Fearless Riding Book First Draft

Well folks, I'm nearly done with my first draft of the "Fearless Riding" book. All the parking lot exercises are written. I might put in two more quick parking lot games to make practicing more fun. Next up, is the three essential Road Games. I didn't want to even suggest Road Games until my readers had a good understanding of using Vision and Relaxation to control the ride. But, with that covered, we can now get these techniques on their feet, up and out into the real world. More soon.

Moxie Nixx Finds the Friction Zone

I'm just not a Friction Zone kind of guy. I like things simple and the FZ is not simple--it's tricky and, at least for me, elusive. Also, my hands don't work right and tire quickly (darned muscle problems), but, with some encouragement from Donna Palladino over at Ride Like a Pro, and some hints from Top Gun competitor Doug Roberts, I finally found it!

Before shooting this video, I played with the adjustments on my clutch lever and with my hand position. I have the lever set at five, and my hand is as far OUT away from the pivot as possible. I'm in second gear with the engine at idle. When you see brake lights, it is the rear brakes only. The circle is 24 feet.

When I started to get the hang of it, finally, I now see why this is the better technique for tight quarters. It is the only way to accurately control your speed when you need fine control.

Don't Get This Wrong

The most important skill for motorcycle safety is not threshold braking. It is not the ability to make a U-Turn in less than 24 feet. It is not even the ability to swerve-brake-swerve (although, that's a good one). No. According to a new study, the most important motorcycle safety skill, by far, is the ability to get your eyes up and see what's coming.

"Rider Training and Collision Avoidance in Thailand and Los Angeles Motorcycle Crashes," by James Ouellet and Vira Kasantikul, MD (find it here) summarizes it like this:

Both the Thailand and Hurt studies concur that the time from precipitating event that begins the collision sequence to the impact itself is so short--less than three seconds in the great majority of cases--that even a well-chosen, well executed evasive action is unlikely to be effective. This suggest that rider training should emphasize teaching riders the knowledge and skills needed to prevent precipitating even from occurring, rather than how to react after it has already occurred.

That's why vision is the central focus of my Fearless Riding system. Of course, being a Recreation Leadership major in college, I like to make everything into a game. So, I invented a game to make if easy and fun to practice this most vital motorcycle skill. The game is called Time Travel and it may be the most important game you ever play. Here is how to do it.

As you are riding, move your eyes up. Look down the road as far as you can see. The point where the road disappears, around a corner, over a hill, or way off into the distance, is called the Vanishing Point. In the picture below, the Vanishing Point is past the oncoming rider, almost around the corner, before you get to the tunnel.


When you find the Vanishing Point, pick out a landmark next to the road at that point. Maybe it's a rock, a sign, a tree or a tuft of grass, but find something as a visual reference point. As soon as you find your reference point, start counting up from zero. See how long it takes you, in seconds, to get to that point. That's the whole game.

When I started playing this game, I could barely look ahead 30 or 40 seconds. My current personal best is 2:10 on a highway coming home from South Carolina. Beautiful day. As I was riding, I kept one eye on my reference point, and the other eye on a huge storm cloud off to my right.

For some of you, watching the Vanishing Point is old hat. When I started playing Time Travel, it was a bit disconcerting. At first, I felt like I had no control. I was no longer looking at the road right in front of my front tire. What if there was sand? What about gravel or oil? It got so bad, I had to back off and practice the technique in my car for awhile. When I realized I felt more relaxed and more in control by looking well ahead, I started to really enjoy the game.

On one ride, I saw a near accident developing 4 cars in front of me. I was already on my brakes and slowing down before the car at the front of the line realized the idiot in the parking lot was about to pull in front of him.

Now, there is a problem with playing the Time Travel Game. You can begin to feel so confident about what is happening around you that you stop worrying so much about cars you've already seen and discounted. So, I invented another road game called Dodge Ball. More on that later. For now, just remember the goad isn't just to get your eyes up to the Vanishing Point. The goal is to see well ahead of the motorcycle and take appropriate action.

So, get out there and ride. Start in your car, if you need to, but learn to get your eyes up. That way you will automatically and effortlessly avoid problems that might catch other riders off guard. It is the very essence of Fearless Riding.

What? Lost an Entire Chapter!

