Skills map
Basic actions should become automatic. Other skills help you stay in control in more complex situations.
Make these actions automatic
- basic habits: mirrors, turn signals, and readiness to brake
- deliberate countersteering
- emergency braking
- emergency swerving
- using your eyes
- low-speed control
How to tell whether the foundations are established
A skill is established when you can perform the action automatically without being distracted from the road.
Repeatable results
Check whether you can perform an action several times in a row with roughly the same result: stopping at a marker, following a set curve, or riding around a cone. A series of repetitions makes the skill easier to assess than one successful attempt.
Check your basic habits
Check your habits in different conditions: a parking area, a clear practice area, on dirt, and during an ordinary ride. If you have to recall what to do or where to look, the foundations are not established yet.
Peripheral vision
Practicing peripheral vision separately is not part of the essential minimum, but it is one of the most useful skills after the foundations. It helps you keep your gaze farther down the road and notice nearby movement earlier.
Other useful skills to learn
- hanging off and counterbalancing
- riding on poor and loose surfaces
- understanding the causes of lowsides and highsides
- responding to a wobble
- riding with a passenger
- making a quick mechanical check
When to add a new technique
Add a new technique when you can brake, steer, and ride at low speed confidently without being distracted from the road.
Do not make everything harder at once
If a new technique makes you pay less attention to the road, use the throttle and brakes abruptly, or lose track of speed, return to a simpler exercise.
Combine skills you have learned
When you can perform individual actions confidently, combine them in one exercise: braking and changing your line, counterbalancing and riding on loose surfaces, or low-speed riding with a passenger or luggage.
Work on the parts first
Practice one action separately before adding a second. That makes it easier to identify where a mistake begins.
Add one difficulty at a time
Once an exercise works well in a clean practice area, add speed, a narrower corridor, or a new combination as the next step, but not all at once. That makes it easier to identify what caused the exercise to stop going well.
When to try it on the road
Try a skill during an ordinary ride when it no longer makes you look at the controls or takes your attention away from the road.