After a wasted afternoon, I must sadly report that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF)'s Experienced Rider Course (ERC) is misleadingly billed and poorly executed. Experienced riders will be frusturated more than they are helped.

The first half of the ERC consists of four hours of watching videos and listening to lectures in a classroom. The material was sound, based as it was on the Hurt studies of motorcycle accidents. However, the experience was marred by the grade-school level and pace of discussion.

The Hurt report findings have been well documented and disseminated by the motorcycle media. Briefly, they show that the vast majority of motorcycle accidents involve major failings on the part of the rider such as use of alcohol, failure to use helmets and protective gear, overuse of the rear brake, or ignorance of countersteering.

You'd hope that the experienced motorcyclist would know enough to avoid these traps, so dedicating four hours to the exposition of their evils seems a bit much. 30-60 minutes would have been fine; none of these traps should be news to anyone who has been riding for any amount of time.

The second half of the ERC consisted of a four-hour traffic jam, set in a parking lot. Drills went like this: wait in line for 5 minutes, often behind a poorly-running Harley; ride at speeds of up to 20 mph for 5-10 seconds; receive a rebuke for failing to use four fingers on the brake lever; repeat.

While some or all of this experience might be useful to someone who has been off their bike a number of years, or to someone unfamiliar with the major findings of the Hurt report, I found it tedious at best, and wrongheaded at other times. Particularly annoying was the instructors' rigid insistence on a few specific techniques, such as four-fingered braking and manatory use of the rear brake in quick stops on good pavement. Neither makes sense for an experienced rider on reasonably functional machinery, yet the MSF instructors insist that riders with years of experience using other valid techniques somehow forget what they know for the afternoon.

While I did note these concerns on the class' feedback form, I don't expect the MSF to change this class much. The least they could do would be to market it more honestly; make it clear that the occasional or returning rider will have all basic skills of motorcycling reviewed, and it will be much clearer who should and should not take the course. If this course is indeed well recieved by many of its students, the only lesson can be that stricter standards need to be in place before granting motorcycle licenses in the first place.