I`m right handed but I believe some left handed swop the bar controls over,maybe not so easy nowadays.
 
I was surprised to learn that, in the US and some other countries, they put a bicycle front brake on the left hand side. That?s going to make the transition to a motorcycle more tricky, isn?t it?
 
Yes,now that really is starting to get weird,left handed throttles,left handed front brakes,driving on the wrong side of the road,what are these Americans upto? !!!!! (Only joking)!

(BTW,my mother used to say that if a kid showed signs of being left-handed,you should give it a slap round the head until they got it right!).
 
The Sock said:
I was surprised to learn that, in the US and some other countries, they put a bicycle front brake on the left hand side. That?s going to make the transition to a motorcycle more tricky, isn?t it?
Click to expand...
The whole of Europe has bicycle front brake on the left. The police here swapped my kids cables over at a school cycle day despite the kids protesting that they would be riding motorbikes some day, I swapped them straight back. I can adjust easily enough with gear pedal either side but the front brake is total reflex in an emergency.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top