So, I've been trying to simplify my writing by using Google Documents. When I started to have problems switching back and forth between chapters (different files in Google Docs), I decided to put everything in the FREE OpenOffice Writer. When I went to get chapter two from Google Docs to put it into one big Writer file, the whole chapter was gone. Gone. Lost. Deleted. Must of been me, but I sure didn't do it on purpose. Anyway, I remember what I wrote, so I'll just re-write it. Hopefully the new chapter two will be even better than the old chapter two. Oh, well!

Google Docs is free and it works, but so is OpenOffice Writer. 

The Best Place to Practice

Some people love parking lot practice or track days. I believe the best place to practice is on the road and in the parking lot where you park. The idea is to actually and consciously apply all those things you already know about Fearless Riding. As you ride, look up and find the vanishing point. Relax your grip before you make your turns. Look past 90-degrees, then let out the clutch and ease around and head home. Nothing  against practicing but honestly, the idea is to use those Fearless Riding techniques every time you ride. So, get out there and practice, er, I mean enjoy the ride.

I practiced finding the vanishing point on my way to lunch at Waffle House.

Motorcycle U-Turn from a Stop

So, the problem is those pesky U-turns from a stop.

Try practicing  by stopping in a parking lot with your left foot on a devider line. Now you can look along that line and know you are looking 90-degrees left. Look back to the end of that line 3 spaces over, and you know you are looking at least 135-degrees behind you. Even better, you have a specific focus point, not an area or a zone, a real visual anchor.

Start doing turns in 3 parking spaces, then see if you can work it down to 2 parking spots.

Have fun.

Fearless Riding at Slow Speeds

Thanks, Wing World Magazine, for publishing my article. Here it is for my loyal readers.

Author Moxie Nixx out for a ride with Esmeralda. 

I ride my Gold Wing almost daily. For years, I’ve been working on a set of motorcycle techniques I call Fearless Riding. If you take five minutes to try the five experiments described below, you may discover a new way to control your bike at slow speeds. From what I’ve seen, standard slow speed riding techniques don’t work well for everyone. Sure you can get good at them if you practice for hours or are naturally gifted, but if you have a neck injury, such as I do, if you’re a bit clumsy, such as I am, or if you’ve just never been able to ride fearlessly at slow speeds, then take a few minutes and learn these five things about you and your motorcycle.

Engine Launch Speed

Coordinating clutch and throttle – it’s the bane of new riders. When I bought my Gold Wing, I discovered the bike had so much torque it would take off in first gear with the engine at idle. If I'm taking off and riding slowly around a gas pump, or making a U-turn in a parking lot, why do I need to add more throttle than that? If you want better slow speed control, you need to know how slowly you can rev the engine and still be able to take off. I submit that for a Gold Wing, the Engine Launch Speed is the same as the idle speed.

You can easily test this yourself on your next ride. Find an empty parking lot and stop the bike. Look around to make sure you won’t get run over, then take your digits off the brakes, let the engine idle, and ease out the clutch. See what happens. When I tried it, my Wing (Esmeralda) effortlessly moved forward at a walking pace.

It was so easy, I wondered if this technique would work with other bikes. Surely this was a fluke only possible with a Gold Wing’s massive 6-cylinder motor. So, I borrowed a little, twin-cylinder Harley- Davidson 883 and tried the experiment. The little Harley took off easily in first gear with no gas, no brakes and no sign of stalling. Now, it is your turn to discover how slowly you can rev the engine and take off without stalling your motorcycle.

Takeoff Distance

When I discovered I could get moving with the engine at idle, I learned something else: I could have the clutch all the way out without stalling the bike, bucking or jerking, in less than 3 feet. I’m not going to tell you exactly how much less, because you probably won’t believe me. Instead, I’m going to challenge you to find your own bike’s Takeoff Distance.

See how quickly and smoothly you can let the clutch out with the engine at idle. Measure your Takeoff Distance by how many feet forward you need to move in order to get the clutch all the way out. No friction zone. Just ease the clutch out smoothly and progressively in one continuous motion. You can pull up to a painted line in the parking lot, or just guesstimate, but remember that distance because we’re going to use this when we discuss Focal Distance.

Idle Speed

The next thing to learn is your bike’s Idle Speed. Not the engine idle speed. I’m talking about the speed your bike will travel with no gas and no brakes. What? Really. Stay with me.

