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Are you a Left-mounter or Right-mounter?

Are you a Left-mounter or Right-mounter?

5K views 35 replies 13 participants last post by  Duckster 
#1 ·
Which side of the bike do you habitually mount/dismount, left or right?
 
#2 ·
With years of CCW carry (re: inside pant holster on the right hip) I have been a right mounter. Having torn my left Achille's tendon & resulting surgery/recovery, this hasn't done anything to change that. ;)
 
#4 ·
Habitual? nope. Probably a 60/40 split
 
#5 ·
I find it interesting that anyone would normally mount a motorcycle from the right side.. Since the side stand is on the left, the bike is leaned toward that side and it is easy to put your inseam right up to the seat as you throw the right leg over. Conversely from the right, the bike is leaned away from you and you need to climb over it to get to the seat.
Another consideration is that from the right the sidestand is out of sight and away from your supporting foot as you throw the other leg over. It is much easier to accidentally roll the bike off the stand as you climb on.

Admittedly these concerns matter less on a small bike like the Rebel, but are quite real on a larger bike.

The only time I have deliberately mounted from the right is when the bike is heavily loaded including the back seat, requiring a step through type mount where there is no room to swing a leg over. I did a trip on a very high bike (Triumph Tiger 1050) with that type of load and found the best way to mount was to get as close to the center of the bike as possible on the right side and then step up on the right peg and step through with the left foot to straddle the bike. The stepping on the right peg would lift the bike off the sidestand so I had to be careful not to tip it to the right, but once I had the knack it was quite easy.
 
#7 ·
Admittedly these concerns matter less on a small bike like the Rebel, but are quite real on a larger bike.
LEOs typically mount/dismount on the right, both due to the sidearm issue and also to exit away from traffic flow in a pull-over. Police departments tend to use large patrol bikes like full dresser Harleys & BMWs.


Admittedly I also do it just to be different. :D
 
#6 ·
The Left side for sure unless some one parks there bike too close to me then I have to mount on the right side
 
#8 ·
I'm a right mounter but a left dismounter, partially due to the backrest that I have on the bike and partially due to my 79 year old knees. Because of the backrest I can't just throw a leg over but rather mount like you would a woman's bicycle. Still, I need the backrest for support while I ride. Go figure. Bud
 
#9 ·
I never even noticed anyone mount from the right, and certainly never considered it.

I think it would be like me trying to mount one of my horses from the right. It wouldn't end well.
 
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#24 ·
i used to do that all the time. Snotzy (real name Poco Del Dan) didn't much care for it. After a few months, he gave up caring and just accepted that I did things a little different than he previous owner. Well....that and the grapes. He loved grapes. :)
 
#11 ·
Sidearms are not an issue up here in Canuckistan. Strange as it may seem to our American friends, I suspect it's not an issue anywhere else in the world but in the US.
However, as noted earlier, I have recently perfected the right mount on high motorcycles with no room to swing a leg over the back seat or rear fender. In fact I was on a ride today with some friends, one of whom had a Suzuki V-Strom with a backrest fitted, making it impossible to mount in the usual way from the left. He is younger and limber enough to pick up his right foot and push it straight over the seat ahead of the backrest to get on. My hips and knees don't bend like that anymore. I demonstrated the right side mount successfully. Once standing on the right peg, the bike is still on the sidestand but most of the bike and rider weight is on the wheels. There is definitely more skill involved than for the standard static left side mount, and lots more could go wrong when stepping up on the right side and committing both feet to be off the ground before you are properly mounted on the bike.
 
#25 ·
. My hips and knees don't bend like that anymore
Mine are getting old as well. If one of my bikes is loaded to the gills, I'll put my foot up on the seat (either right or left) and the other foot does a kind of heel/toe pivot towards the bike. Works quite well and keeps me from attempting an 8' high round house kick to get my leg up on the bike. b :laugh:
 
#13 ·
Duck, in my limited years of riding, I've only seen one rider with a visible sidearm. Not everyone in the U.S. is packing, and most that do, carry them concealed. On the motorcycle forums I've been on, they report carrying in a variety of places; small of the back, velcroed to inside of riding jacket, pants pocket, inside the waistband, etc. In order to obtain a concealed carry permit, most states require training and to pass a special background check in addition to that required when purchasing a firearm.

It has become a very crazy world. Ask those who were mowed down and hacked to death on London Bridge if they would have liked to be able to have defended themselves with more than their hands and feet. What if one of those good citizens outside your Parliament building had been armed when that deranged gunman approached? He might never have made it inside. As it was, they scattered when they saw him run up, as I would if unarmed.
 
