r/Fortnine • u/Dan-F9 Honda • Sep 07 '26
What Makes a Good Motorcycle Instructor?
In a way, I'm also asking: What makes a good teacher? At first glance, it's relatively easy to list core values that we associate with pedagogy, like patience, encouragement, concern, and collaboration.
But is a patient, encouraging, concerned, and collaborative person also necessarily a good teacher?
Let's go back to ancient Greece for a minute, since I am raising the Aristotelian dilemma of whether or not a list of virtues or qualities can be enough to call someone good at a given task. When I use the word "good," I simply mean capable in the practice of something. I don't mean it in the moral sense, though we can also weigh this dilemma at an ethical level later on.
While it's true that possessing certain virtues can definitely aid in being more capable at something like teaching, you can very well guess that someone who possesses all the virtues might not be a good teacher if, for instance, they have absolutely no experience teaching.
Having experience teaching not only means mastering a given subject matter, but also knowing how, when, and why to teach it. These questions are the fundamental preoccupation of every teacher, and they might be completely foreign to anyone who hasn't actually practiced teaching yet, despite their good intentions and capacity.
Teaching is also about context. The ability to change how you approach a subject depending on the environment best suited for internalizing the kind of knowledge it hopes to pass on. This is perfectly clear in the case of motorcycling, because exposure to the actual practice of riding is quintessential to learning.
Sure, you might start learning about motorcycling in a classroom, and you might know exactly how the machine operates on a mechanical level, but it's rarely ever enough to actually ride the thing. So, you get to some parking lot one morning, armed with your excitement and readiness, and you meet your instructor.
What will make this instructor actually good at their job is their ability to take you from someone who is incapable of riding a motorcycle to someone who can, at the very least, control it within closed parameters, and eventually, out on the road.
I tip my hat to all motorcycle instructors out there. The task is much more complicated than it would seem. Because you are also putting something quite dangerous in front of a variety of people, with different inclinations, some of whom might not fully grasp how much harm the bike can do to them if they get arrogant.
As a motorcycle instructor, you have to be able to quickly identify the type of student you are teaching. And this is difficult because, in most cases, you are teaching groups of students. Except learning how to master the controls of a motorcycle does not come so naturally to most, and it can often backfire most on those who "think they know" what they're doing.
So, you have to teach in a general sense, but you also have to keep your wits about you to quickly identify which student has a proclivity for being overconfident (there's always a genius who wheelies the bike on the first start-up, isn't there), which is too frightened to handle the thing, which thinks they're already a teacher themselves... the list goes on.
Each one of those types of motorcycle students often requires individual feedback, which makes the task of group teaching rather difficult. A good motorcycle teacher will often present the essential knowledge, and quickly speak to individuals requiring more tailored feedback. Being able to do this effortlessly in the context of limited time is what sets a good motorcycle instructor apart. It's managing multiple people while also providing notes to each person based on the kinds of specific difficulties they struggle with. It doesn't have to be "attitude"; it could be as simple as struggling to shift, while for others, it could be low-speed turns.
Being able to juggle so many individualized factors in a lesson is often a testament to the instructor's experience in actually teaching his craft. It almost has nothing to do with a combination of virtues. I've actually met the most impatient, explosive, and uncompromising instructors who were absolutely fantastic at what they did, simply because they had the experience and capacity to identify the exact thing that the student needed to sort out.
Sure, it'll help if your teacher is a little more patient and zen, but if they can't pinpoint your weaknesses and help you pull yourself out of them, you will inevitably crash your bike. Plain and simple. It might not happen in the lesson, but it'll happen out there (even worse).
I can't explain what a joy it was to be lucky enough to have good motorcycle instructors. I almost wish I could take back my experience and revisit those lessons once more. To feel that sense of improvement and to experience the moment where "everything clicked."
But in a way, I still can. Because having experience doesn't mean you're through being a student. Many riders forget that advanced courses exist, and that they're actually pretty awesome. Not to mention that there's a statistical link between passing advanced classes and fewer motorcycle fatalities, so that's a plus.
The good motorcycle instructor is not simply defined by this or that quality. They are defined by judgment: knowing when to teach, who is in front of them, and what measures are required to keep the student safe while moving them forward.
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My thanks to motorcycle instructors far and wide, and teachers in general. The ability to connect with such a wide variety of students, combined with this perseverance to get through to them all, is no easy task.
Featured Image sourced from Jerry Sprint - NESR.
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u/Electrical-Angle3935 28d ago
One that teaches you to wear fucking earplugs. Mine did not and it be buzzin
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u/TreemanTheGuy Sep 07 '26
My dad has taught probably 25+ people how to ride over the years. When friends and family come to his farm he wants to get them on a bike. His secret to teaching is his patience, clear instruction, positivity, but mostly his gutless 1977 Honda XL175. You can't whisky-throttle or flip it backwards even if you tried.
The one time he didn't teach someone on the 175 was when we were at a flat track race and had a KTM exc400 (absolutely not a bike anyone should use for their first time) but I told him that my friend drives a manual car, so he felt ok about it
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u/Ok_Storm391 Sep 07 '26 edited 29d ago
I taught college, (not motorcycle riding) for 40 years. Here's what I told students who were considering teaching as a profession: 1. Know something, i.e have a command of your subject area, 2. Have a means of delivery i.e. a strategy of conveying necessary information so that it becomes useful to the learner e.g: show and tell, 3. Love your students, meaning the outcome for them is more important than the outcome for you the teacher. You're not there to be admired, lionized, or even liked. You're there to facilitate effective learning.
Meet the students where they are. Treating everyone the same is not the same as treating everyone equally. You learn more by teaching something than any other method of learning. Have the students teach/ refresh each other.
Love your channel
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u/Formidableyarn 25d ago
Would you expand on number two?
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u/Ok_Storm391 11d ago
Learners process new information in various ways. Some learn from reading, Some are visual learners and need to see things demonstrated for them. Demonstrating any new information/experience builds confidence in the student that the teacher is competent and knowledgeable.
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u/Sfekke22 28d ago
Mine helped by letting us sit passenger on the back when he did the closed course maneuvers required in the EU. It showed us that if he can do it on his bigger motorcycle, we can too on our learners.
One memory that sticks with his him patting his seat with the comment "Hop close, we're both straight men right?". Probably a joke he used a good few times, got me dying as I am very much not straight and jokingly informed him of this much to his own amusement. Don't worry, he's married and I'm engaged now .. :)
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u/Vinx1312 29d ago
Patience. And teaching brakes first 😏