When I tried this experiment, I found my Wing would idle along at 5 mph. That’s darned slow. That’s slow enough to do many everyday slow speed maneuvers. If I can idle along at 5 mph, no gas, no brakes, and do most everything I need to do, why do I need any fancy riding techniques? If I can let out the clutch and just ride fearlessly, why should I make things any more complicated than that?

Again, I wondered if this was a fluke of the Wing’s monster engine. So, back on the 883, I learned that the little H-D twin idled at 10 mph. That’s okay for lots of stuff, but I felt it was a little fast for close work.

Stall Speed

What if I’m riding at 5 mph on my Wing, or 10 mph on a Sportster, and I need to go slower? Don’t I have to start using the friction zone and balancing throttle and rear brake? To find out, I tried idling along at 5 mph on my Wing as I added some rear brake. I thought the engine would immediately stall. I mean, it’s barely idling! Right? Nope. What I found was that I could add a little rear brake and the bike would slow down to an indicated two mph without the engine bogging, lugging or stalling.

Was it a fluke? Yes and no. When I tried this experiment on the 883, I found I could only get down to about 5 mph before the Harley twin started to complain. But still, I believe most people would find they could do almost everything they needed to do in a parking lot at 5 mph.

So, if you do the four exercises described above, you will know your Engine Launch Speed (probably the same as your engine idle speed), your Takeoff Distance (probably less than 3 feet), your Idle Speed (probably less than 10 mph), and your Stall Speed (perhaps as low as 2 mph).

You can now ride fearlessly at slow speeds without having to balance a twisting throttle with an in-and-out clutch while steering the bars back-and-forth. By not revving the engine and not using the friction zone, you will have a lot more attention available for steering the darned motorcycle.

There is still one thing missing – Vision.

Focal distance

For years, I have tried to start or end each ride with a U-turn from a stop. I figured I would be developing my slow speed control without having to take time out from my busy schedule to find a parking lot, setup cones and practice (ick). What I found was that the standard visual control techniques didn’t work very well.

If I tried to keep my eyes up and look “back there,” I would lose focus and run wide. If I tried to focus on one gray spot on the asphalt among thousands of gray spots on the asphalt, I would lose focus and wobble. When I did manage to keep my focus on a specific point way back there, I would sometimes hit bumps or humps that knocked me off my line. I found this very uncomfortable.

So, I tried pulling my vision back toward the bike. Not all the way back so I was staring mindlessly at the pavement going past my foot pegs. Just back far enough so that I could see where the heck I was going to be in the next few seconds.

One day, as I played with pulling my vision back, I found my sweet spot, my Focal Distance: at Idle Speed, my Focal Distance is 6 to 8 feet in front of the motorcycle and on the inside of the turn. Suddenly, the bike was going where I wanted it to go, because I was guiding it with my eyes, and bumps and imperfections in the road didn’t bother me, because I could see them coming. Experiment and find your ideal Focal Distance.

Start by looking all the way back there to where you want to end up. This is to make sure the path is clear and no one is about to run you over. Then let the engine idle and ease the clutch all the way out (remember your Takeoff distance). Once the clutch is all the way out, throttle closed, both hands on the grips, turn your head and eyes, turn the bars and, while you’re turning, search for your Focal Distance. You probably won’t find your sweet spot on your first try, so ride on and have fun. Just come back to this exercise once in awhile. You’ll get it.

Now Go for a Ride

Do the experiments. Just to see. Just for fun. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they won’t work for you on your bike. On the other hand, maybe they will work and really add to your riding pleasure. Either way, it will be fun to find out.

This stuff is easy. It takes five minutes to learn. I believe you will find that letting the clutch all the way out with the engine at idle, dragging a little rear brake when necessary, and looking where you are going, will give you all the control you need for fearless riding at slow speeds.

. ... ***... . 

Moxie Nixx is the author of "Gold Wings are Murder: The Crying Stone." Available now at Amazon.com.

Available now at Amazon.com.

Walking Tour of Charleston, SC

My next book, "Gold Wings are Murder--The Ghost Light," is set in historic Charleston, SC. Here is a taste of that Big Sweetgrass Basket.

And here is a great link for things to do while you're there. 