#14 ·
We've heard all those arguments, but I would counter that if guns were as easy to have in England and Canada as in the US, these savages would not bother using knives or cars, and you would get a similar gun death toll per capita just due to accidents, religious zealotry, mental derangement and drunken rages as you enjoy in the US. Sure, we all know that we solid citizens could carry weapons and take out bad guys when the time comes,(hopefully not shoot a bystander by accident) but the sad fact is that a predictable percentage of the armed general public are not solid citizens, and those deranged or criminal shooters instill the fear in the vast majority that feeds the general need to be armed.
In the Ottawa incident a highly trained professional was armed and the perp was taken out before he could do more harm. Same thing in the recent UK situation and also in the US Senate shooting. The cops all did a great job like they were trained to do.
 
#15 ·
Chicago and New York City have the toughest gun laws in the country, and they're combined deadly gun crime rate accounts for a very significant percentage of the overall country's rate. I forget the other two cities (which also have tough gun laws) but if you dropped their numbers out of the US total the US would fall waaaaaay down the list of top countries with gun related deaths.
 
#16 ·
So how is it that criminals are able to arm themselves in countries with strict gun laws, i.e., France, Canada, England, etc.?

While the police may or may not be able to respond quickly, it probably won't be fast enough for some victims. I'd rather have the option of defending myself and others if needed.
 
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#17 ·
So how is it that criminals are able to arm themselves in countries with strict gun laws, i.e., France, Canada, England, etc.?
It's actually pretty difficult to get a restricted weapon here, although the easiest way would be to smuggle one in from the US where they are easy to come by illegally. The fact is that if more guns kept people safe, the US would be the safest place in the world, although the evidence seems to indicate otherwise. I think criminals and even police are much quicker to shoot first when in doubt if they see a gun on a citizen or reasonably expect others to be armed. There's lots of evidence for that too. Then there's all the self defence weapons that end up shooting someone's kid or another family member.
 
#20 ·
I suppose if I carried via a second holster on the other hip I would have to leap-frog over the pillion...
 
#21 ·
Left side, always....
I have a Clint Eastwood style revolver that I have never fired much less packed. NC is an open carry state, so I could but we need a permit for concealed carry and I do not have one..
 
#22 ·
They're not tough to acquire as long as you can pass the background checks. I renewed mine not too long ago, one of the gun stores was offering a free CCW class during the slow season (what passes for "winter" out here) and I shot 358/360 with my self loader and 357/360 with my snub nose revolver using their cheap Chinese ghetto ammo they were so desperate to get rid of (hence the free classes ;) ).
 
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#26 ·
Always left here too....I feel it's the most natural as the bike seat is leaned to the left when parked on the kickstand. However, I was a horseback rider for years, and you are taught to always mount on the left. It just makes sense to me I guess.
 
#27 ·
Well since we don't wear cavalry swords strapped to our left hip, its not an issue to throw the sword-free leg over our mount...
and hate me if you want, but a little google search says it's orthopedically better for you and your mount to use both sides....hmm
 
#30 ·
I'd suggest it's good practice (less likely to cause problems) to do many routine tasks the same way every time, and I'm not buying the idea that there's any detectable orthopedic effect from mounting your motorcycle from the left every time.

As a practical matter it's easy to mount a Rebel from either side because its a small low bike. To mount a large bike like the R1200GS for example, with one foot remaining on the ground the whole time is actually challenging for 6 footer from the left side. It is not possible from the right side. It is clearly good business to have one foot planted on the ground until you are seated on the bike, and can take its weight off the stand. Mounting by stepping up on the right peg introduces a number of variables that can lead to a tipover if you make a mistake. As I noted earlier, there are times when accepting the risk of mounting from the right might make sense, but as a normal practice, mounting from the left is the easiest and safest habit to develop.
 
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#31 ·
Ease in right versus left --- you have to clear the same exact height regardless which direction you approach it from, either you're going form the low to high or going over the high point first, you still have to clear the higher side either way.
 
#33 · (Edited)
I'd like to point out that the easy way to mount a very high bike such as an adventure tourer or a liter class sportbike is to bend the knee on the right leg as far up toward your butt as possible before trying to swing the KNEE over the seat, Once the knee is over the seat then the right leg can be straightened and the foot can be lowered to the ground.
this reduces the problem to just getting the knee over the seat rather than swinging the entire unsupported right leg over it.

The important question is; can you easily stand on one leg and lift the other leg over the seat as you mount the bike? From the left, your inseam on the left leg can be touching the left side of the seat (or nearly so) while you swing the right knee and leg over. From the right side, your first point of contact if you stand too close to the bike will be your calf touching the bottom of the engine on some bikes, or the right exhaust on the Rebel and many other bikes. Fine when the bike is cold, not so fine if you are remounting when hot. On a big bike it will be a long horizontal reach over the right side of the bike to the right side of the seat, and the knee may not reach all the way.
Also from the left, the handlebars are leaning toward you and are easy to reach with both hands while you hold the front brake to prevent the bike from rolling off the stand. From the right side, the bars are leaned away from you and its harder to reach both handlebars and cover the front brake while mounting. Because you are farther away from the seat your knee may not even reach it from the right side.

