Customer Reviews

More Proficient Motorcycling: Mastering the Ride

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The 1st Hough book Proficient Motorcycling is a very complete overview of the motorcycle, its mechanics and basic safety. That book serves starting riders very well. I read "More" proficient motorcycling soon after I finished the first book and when I had less than 200 miles under my belt. At that point in time I found that I was not ready for the 2nd book. I couldn't make sense of the examples. The book is much more a discussion with riders than a training course for beginners.

This spring after beginning to commute to work on the motorcycle and having many more hours of cycle time I re-read the book in prerparation to return to the road. With more experience the book was much more useful. Where the first book told the reader what to do, "More" gives examples, choices and options for the rider to consider.

The book is extremely thought provoking. It contains many excellent examples including a section that describes how you can lay out your own training course (assuming you have the tarmac to do it)and much helpful advice on cornering.

If you are just starting out read the first book before this you read this one. You'll need the grounding. If you are an experienced rider I would suggest reading this book every year as you gear up for the riding season (unless of course you are lucky enough to live where its always riding season, then I'd make it a New Year's resolution).

Any way you slice it its another excellent book from Mr. Hough.

The author continues to build upon the skills outlined and described in the first Proficient Motorcycling book.
Though this book is not organized the same.
The first book was a nice balance of "MSF" type theory, real life riding experience, drawings, pictures, and diagrams.
This book is more of a story telling best practice manual. The author tells a story of an event either he experienced or a friend experienced and then breaks down what was done and could have been improved on. Chapters range from Long Distance Riding Tactics, Mental Prepardness, and Route Selection, to Bike Maintenance scenerios, Curve Scenarios, and International Road Rules.
There is some overlap between books, as some theory needs to be explained again to be able to correllate the story to the instructions.
If your a beginner biker then you will appreciate reading this book after the first proficient book, just for the real life experiences you might expect to encounter.
If your a seasoned rider then some of the stories will seem familiar, and you may find yourself re-evaluating what happened during your ride.
I recommend reading the first book, Proficient Motorcycling Ultimate Guide, then getting some of your own experience under your belt before diving into this book. You will find the stories easier to visualize in your mind and much more memorable.

David L. Hough's book "Proficient Motorcycling" showed me how little I really knew about the mechanical dynamics of a motorcycle. While I have been riding for a while, and am a safe rider, with Hough's book it has become a lot clearer about what a motorcycle is realing doing as I ride. Hough covers, in detail, many topics of safe riding, but he also helps you understand the mechanical dynamics of the motorcycle, in depth. By knowing what the machine wants to do under normal conditions, and under what conditions the machine fails us, we can better ride within the the margins of the bike's design and conditions. No matter how proficient you think you are already, Hough's book will help you understand what the machine is designed to do, and not do, and how important the rider is to it's safe operation. With the book in hand, plan on reading a chapter and wanting to go for a ride just to relate Hough's points to real riding.

This is a must read for any motorcycle rider, novice or experienced. The layout of the book is good and information easy to find. There is some overlap between the first book and this one (delayed apexing for example), though both are invaluable guides.

The basic physics of bike handling are covered nicely and has a no BS approach.
The book gives very good insight into safe cycling and has some practical exercises to try out as well.

Problems: Topics like counter steering are split across multiple chapters. Though this is the only one I found, it would have been nice to have all in once nice block or chapter.

Conclusions: For the street rider, both books by DLH are a must read. These books changed the way I look at street riding.

The author continues to build upon the skills outlined and described in the first Proficient Motorcycling book.
Though this book is not organized the same.
The first book was a nice balance of "MSF" type theory, real life riding experience, drawings, pictures, and diagrams.
This book is more of a story telling best practice manual. The author tells a story of an event either he experienced or a friend experienced and then breaks down what was done and could have been improved on. Chapters range from Long Distance Riding Tactics, Mental Prepardness, and Route Selection, to Bike Maintenance scenerios, Curve Scenarios, and International Road Rules.
There is some overlap between books, as some theory needs to be explained again to be able to correllate the story to the instructions.
If your a beginner biker then you will appreciate reading this book after the first proficient book, just for the real life experiences you might expect to encounter.
If your a seasoned rider then some of the stories will seem familiar, and you may find yourself re-evaluating what happened during your ride.
I recommend reading the first book, Proficient Motorcycling Ultimate Guide, then getting some of your own experience under your belt before diving into this book. You will find the stories easier to visualize in your mind and much more memorable.

In a few words, after reading the first one -Proficient Motorcycling- one cannot expect less from this renowned author and experienced rider.
This book deals deeper with concepts presented in the first one, concepts any reader-rider should have caught in mind and practised on the street after reading that. So this second part re-enforces and emphasizes basics ideas and fundamentals of riding safe as well as presents new optics on advanced motorcycling.
I highly recommend it to you all bike enthusiasts who ¨eated-up¨ the first one in a week and conciously practised every drill described there.

Excellent book! I have ridden multiple cycles in years past and then got away from riding for quite a few years. I recently got hooked again with the purchase of a BMW R1150R and bought David's book to bone up on what I needed to be thinking about to keep from getting killed. His pointers on correctly approaching curves, proper braking and looking for an opening, instead of what you are trying to avoid hitting were priceless bits of infomation. The first time I had to nail the brakes on my new bike I locked up the back wheel. After reading David's book I know why and how to avoid doing it again. Highly recommended reading, even for experienced rider's.

This is different enough to Proficient Motorcycling to be worth buying. I like the overall emphasis on avoiding trouble rather than getting out of trouble. There is more emphasis on throttle control which I found helpful. I expect I'll be reading this for the next few years as I continue learning to ride and start venturing out onto the serious twisties. As with the first book, being based on magazine columns ther eis a bit of repetition and some overlap with the first but I enjoy reading it and find it very useful.

I picked this book up by accident and was very impressed, and read it cover to cover in a few days.

It is a very practical book, and gives very clear explanations. It doesn't try to dumb-down the language, yet it doesn't skip over anything either with the assumption that "you must already know" certain things.

I found the sections on counter-steering (explanation and practice) and "hanging-off" to be very helpful. I have been riding road bikes for many years but these are techniques that are not taught in standard rider-training, and I have never been to a track-school for bikes, so it was good to get a clear understanding of the techniques, plus advice on how to try them out yourself in a controlled enviroment.

I have recommended this book to my riding friends who are like me, middle-aged, riding fairly big bikes, doing a bit of touring, but who have no misconceptions that they are Rossi on a good day...

Written mostly for expert or experienced riders, Hough still comes off in language that riders of all levels can easily relate to and understand. Practically every subject related to riding is covered in great detail. He calls a few spades and is occasionally somewhat stern - but this is a book about riding safely and well, and I say it's welcome that someone takes it that seriously. He manages to avoid being obnoxious or preachy; that turns people off and I suspect he knows this.

If the book has a major difference in theme from the first, it's that as you gain experience you'll find that the best way to improve is in the mental arenas of preparation, practice, and knowledge. Once you have gained enough experience to be able to physically ride, in other words, then you're able to REALLY start learning how to ride well. This book will set you on the road to make big improvements.

There's just a ton of information here - from the mechanical aspects of apexing, trail braking, and panic stops, all the way to attitude, preparation, and dealing with breakdowns. The book is quite dense, packed with the same style of figures and pictures as the first book. As with the first one, this one is also well written. It might take a few reads to absorb it all!

All in all a totally useful in-depth resource for riders who have at least learned the language and ridden for a while. Novice riders should get the first book, certainly - but this one won't put you off if you get both at the same time. It's like the ERC on your bookshelf!