It has been more than two months now, since the start of this state of staying home. We turned back to basics of life, like spending quality time with family members, making bread, socializing with friends regardless of physical distance by the help of technology, asking and asking as never before the pandemic, and more importantly, most of us found that crucial time to learn, improve.

When it comes to learn and improve, we have too many tools nowadays. We have the old faithful friends, books and the new forest-saving version of them, the e-books. Billions of internet material from which we have to choose the right one.

I started by reading about my new motorcycle, which I bought just before this pandemic and haven’t had a chance of riding it too much. That is a bike with a computer in it, to serve as aids while riding: I started liking lately and Here you can find a nice article about this by dear Paolo.

Read your bike’s manual…

Although most of us are able to bring the motorcycle back to garage the same shape it had at the exit, all of us need to read the factory’s manual written to learn how to use it properly and in the best way. This starts from what the buttons are for, ends in learning how to use the gearbox efficiently for fuel economy. Read the manual to get what you paid for…

There are tons of new technology in motorcycles. It is not like the old friend carburettor mixing fuel and oxygen and offering for fire to a spark plug. Today the manuals come with lots of chapters, our motorcycles have more modes and tricks than Houdini show.

Of course as an impetuous person,, I first got on it, twisted the throttle and got an immediate question: what the hell is going on under my butt? I couldn’t control the machine as I wanted. I was in a corner and saw the vanishing point disappearing in the horizon, twisted the throttle and, surprise, no slide reaction on the rear wheel, just a light flashing on the screen. Call it MTC (motorcycle traction control), preventing any loss of traction and correcting what was considered a bad action on my side. Just a basic example of what this new bike can do to protect me and, maybe, itself. Invasive? Then I remember what this bike can do under the control of Chris Birch in off-road riding and I realized that all I have to do is to read and learn how to set up the MTC.

The book itself is more than 300 pages because the bike claims (as telephones) to be intelligent as in “capable to know actions needed in all circumstances”. If you, like me, rarely read any manual, use this free time in pandemic to study it and you will be surprised by the amount of technology you paid for.

Use the internet…

Good Youtube channels to help to unwrap the manual are widely available: created by young motorcycle enthusiasts who know how to use new media for old purposes. I went through the ones that I had saved in my “watch later” list during the busy times without pandemic. After watching those videos, I can now make better use of the bike and improve my understanding of technical concepts.

Another great opportunity in this pandemic is learning about motorcycle maintenance. Learning how to do basic maintenance is not too hard. But doing the whole stuff need knowledge, skill, and equipment.

Luckily we have at our disposal almost everywhere the services of rapid delivery at your door. Digging the internet, finding the proper equipment for any maintenance job is easy; furthermore extensive technical manuals are available online. So why not spend time on doing the maintenance yourself? It not only saves money but also allow a more precise job respecting for joy and safety the instructions of the constructor. Doing the maintenance yourself is maybe the best gain in this #stayhome days.

Use time wisely

Finally thinking as always… By saying finally, I am not mentioning as a final step rather than that a final word.

Use your time for thinking. You have time, you have resources (brain, experience, learning material). And most important, imagine. Without a dream, satisfaction will never come. If your dream is big, divide it into chapters to achieve step by step.