As someone who learned to ride a horse before they learned to ride a bike and who still has clocked way more hours on a horse than a bicycle (even though I mostly stopped riding ten years ago), it is sometimes difficult for me to regard a bike purely as a machine. Even after you get past the differences in stance and muscle usage between bike riding and horse riding, there are some riding habits that are difficult to break:
- Signalling to the bike that you are turning by turning your head in the direction you intend to go (I have been told I also do this when driving a car)
- Standing up in the saddle whenever you go over a speed bump
- Counting down from three before you go over an obstacle even though your bike doesn’t have legs and therefore doesn’t have a stride
- Sitting down and leaning back when you use the brakes so as not to give your bike mixed signals
- Feeling discombobulated when walking or standing on the right side of your bike
- Patting the head tube of your bike to reassure it that it did a good job going up that hill
So this:
Signalling to the bike that you are turning by turning your head in the direction you intend to go (I have been told I also do this when driving a car)
Is actually something you’re told about when you’re learning how to ride a motorcycle.
BUT
For what I assume are completely different reasons: a motorcycle will generally go in the direction you turn your head.