How to Ride a Motorcycle with a Passenger


At some point in your riding career, you will need or want to bring someone with you on the road. Be that a family member or girlfriend / Boyfriend. This will allow you to take your motorcycle more often or impress that special someone. But before you have them hop on the back and take off, we need to talk to the passenger and let them know what you except from them. It is also a good idea to know how your motorcycle is going to feel with the extra weight. Below I will list my process of how I ride with a new passenger.

What You Need to Know

Before you have someone get on the bike with you, you need to know a few things. The first thing you need to do is look into your local laws to see when you can carry a passenger. In Ohio, you are not allowed to carry a passenger with your Temps or for the first year that you get your full endorsement. After that first year, you are allowed to carry a passenger.

Another thing you need to know is how your bike is going to behave with the extra weight. Most people will say that the bike feels “Heavy”. This feeling is most noticeable when turning, accelerating, and braking. To get a idea what this will feel like, you can add some static weight to the back seat of your motorcycle. You can do this by strapping extra gear or weights to your motorcycle. Then ride around like you normally would for a few days to get the feel how your motorcycle reacts. For my motorcycle (with 30+ year old brake designs) it is the stopping ability, I find to be the most noticeable. When I have a passenger or extra weight, I need to remember to give myself a greater stopping distance or I find myself not stopping as quickly and could run into something.

What the Passenger Needs to Know

If your passenger has never rode on the back of a motorcycle, you need to let them know what they need to do (and what not to do) to have an enjoyable ride. You will want to make sure that your passenger has all the safety equipment that you have in the event something goes wrong. It would be like having a airbag on the driver’s side of the car, but not having one on the passenger’s side. You need to go over the following things with them so they know what to do. These should be covered before you get on the Bike

  1. How to get on the Motorcycle – Driver has to be on the motorcycle first and ready for passenger to get on.
  2. Moving around on the Back Seat – Passenger shifting their body weight around can cause the bike to turn.
  3. Leaning in Turns – They have to lean with you in a turn, or the bike will not turn the way you will expect.
  4. Basic Hand Gestures – To let you know if your passenger needs to stop to get a drink or use the restroom.
  5. Getting off the Motorcycle – Very similar to getting on the motorcycle, but in reverse.

Now, if your passenger has been on the back before, find out what the previous rider told them and let them know of any differences between the situations. For example: The passenger is use to riding on the back of a large touring bike, but has never been on the back of a sports bike. Or the previous rider used different hand signals that you do not know. The key to successful riding is with good communication between the rider and passenger.

Practice Run

After you have your briefing with your passenger, its finally time to actually put it into practice. Every time I have a new passenger with me, I start off on mostly empty roads until they feel comfortable with leaning and we feel sync-ed up with each other. If you have communicators you can talk things out while on the bike. I believe that this will help the passenger learn faster how to ride with you.

If you can, try to ride on different road types like city roads or country roads. I like to start on country roads because there is less traffic and they tend to be mostly straight. Not to say that all country roads are straight, because they are not. I have some roads by me that are curvy and hilly. But a un-populated, straight road will allow you to focus on your passenger and not as much on the road.

When your passenger says they feel comfortable, then you can go onto more demanding roads like the freeway. I feel like it would be cruel to take your passenger onto the freeway for their first ride. Worse case, they will be so scared that they will never ride again. Then they could go around and talk about that bad experience and discourage new riders from riding. It could have someone’s spouse tell them they cannot ride because they heard how bad it is. The end goal is to encourage riding, not make people scared of it.

After a few rides, your passenger should feel comfortable on the bike and how it behaves. You will also feel the difference when your passenger first starts compared to after they have been riding for some time. I can say that I almost forget that I have a passenger, if they know how to be a passenger. I have also had the opposite experience, when I had to teach them how to ride with me. The bike would feel heavy and turns would not feel smooth. As long as you keep practicing, it will work itself out and you and your passenger will sync up. This will allow the two of you to go more places on the bike and have great experiences together.

Feedback

After you finish a ride, it is important to talk to your passenger and find out if they have any questions or comments about the ride. This does not have to be a long drawn out discussion. It could be as quick as “How was the ride?” with the response of “It was really nice, a bit chilly though” Based on this you now know that your passenger will need heavier clothing next time. Most of my post-riding talks only last a minute or two, but helps improve the riding condition for everyone involved.

Being able to take a passenger with me is very important. I like to go places on my bike and I like to include my girlfriend when I go to those places. Not only does it save gas (and in turn money) but I find the drive to said place to be more enjoyable. I want her to also enjoy it, so she will agree to take the bike instead of the car. I also think it helps two people bond in a way because we get to share the experience and have to sync up with each other, for the trip to work.

At the end of the day we want to encourage people to get on motorcycles. And who knows, that passenger one day might end up riding a bike of their own.

If you are interested in what Motorcycle and gear I own, you can check it all out on the Bike and Gear page!

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