Opening for "Gold Wings are Murder: The Ghost Light"

Here is a bit from the opening of my newest murder mystery novel:

. .. ... * ... .. ...

Layla Robinson stood on the dark, narrow stairs and took a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of ghosts,” she whispered. “I am not afraid of ghosts.”

She eased up one more step till she could just see the top landing. The theater balcony was empty, empty, empty. There were no chairs at all, save one wooden folding chair in the front row. All the other seats were gone, removed long ago as a safety precaution. The old balcony was too rickety to hold more than a dozen patrons at a time. There were no patrons there now, at least, none that Layla could see. None that would add any excess weight.

She took the final few steps with gusto, then boldly stepped out onto the landing. One hand on the front railing, the other at her side, she stopped, tried not to look down, looked down anyway, saw the main seating area far below and closed her eyes. The world spun around once, twice. Her breathing echoing through the empty balcony, Layla gripped the railing firmly and opened her eyes.

     

Nothing. One folding chair. Wooden ledges like a Greek amphitheater dissolving into mysterious darkness. In her off hand, the small, athletic looking woman held a single, long-stem rose. She put it carefully between her teeth—the blood red rose glowing softly against her chocolate skin. She started to talk, thought better of it, then took the rose out from between her lips.

“Well,” she said to the emptiness. “The thing is …” She gestured with the rose. “Here, let me show you.”

She crossed to the folding chair, folded it up with an echoing snap, then clomped over to the wall. Carefully, she set the chair next to several other wooden chairs that were folded and leaning there against the wall.

“The thing is …” she took a different wooden folding chair from the stack, one with a padded seat and back, and brought it back to that spot in the front row of the balcony. “The thing is, you’ve been here a long time,” she said, opening the chair and looking around at the ornate ceiling so close overhead. “And lots of people know your story, and we’ve kept a chair for you here so you could watch the shows, you know, whenever you want to.” She stood up, crossed back to the stack of chairs by the wall and grabbed another chair. “And what I was wondering, thinking, considering about, was …” She brought the second chair down front, opened it and set it next to the first one. “Was that maybe it was time for some company.” She went back to the stack of chairs one more time, found a third padded, wooden folding chair and set it on the other side of the first one. 

“Maybe, uhm, maybe it’s time for some company. Visitors. Guests. Oh, not just anybody. I’m thinking some other high rollers. V.I.Ps like you. Did they have that term when you were alive? I’m not sure how much you get out, although, uhm, live theater, so I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with the current lingo.”

Layla stopped and rolled here eyes. She said to herself, “You are hopeless, girl. Just get on with it. There’s probably nobody here anyway.” A deep breath. The echo of her breathing. The darkness moved closer.

. .. ... * ... .. ...

The current book is available now for Kindle readers and Kindle apps on your Apple and Android phone. 

Creepy Places

If you like ghost stories, you'll enjoy learning about these 20 real and very creepy places.

Gold Wings are Murder: The Ghost Light

So, it's on to book two. In the first book, our heroes Winged down to Lake Lure, NC and found a haunted inn. For book two, Django and Sorcha cruise down to Charleston, SC and end up at a haunted theater.

I've written my plot points. Today, I'm working on my scene cards. It will be a tight schedule, but I hope to have book two done in time for Christmas. It's possible. Here is a peak at my working cover.

This is actually about the sixth cover I made. My trusty wife gave me the Icky Face when I showed her the other five. (Gotta love an honest women.)

Writing about Lake Lure was easy because I love the place and have been their several times. Writing about a haunted theater should also be pretty easy. I did high school, college and community theater. Live theater is lots of fun and a great mix of art, technology and performance.

I'm looking forward to learning more about Charleston. It's been a hoot learning about South Carolina ghosts. Like "The Crying Stone," my new book, "The Ghost Light," is based on a real ghost story.

Want to stay in touch? Sign up for automatic updates using my Follow by E-mail form.

New Book Trailer for "Gold Wings are Murder"

This commercial book trailer is a hoot! Turn your speakers on and check it out.

"Gold Wings are Murder--The Crying Stone" Now on Kindle

Well, it's been a wild ride, and the new mystery novel is now available for Amazon Kindle readers and anyone with an iPhone, iPad or Android with the Kinde Reader App.  It comes to 163 "Kindle Pages." That's several hours of spooky reading adventure.