It should be clear that the positioning of the sidestand on the left side of the bike means mounting from the left is the easiest, safest, and therefore the correct way to do it under normal circumstances. If the stand was on the right, the opposite would be true. This has nothing to do with the convention of always mounting a horse from the left. It's not possible to make a sensible case that mounting from the right is just as easy and safe in the general case of a normal sized bike.

The Rebel is often cited as a good training bike. It's great for learning good habits on a bike that is small, light and easy to handle. Because it is small, light and has a very low seat, most people are tall enough to be able to step onto the bike from the right side with minimal difficulty. From a practical standpoint, this is fine. However, stepping on from the right is a sloppy habit that will not work on larger bikes that the Rebel pilot may want to transition to. Just because its possible to do something, doesn't mean it is good practice to do it. If you want to build good habits that will serve you well on ALL motorcycles you may ever ride, then you will always mount from the left side except under extraordinary circumstances.
 
#32 ·
Technically true Shadow Shack, but it does affect what you can do with your foot after you clear the highest point, unless you stand the bike up first before mounting, then it doesn't matter.

Unless you are tall with long legs, or you have a very short bike like the Rebel, if it is leaned on the kickstand, and you mount from the right, you can't get your left foot to reach the ground to stand the bike up. You first have to sit down and squirm over on the seat to get your right foot off the ground and your left foot to the ground. Then you can lift the bike to get both feet on the ground. You have to go through a less safe period when all your weight is on the bike, both feet are off the ground, and both you and the bike are both supported only by the kickstand.

If you mount from the left, your left foot is already on the ground, and you can just stand the bike up immediately to get both feet on the ground. You don't go through that unsafe zone.

With my long legs, I don't have that problem and both of my feet fit flat on the ground regardless of the position of any of my bikes. I could just straddle the bike from the rear, or vault into the saddle like I used to do on my cow pony when doing rodeo tricks.

My wife, on the other hand, has to be sure that her bike is straight up on level ground for her feet to reach the ground, even though it is a lowered Hugger version of the Sportster that I think is actually lower than the Rebel. She found that out the hard way one day when she was leaving a gas station that had a little dip or swale in their driveway at the curb. She eased out to the end of the driveway and stopped to look both ways for traffic. However when she put her feet down, neither one touched the ground, and she panicked. Before she could compose herself and catch the bike, it leaned over too far for her to stop it, and she dropped it. The dip was probably only 2" deep, but that was 2" too much.
 
#34 ·
The original post was "DO YOU?" and it has become a debate on "SHOULD YOU?"
I've had several instructors/salespersons/experienced riders say the recommended fitment for most riders is if you can put both feet on the ground while its on the stand and lift it up to balance without using your hands.
 
#36 ·
I've had several instructors/salespersons/experienced riders say the recommended fitment for most riders is if you can put both feet on the ground while its on the stand and lift it up to balance without using your hands.
Just tried this on My R1200GS. I'm 6'1" with a 32" inseam, and I cannot put both feet flat on the ground unless my weight is firmly on the bike with it being straight up and down already. There is no way I can swing my left leg up over the seat from the right side without stepping up on the right peg. my Knee touches the horizontal crash bar under the right cylinder when it's on the side stand.

Regardless of who suggests this is OK, I'm telling you to try it on a tall bike and go by what the evidence tells you... It is not a good idea IMO and I think if you try it on a bigger bike you will most likely agree with me. I'm sure I could step over either side of the Rebel to get on, but I'll be doing it the conventional way from the left side every time, just in the interests of doing it correctly on every bike I ride. It is not equally OK to mount from the right. On a bigger taller bike it may well be impossible for you or me without stepping up on the right peg and having both feet off the ground while the bike is not stable on the stand. Arguing that either way is just as good is just being perverse, IMO.

That's all I'm going to say on this subject.
 
#35 ·
These counterpoints do make sense on taller bikes. The tallest bike I owned was a 1500 Vulcan 88 at 28¼" and I had no issue right mounting that one either. I was also able to right mount several sport bikes that friends owned that had slightly taller seats (no more than 30" IIRC), but I suppose if I were to attempt mounting a KLR650 with its full three foot tall saddle --- well, I actually HAVE tried that once and it didn't work from either side because I could not even reach the ground with both feet tippy-toed after seated, but I do recall it was ever so SLIGHTLY easier to mount from the left.

But that wouldn't ever work in my current condition, the simple fact is if guns are outlawed here I'll still be right mounting by default of the weaker left leg issue. I still get nervous about tripod stops with that leg, more so now that I am riding a heavier bike again.
 
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