How We Will Do This
The Program
Ride better than you ever thought you could. Forty free lessons, one skill at a time. This page explains how the lessons work, why they are free, and what comes next.
Start With the Real Cause
Motorcycles have never been safer. Brakes, tires and electronics have all improved enormously, and yet the crash statistics have barely moved. That tells us the machine was never the weak point. The rider is the part nobody ever finished training.
Almost every rider taught themselves, with advice from friends: a weekend course to get the license, a few tips, then years of trial and error on public roads. Jim and I did too. That is why seventeen riders die and about two hundred and forty are seriously injured on an average day in the United States, and why those numbers have not moved in decades. So the program goes after the rider's skill, deliberately and in order.
Riding is fun and studying is not, so most riders never do it. ThrottleWise is a new effort built to fix this on purpose, by making the learning itself fun, convenient and rewarding, and built to measure whether it worked.
Ride With the Best Teachers — Including in Person
Brand new to riding? Start in person. Take the MSF Basic RiderCourse — hands-on, on a real motorcycle, and in most states it is how you earn your license. Find one at msf-usa.org.
If you can make the time and budget for in-person coaching, do it. Nothing replaces a great coach watching you ride. We are glad to recommend the schools we admire: Total Control's Advanced Riding Clinics — whose founder's book helped shape our own cornering lessons — the Yamaha Champions Riding School, California Superbike School on track, and the manufacturers' own programs: Harley-Davidson's Riding Academy, Honda's Rider Education Centers, the BMW U.S. Rider Academy, and Ducati's Riding Experience. This list is nowhere near exhaustive: there are excellent schools and coaches all over the country — find one near you and go. No school pays to appear here; we name them because they make better riders.
ThrottleWise is the free path for every rider, whether you can do in-person lessons or not. The truth is most riders have not taken advantage of in-person classes or even the many excellent books on proficient riding. It is just so much easier to jump on the bike and ride! That’s one of the main reasons the crash statistics haven’t changed over decades. ThrottleWise is the free, convenient, and fun solution to help every rider become the best they can be. And when all riders are their best, those terrible statistics will head toward zero!
Is ThrottleWise a replacement for in-person training?
No — and it never will be. In-person courses put a coach's eyes on you, and that is irreplaceable. ThrottleWise is what the sport never had: the free, simple and convenient way for every rider to get the best proven techniques and ways of thinking about riding on public roads. And a heads up about common bad habits that have been passed down for generations.
Explain, Demonstrate, Practice
Every skill is taught the same way, as a video lesson in three parts, chosen from the best sources in motorcycling. First we explain the skill and why it matters. Then we demonstrate it done properly, close up and at real speed. Then we set you up to practice it on purpose, rather than hoping you happen to get it right on the road.
The lessons build on one another, so a brand-new rider and a rider with thirty years of habits both have somewhere sensible to start.
See it for yourself. Here is rung 1.1, the first lesson of the ThrottleWise Ladder, exactly as every rider gets it — free, complete, and nothing held back. This one teaches a basic skill, from the beginning of the series — the lessons progress all the way to advanced skills.
And here is the practice assignment that goes with it — the drill, the setup, and the exact standard to pass, ready to print and take to the parking lot: the rung 1.1 practice assignment (PDF).
Feedback While You Practice
Watching a lesson is not the same as executing it. That is the gap the technology is built to close.
Coming next: the ThrottleWise app will read what your bike's sensors record during practice and coach you — "improve this point" or "you nailed it, next lesson" — so any rider, anywhere, can train on their own schedule, without needing an instructor beside them.
Built to be measured.
Nobody can show today whether rider training builds skill: not the schools, not the manufacturers, not the insurers. The Ladder is built so that it can be measured, and our technology will produce the numbers: proof for every rider that their practice is working — and, published as open research, evidence the world of road safety has been waiting for. Riders, researchers, insurers, and policymakers all gain from what we measure. And one promise stands over all of it: your riding data is never sold. Ever.
Free, for Every Rider
Every lesson is free to every rider, and always will be. A free rider account, when it arrives, will hold your practice logs and progress history — no account gets better training than any other.
How It Is Paid For
ThrottleWise, a nonprofit, funds one thing: free rider training for everyone, paid for by donations, grants and corporate sponsorship. The training is never locked behind a payment, never sold, and never held back for a paid level.
Where the money goes, stage by stage, and why the goal is the number it is: what your donations are needed for and how they will be used.
Stay With Us
Get the lessons the day they land
We will email you when new Ladder rungs are published and when the practice-feedback app is ready. No more than that, and never sold to anyone.
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Free training still has to be built.
Every gift helps film a lesson that stays free for every rider, for as long as the Ladder is online. Give, or bring one rider.
Gifts support filming of the Ladder and ThrottleWise's general programs. ThrottleWise is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit; gifts are tax-deductible.