7 Twitter Lessons They Should’ve Taught In Riding School

Riding is exactly like that. The most important skills that keep you upright usually aren’t in the brochure, the dealership handover, or even many basic courses. Since the internet is busy teaching people how taxes and tire pressure both actually work, let’s add something way more fun (and arguably more important): the riding fundamentals that should be taught like core curriculum.

These aren’t generic “ride safe” platitudes. They’re technical habits that change how your bike behaves underneath you, and how you process what’s happening in front of your visor.

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1. How To Actually Read Grip, Not Guess It

Everyone talks about “trusting your tires,” but almost nobody explains how to measure grip in real time. Just like that Twitter thread is exposing gaps in basic education, we need to expose how under‑taught traction really is.

Grip is a dynamic equation of load, temperature, and surface. You can’t control the asphalt, but you can control how your bike loads the tires.

Key techniques you should be using on every ride:

• **Micro-brake tests in a straight line**: On unknown pavement, give a very light initial front brake squeeze to feel how the tire “bites.” If the lever firms up quickly and the bike decelerates cleanly, you’ve got decent grip. If it feels vague or ABS chatters easily, treat that road like it’s booby-trapped.
• **Smooth load transitions**: Abrupt inputs spike tire load and risk a slide before the carcass and compound can react. Roll on, roll off, and squeeze the brakes—never stab them. On modern hypersport rubber, you want to *build* load so the tire can deform and dig in.
• **Feel for carcass flex**: At a steady lean, a grippy, warm tire will feel *planted but alive*—tiny, constant feedback through the bars and seat. A cold or over‑pressured tire feels skittish and overly sharp; an overheated or under‑pressured tire feels vague and rubbery.
• **Temperature habits**: On the street, your tires are **not** at optimal temp after two corners. Give them 5–10 minutes of moderate lean and braking before pushing. On a cold day, assume you *never* hit race‑pace temps; ride accordingly.
• **Pressure discipline**: Those “cold” pressure charts your tire manufacturer publishes actually matter. Over-inflate and you lose contact patch; under-inflate and you overheat the carcass and deform mid-corner. Invest in a quality gauge and make it as normal as checking your phone.

When you stop treating grip as luck and start treating it as something you can probe and manage, your pace can go up while your risk goes down.

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2. The Vision Technique That Buys You Extra Seconds

That viral “we should’ve learned this in school” thread is full of people realizing nobody ever showed them how to really use their attention. Riding is the same: the way you look determines the way you ride.

Most riders know “look where you want to go.” That’s the kindergarten version. You want the graduate-level vision stack:

• **Far focus, near awareness**: Keep your primary focus as far ahead as you can see through the corner—but keep your *awareness* on the 0–30 m zone for road hazards. Think of it as “telephoto focus with wide-angle awareness.”
• **Turn your head, not just your eyes**: Your inner ear and your neck orientation influence balance and steering input. Physically rotate your chin towards your exit point; it naturally aligns your shoulders and reduces mid-corner steering corrections.
• **Scan rhythmically**: Straight → vanishing point → apex area → exit → mirror → instruments (briefly) → back out. Never fixate on one “interesting” object (car, guardrail, pothole). A simple mental beat—“far, near, mirrors, far”—will keep your eyes moving.
• **Vanishing point reading**: On a blind corner, watch where the edges of the road visually meet (the vanishing point).
• If it’s *coming towards you*, the corner is tightening. Delay throttle, hold a neutral lean, be ready to add a hair more brake.
• If it’s *moving away*, the corner is opening. That’s your green light to gently roll on.
• **Night riding adaptation**: Your high beam defines your “far focus.” Never ride faster than you can fully stop within that lit distance. If your speed means your stop distance is beyond the light pool, you’re in the red zone whether it feels calm or not.

A disciplined vision pattern is like adding a few extra seconds of processing power. At 60 mph, that’s the difference between “I saw it, adjusted, and kept riding” and “I never had a chance.”

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3. Braking Like A Data-Driven Test Rider

Most schools treat braking like a binary skill: can you stop in a straight line without falling over? In reality, brake control defines your whole riding envelope—entry speed, line choice, and even how much lean you can get away with.