Click here to download the free sample from Amazon.

Slow Race Riding Technique

Watch what he does with his eyes.

Compare how the winner uses his vision versus the loser.

You'll see that the winner is looking down where his eyes can get immediate feedback about where he's at and where he's going to be in the next for seconds. Would you normally look down, that close to the bike? No. But, the slower you go, the closer you need to look for get the information you need. So, in a slow race, when you are going so slow that you are literally below your motorcycle's Stall Speed and into the Friction Zone, then YES you need to look down. Don't believe me? Try it.

Curves and Corner Part 2

Okay, so last time we talked about curves. Curves are bends in the road that require no speed change, or just a slight roll off of the throttle to negotiate fearlessly. Now corners, for the sake of this discussion, are bends in the road that require you to use the brakes.

What difference does it make?

Well, people rarely get scared and ride off the road when rounding a gentle curve at a normal speed. But more often than you would think, people run up to a corner, feel like they are coming in too hot, get scared, panic, jam on their rear brake and low side, or panic, stiffen up on the bars and run off the road. According to the Hurt Report (published 35 years ago), it's the number one cause of single bike accidents. But there is a solution: Get in the habit of entering corners with your brakes on.

What? Enter a corner with your brakes on? Are you daft? Are you insane? Have you been hiding under a rock for the last 35 years? You can't use your brakes in a corner or you'll fall down and die! It's about traction pie, man. If you use up all your traction cornering, you won't have any traction left for braking!

Yeah, Yeah. It is true that IF you are, in fact, using up ALL your traction cornering, you won't have ANY left for braking. However, normal riders, on normal bikes entering normal corner at anything near the normal speed limit are nowhere near using up all the available traction on their tires.

Here's why: The typical motorcycle street tire can handle about 1.1 Gs of sideways force. At 40 degrees of lean angle--the maximum lean angle for a Honda Gold Wing--the tire is subject to about .9 Gs of sideways force. In theory, that leaves about .2 Gs of force available for braking or accelerating at full lean. At 20 degrees of lean, which is as much as most people riding near the speed limit ever use, the tires only feel about .4 Gs of cornering force. That leaves .7 Gs available for braking or acceleration.

Can you over brake in a corner, or entering a corner, and fall down? Absolutely.

Can you over brake going straight down the middle of a clean dry road and fall down? Absolutely.

Can you get most of your heavy braking done on the straight, then taper off the brakes as you get close to and enter a corner? Almost certainly. People have been doing it for ages.

The question is, why would you want to?

The real world answer is that entering a corner with just a touch of brakes allows you to adjust your cornering speed all the way down to the apex and beyond. In a very real sense, trail braking means never having to be afraid of any corner ever again. 

If you get close to a corner and it feels too fast, leave the brakes on a little longer then turn in at a slower speed.

If you get INTO a corner and it feels too fast, ease on a touch of brakes until if feels good, then ride on comfortably.

If you are in a corner and everything feels good, but suddenly the corner closes up, ease on a bit more brake and slow down until you have the proper speed for the new, tighter corner.

Should you always enter every corner with the brakes on? Well, in theory, you probably could, but in the real world you don't have to. If you are at the turn in point and your speed feels fine, let the brakes go and turn the motorcycle. If you are in a corner and find a dusting of sand across the entire lane, you might not want to split your traction between cornering and braking, so you might choose to be off the brakes before you hit the sand.

Remember, I'm not saying you should grab, stab or slam on your brakes going into a corner. I'm saying that if you are on the brakes approaching a corner, you might want to keep the brakes on slightly as you turn in. You'll have a better steering angle for quicker turning. Your brake pads will be pre-loaded against the brake disks for quicker response to all inputs. You'll have much better control of your bike's turning speed. Perhaps most importantly, by allowing yourself to adjust your speed all the way to the apex, you'll be able to ride comfortably, safely and fearlessly around any corner in the world.

Ride safe and keep one eye on your future.

***

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Editing a Murder Mystery

This morning, I finished the on-paper edits of "Gold Wings are Murder." I found grammar and spelling errors on almost every page. I found 36 items big enough that I couldn't fix them on the spot, so I wrote those all down on a To-Edit list. Plus, I have two and a half chapters that need major re-work.

