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Riding with a pillion - aka: passenger

My kids love riding on the back of the Goldwing far more than riding on the back of the CBR.
 
My wife has logged well over 100,000 Miles on the back - no issues. Easy to forget she’s even back there. Sometimes I give a newb a ride. After covering the pre-ride basics, we get rolling and then I’ll instruct them to lean one side and then the other so they get a sense of how much of an effect this has on the bike. It helps, and they usually stay quiet back there after that.
 
The last time I took a passenger for a serious ride, it was my daughter when she was living somewhere in Santa Clara County and working in Los Gatos. I think we went up Page Mill Rd to Highway 35, then I can't remember where else we went. I made her cover up, but it wasn't exactly motorcycle gear, and she wore one of my helmets which was probably two sizes too big. I was thinking of my responsibility to be a safe rider the whole time. She liked it. I wish her mother liked it. :laughing

I went to the trouble of tracking down passenger footpegs for my XR650L a few years after I bought it. Nobody has ever used them up to this point. My wife rode with me once out to Livermore from Pleasanton to Tri-Valley Moto for a Triumph demo day. I wanted to see if she would feel better on the back of a cruiser than on the back of a KTM 990 Adv. I think we rode a 1600 Thunderbird and a Rocket 3. She liked the KTM seating position better. Other than hopping on the back of my 1090R last summer to ride one block back home, she hasn't been on a motorcycle since.

The biggest help I can give to a passenger is to tell them to always look to the inside of all turns. That way they aren't leaning the opposite way of how you need them to lean.

So I'm pretty much a solo rider these days. :ride
 
2-up

FWIW..I've logged a few miles riding 2up on the street and track and over the years I've ridden with a wide variance of shapes and sizes. My personal preference when setting up the bike is adjusting preload (when possible), adding more front/rear compression and upping tire pressure.

On track we use a snow mobile purposed waist belt that helps the passenger understand the back/forth and side/side movement as well as minimizes sliding under acceleration. I've only used the gas cap mounted bracket a couple times but noticed passengers with shorter arm span limited my ability set my body position to my liking.

The singular advise given to our passengers is either move with the rider or don't but once the bike starts to tip in don't make any adjustments. Over the years overly aggressive passengers have had their rides cut short because they're attempting to drag their knee and upsetting the chassis. For the other 99.9% it usually takes about a lap and a half to figure out whether or not the pace can be increased and start having some fun.

Cheers
 
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