To ride like you’ve got telemetry instead of vibes, dial in these habits:

• **Build-the-force, don’t dump-the-force**: Front braking should be a progressive build over the first 0.3–0.7 seconds of lever squeeze. The fork needs time to compress and transfer weight without shocking the tire. Think “0–30–60–100%” over a smooth ramp, not “0–100% instantly.”
• **Feel the suspension, not just the lever**: Watch and feel how quickly the fork compresses. Too fast = too aggressive input; you’re stealing margin from the tire. Ideally, the fork should take a *smooth, single dip* and then stabilize while you continue braking.
• **Trail braking as a stability tool**: You don’t have to be Marc Márquez to benefit from trail braking. Carrying a small amount of front brake past turn-in keeps the front tire loaded and the chassis settled. As lean angle increases, smoothly ease off brake pressure—never hold constant pressure while adding lean.
• **Rear brake as a geometry adjuster**: On many bikes (especially ADV and cruisers), a very light rear brake at corner entry can lower the rear, calm the chassis, and tighten your line. The key word is *light*—you’re shaping the bike, not trying to stop it with the rear.
• **ABS understanding**: ABS is a net safety win, but it’s not a magic force field. If ABS is activating frequently in normal riding, your inputs are too aggressive or you’re riding beyond available grip. Use ABS feedback like a redline: something you should rarely bump into on the street.

Good braking isn’t about flexing how hard you can stop—it’s about how predictably and repeatably you can hit your chosen entry speed, every single time.

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4. Using Body Position To Talk To Your Bike

Manufacturers like to market rider aids, ride modes, and IMU wizardry. All of that is impressive, but your body position is still the most powerful “rider aid” on the bike. Just like people online are discovering they were never properly taught how to sit at a desk without wrecking their back, riders are discovering nobody really taught them how to sit on a motorcycle for control.

Fundamental principles that change everything:

• **Lower body locks, upper body talks**: Grip the tank with your thighs and lightly anchor your outside knee. Your lower body stabilizes you so your arms can stay relaxed. If your hands are doing double duty as both *steerers* and *body supports*, you’ll fight the bike.
• **Neutral wrists, straight line from forearm to lever**: Bent or dropped wrists create inconsistent braking and throttle input. Adjust lever angle so when you reach out naturally, your forearm and back of hand form a straight line.
• **Hip steering, not bar wrestling**: Initiate lean by slightly shifting your hips and weighting the inside peg, then complement that with a light countersteer. The more you let your core and hips help, the less you’ll overload the bars.
• **Head and chest position**: For spirited riding, move your upper body slightly to the inside of the corner—eyes and chin leading the bike. This reduces the lean angle required for a given speed and line, which directly increases your traction margin.
• **Relaxation check**: On a straight, quickly open and close your fingers around the grips. If that feels hard, you’re over‑tensing. You should be able to momentarily “float” your hands on the bars without the bike wobbling.

Proper body position isn’t just about looking like a MotoGP screenshot; it’s about creating a clear, low‑noise communication channel between you and the chassis.

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5. Building A Mental Riding Framework (So Panic Never Gets The Last Word)

That “27 Things Twitter Says We Should’ve Learned In School” trend is basically everyone confessing that nobody ever taught them how to think under stress. Motorcycling is stress—sometimes good stress, sometimes life-or-death stress. You need a mental framework that survives surprise.

The goal is simple: replace panic with procedure.

Here’s how to structure your headspace:

• **Always have a plan for the next 3 seconds**: At any moment, you should be able to answer: “If that car moves / that surface changes / this corner tightens, what do I do?” Pre-visualize: stand the bike up + brake hard; go between lanes; add lean, reduce throttle, etc.
• **Default reaction to surprise: straighten & brake**
• Step 1: Gently stand the bike up.
• Step 2: Maximum *progressive* braking in a straight line.

This is more survivable than trying to heroically swerve at full lean with no clear escape route.

• **Use “OODA” at street pace** (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act):
• Observe: what’s changing? Brake lights, body language of drivers, shimmer on the road.
• Orient: what does that *mean* for you? (Debris? Oil? Lane change incoming?)
• Decide: slow, change lane, adjust line.
• Act: clean, deliberate input—no half-commitments.
• **Normalize micro-corrections instead of big saves**: The best riders constantly make tiny adjustments—speed, line, lean—long before something becomes an emergency. If your ride is a string of “whoa, that was close” moments, your inputs are coming way too late.
• **Post-ride debrief**: Like a racer downloading telemetry, mentally replay your ride. Where did you get surprised? What cues did you miss? What would have given that away earlier? Treat every “almost” as free training, not just a story.

The difference between a rider who “got lucky” and a rider who “handled it” is whether they had a playbook ready before things went wrong.

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Conclusion

Right now the internet is busy fixing all the things school never really taught us—from basic finance to how to read a contract. Riders need their own version of that upgrade.

If you treat:

• traction as something you *test and manage*,
• vision as a *structured habit*,
• braking as a *precision tool*,
• body position as a *language with the chassis*, and
• your mind as a *system, not just a vibe*,

you stop being a passenger on your own motorcycle and start being the pilot.

Share this with the riders in your group who are fast but “wing it,” and the new riders who are hungry for skills nobody else is breaking down. The roads aren’t getting simpler, the traffic isn’t getting smarter—we have to.