In other words, it went GREAT!

I'm using the editing process suggested by Rachel Aaron in her book "2,000 to 10,000: How to Writer Faster, Write Better, and Write More of What You Love." This is one of the best books I've read on the nuts-and-bolts nitty-gritty craft of writing fiction. Well done, Rachel Aaron!

So, it's the beginning of June now. I should certainly have the book done and published for Amazon Kindle July 4th. I hope to also a paperback version--for folks who don't want to risk dropping their fancy Kindle while riding and reading on the back of a Gold Wing.

"Gold Wings are Murder" First Draft Complete

I'm thinking Mark Twain would be a GL1800 trike kind of guy.

Mark Twain would be so proud--I just finished the first draft of "Gold Wings are Murder: The Crying Stone." Parts are funny. Parts of scary. Other parts are emotionally intense. It features a middle aged couple touring our great land on a GL1800 with a Tailwind trailer. What could be better than that?

So, now the edits begin. For those of you who like writing trivia, I'm using the editing system proposed by Rachel Aaron in "2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better and Writing More of What You Love." She suggested going through the book and doing your grammar corrections, but also outlining it, doing a time line to look for story problems, and using a ToDo list so you don't miss anything and can get your edits done with little fuss or extra effort.

Aaron also writes fantasy so, if you like murder mysteries AND fantasy (like me), check her out. As for my story, look for it some time in June, July at the latest.

Curves and Corners Part 1

Are curves and corners different? Should they be approached differently, from the rider's point of view? Is one better of worse than the other? Here's what I think.

Are these folks riding around a corner or a curve? 

Big, sweeping curves are lots of fun. You find them everywhere. The road bends away, and you cruise on without a care in the world. Curves are great too. You set up, zoom in, maybe use an exciting amount of lean angle, then zip on outa there. Also lots of fun. So, first off, let me say that in my humble opinion, neither one is better or worse than the other. But I do approach them differently, as a rider, because I believe they are different. I also believe that if you don't think of them differently, you will likely carry more stress than you need to while riding, and what I wish for you is FEARLESS RIDING so check this out.

Let me tell you what I mean by a curve.

To me, and for the purposes of this discussion, a curve is a bend in the road that does NOT require brakes or more than a minor roll off of the throttle. If you can safely negotiate a bend without any speed change, while remaining relaxed, seeing well, and in control of your riding, that's a curve. I'll even take it a step further and say that for a bend to be called a curve, you should be able to maintain your straight-line speed, AND take any line you want through the bend.

If you can make it through the bend comfortably, but only by entering wide, cutting in, and sweeping to the outside, that's not a curve, that's a corner. If you can maintain your speed and comfortably run the bike around the outside of your lane, or just as easily switch over halfway through and run around on an  inside line instead, to me, that's a CURVE.

Why does it matter?

Because if you are running around a curve at a safe and comfortable speed, it doesn't matter where you setup. Inside? No problem. Outside? Not an issue. Change your line halfway through? No worries. Line doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference. If you are riding at a safe and comfortable speed that allows you to effortlessly and FEARLESSLY zoom around that curve and continue on with your ride, that's a curve.

Example

I was riding home from work the other day, and came to this wonderful curve near my house. My straight away speed was about 45 mph. The road curves around a little hill that makes it somewhat of a blind curve, but most any experienced biker could take that corner at 40-45 mph with basically no effort. I've done it literally a hundred times. I approached the curve at 45, rolled off just a little to maybe 43 and entered the curve. Halfway through, right in the middle of my outside line, was the flattened remains of a space alien! Or maybe it was just a dead racoon. Anyway, I didn't fret, or worry, or run into the opposite lane, or slam on my brakes. All I did was move the bike from an outside line, to an inside line, and keep on Wingin'!

Granted, if a car is stopped dead, smack dab in the middle of your lane--it's happened to me--you would need to use your brakes and stop, but on what I call a curve, sand, gravel or dead skunks can be handled almost effortlessly by simply changing your line. Just move over. No fuss. Change your lane position. Sacrifice your preferred line, and ride on. When riding around curves, many potential problems become non-issues.

