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Recently I took a motorcycle safety course offered through the Harley Davidson dealership here in Reno. The Rider’s Edge program offers courses that are accepted by most insurance companies to give a rider a deep discount on their motorcycle insurance. The Rider’s Edge program certificate is sponsored by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) and is accepted by the Department of Motor Vehicles as sufficient training to grant a motorcycle endorsement on your driver’s license without any further testing. You just walk in and show the completion certificate and they grant you a motorcycle license. Sweet huh? And as an added bonus, many insurance companies offer a discount on motorcycle insurance to their customer’s who complete a Motorcycle Safety Foundation approved course. Rider’s Edge is an approved course so be sure to ask for a discount when purchasing your motorcycle insurance.

The Rider’s Edge course is broken into four sessions, two in the evening and two all day sessions on the weekend. I’ll break this out and review what we did on each of the four days. I thought that the course was done very well and taught a lot of valuable skills that any rider should be aware of. The instructors for the course, George and Phil, did an excellent job of team teaching throughout the duration of the course.

The first night was a lot of fun; we went to the showroom and store at the Harley Davidson dealership and looked at protective gear. They showed us how to properly fit a helmet so that it is not too tight or too loose. If the helmet is too loose it may come off during a wreck and if it is too tight it can cause headaches which may distract you during your riding which of course may result in a motorcycle wreck all by itself. Then we looked at gloves, jackets with armor and boots that cover your whole foot and ankle. We learned more about riding clothing than I had ever even thought of in all of the years that I have been riding a motorcycle.

Next we looked at motorcycles and looked at all of the controls, throttle, clutch, gear shift, brakes and handle bars. We sat on some really nice Harley’s and learned the differences between models. After that we went to the service department where the head mechanic explained about their services including the dynamometer. They have one of the few dynamometer rooms in the country here in Reno.

We went back to the classroom and our instructors began to teach us from the book on some basic motorcycle safety issues and we looked at some video clips that show both how to ride safely and what happens when you don’t, it gets ugly fast when the rules of the road are ignored.

On the second night of Rider’s Edge, we learned more about the mechanics of riding a motorcycle and more safety videos. The whole night was geared towards preparing us for going to the range the next morning. At the end of the night, we were given maps to the range and told to be there at 7:00 am sharp!

Rider’s Edge Range Training

It was March 8, 2008, 7:00 am, temperature was about 44 degrees and the sun was just starting to come up, and there were nine people gathered for Rider’s Edge range training. It was here that we received our introduction to the Buell Blast motorcycle. The Blast is a nice compact motorcycle that is built with training programs in mind. The Blast weighs about 360 pounds and is fairly low. I am 5’11” tall and can stand over the bike without touching the seat. The low center of gravity makes the bike easy to control even for a smaller rider. There were two women in the class and they took the lower seat as did a couple of the guys who were kind of short. The instructors can quickly change seats to accommodate the size of the rider.

Our lead instructor, George, explained the controls on the Blast and then instructed us in the hand signals that would be used on the range, the most important of them being the all-stop signal. We started with sitting on the motorcycle and getting the transmission into neutral. A simple task but some of the people that hadn’t ridden before had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to catch the right spot. Next, we moved the motorcycle forward and backwards about ten feet just to get the feel of the weight. Then we started up the engines and practiced keeping the clutch in the friction zone and power walking the bike about thirty feet and turning around. We did that a few times then we started riding across, turning around and riding back, stopping on both ends. Simple stuff, but for those who were just starting to ride, it proved a little challenging for them. This is a great way for a beginner to begin riding in a controlled environment rather than on a street with cars to contend with.

Once we got everyone comfortable with the motorcycle, then we were able to start some maneuvers training. We practiced riding in a straight line, slow the motorcycle to as slow as you can go slipping the clutch to keep from stopping and then accelerate around the corner, we just went around in circles practicing different maneuvers until lunch time then back to the classroom we went for more instruction on safety.

Rider’s Edge Range Training – Day 2

The second morning was much cooler than the first at thirty-three degrees, brrr! We started with basic maneuvers such as riding in an oval and then proceeded to riding across the course and practicing emergency stops. We learned how to turn the motorcycle in a 180 degree turn by counter-weighing the bike and then turning our heads as far as we could to the rear and letting the bike turn in a short radius. This maneuver takes practice and was included in our end of course test. The test was given early so we could return to the classroom for our celebration and receive our certificates. The course proved to be very informative and worth every penny of the $295 cost. If you are looking for quality training, contact your local Harley Davidson dealer and ask about Rider’s Edge.

What’s a FICO Score?  That’s the number that credit bureau’s report to creditors, employers, landlords and others using your credit history to evaluate whether you are a good risk or not.  Keeping your FICO Score as high as possible with save you money on interest rates, help you get that new job or help you get that nifty apartment that you applied for.  FICO Scores run between 350 and 850 and influenced by a number of factors, most you can control but some you may not.

FICO Scores are funny creatures as they are always changing depending upon what someone else says about you from day to day.  If you are late on a payment this month, your FICO Score will reflect that the next time the creditor updates with the bureaus.  If someone reports you as late or in default when you are not, your scores will still drop like a rock but at least you have some recourse.  You can dispute the entry with the credit bureaus themselves and they have 30 days to verify with the reporting party that the entry is correct, otherwise they are required to remove the entry.

How do you keep your FICO Score high?  By paying all of your bills on time or even a little early.  All it takes to be reported as late is to miss a deadline by a minute.  Credit card companies are very sticky about when a payment is received.  I pay all of my credit cards online and ensure that I always pay early.  Using credit cards has the most immediate effect on FICO Scores.  If you carry balances, never exceed 20% of your credit card limit.  Otherwise, credit bureaus begin lowering your FICO Score.  The top scorers on FICO carry credit balances of less than 10% of their credit limit.  If you are already exceeding the 20%, you may be able to get your credit card issuer to increase your limit effectively lowering the percentage used.  Otherwise, it is a good idea to pay credit card balances down and carry less debt.

Whenever the subject of virus protection comes up in a conversation, the most common names to get thrown around are Norton and McAfee. These two companies make most of the anti-virus software that is found in corporate environments as well as home computers. The latest versions of these products cost about $60.00 for the home use license and provide good protection from viruses.

There are alternatives that have a much lower price tag but are not as well known in the marketplace, one such program is Avast anti-virus. The protection that is afforded by this software is comparable to that provided by Norton and McAfee but the cost is considerably lower, so much lower that the most people ask, “What’s the catch?” There is no catch, Avast is simply trying to make a name for themselves in the marketplace and so they offer a special deal for home users…FREE! All you have to do is download the software from www.avast.com, fill out a very short registration form and Alwil Software will send you a registration code by email that is good for one year. At the end of that year, register again, and they will send you another code good for another year. All without spending a single red cent of your hard earned money. Plus, Alwil does not force you to endure the advertising bombs that most sofware makers are attaching to their free software these days. It’s a free download with no strings attached. The only snafu is that you may not use it on your business computers without paying the registration fee.

I have been using Avast for the past three years on my own computers and have never had any problems with their software. Avast supports pretty much any operating system on the market today including Windows and Linux both 32 and 64 bit versions. If the word FREE is music to your ears, then Avast is a symphony well worth listening to.