By looking well ahead and assessing if the bend coming up is a corner or a curve, I have no worries. If it's a curve, I just look for the vanishing point, relax, keep my eyes up and ride on. As far as I can tell, most of the turns I ride around are curves, not corners. That means most of my riding is almost automatically FEARLESS. Why should I worry when I approach a curve if I know I can take that curve at my present speed and on any line I choose? If I need to roll off a little without so much as shifting gears, or just ease on around a problem spot, why should I worry?

But if I keep my eyes up, see a bend and decide it is really more of a CORNER, then what? Don't miss Part 2. Bookmark this pages as one of your favorites, or look for the Follow By Email box, fill in your contact information, and Part 2 will automatically show up in your email.

Until then, get out there and enjoy this great weather!

Moxie Nixx, author of "Gold Wings are Murder."

GWAM Mystery Novel Almost Done

My first mystery novel, Gold Wings are Murder, is almost done. I'm working on the final chapters this week. This is the first draft, but my writing process is to do a read through and light edit of yesterday's work, before starting on todays writing. So, it doesn't take me as long to finalize a rough drafts as some folks. It looks like this story will run about 35,000 words. That's shorter than some mystery novels, but actually a pretty good length for a first mystery intended for sale as a Kindle ebook.

If you want to be among the first to know when this book drops, look for the Follow by Email box and type in your email address. That way you'll know about it just as soon as the book goes live. Until then, keep your eyes up, stay safe and enjoy the ride.

I'm actually writing this on a 10-year old iMac using Chrome and Google Docs. 

Tip In, Turn In

Do you ever feel anxious entering a turn? I sure do. Until only a few years ago, it used to be much worse. When I got good and tired of that, I decided to learn more about riding. So, I studied a famous book on cornering, and the racing-based instructor said I should always get my turning down all at once, and to always turn as quickly as possible! Of course, I am naturally suspicious of anything always being the correct technique, but I tried it. And you know what?

My anxiety got worse!

What? How could that be? This guy was famous. He was a winning racer. A big shot author. So, I figured I was doing it wrong, and went and practiced some more. But when you want to turn as quickly as possible, you have to run into the corner deeper and deeper. That created even more fear. And my problems got worse instead of better.

"No. No," I told myself. "This must be the way. Go watch some real motorcycle racers ride, and you'll see they all do it this way." Well, that's what the author of that book said anyway.

He was wrong.

What I saw, over and over and over again when I watched videos of the top riders In The World, was that NONE of them rode that way. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch. What were they doing differently than me? What did they do differently than that book author recommended? The fastest motorcycle racers in the world would blast down the straight, slow down, tip in a little, get started into the curve, then finally actually turn in and scrape their knees on the ground.

Watch it for yourself below. You'll see it in the very first corner of this American Superbike race. The riders tip in, and turn in.

When I tried riding that same way, I found it worked great! Way better than it had any right to. By initiating my turn slowly and gently, instead of trying my darndest to slam the bike down to full lean angle, I was much more relaxed. The bike behaved better. My hands, arms, face and eyes were all much more relaxed. It felt like the bike was coasting effortlessly down and back up. I found I was often using more lean angle with less effort. Best of all, my rides become longer and more enjoyable.

So, go for a ride! Hey, any excuse for a ride, right? Keep your eyes up, watching the vanishing point and checking for road hazards well ahead of the bike. Setup early for the corners by moving to the outside lane position. Then when you are close to the entrance of the corner, somewhere before the place where you would usually start to feel apprehensive, and just tip in slightly.

Going left? Push gently forward on that left hand grip. Don't push hard enough to make the bike dart across the lane or cut in too early. Just break the bike off that 90-degree angle. Get the bike leaned, just a little, Get the  bike just a smidgen off of perpendicular. Then, add more lean angle as necessary to safely make your corner.

• You may find that your initial lean is about all the lean angle you need for certain corners.
• You may find that once the bike is leaned a little, it is much easier to lean it a little more.
• You may find that your fear of sliding out is not attached to how far you lean over, but the very act of leaning at all. Once you get the bike leaned, even a little, without falling down, you may suddenly feel like everything is going to be okay.
• You might also find that once the bike is leaned over, even a little bit, you can relax and get your eyes up. Even that tiny change in your vision can make you suddenly feel much more comfortable on the bike.

Spring is here. Get out there and ride. Carefully and gently try new things. Report back here with your results.

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Look in. Set up. Ride on.