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.

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.

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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Gold Wing for One?

No, these are not Gold Wings. The Honda Gold Wing is, in my humble opinion, the best two up touring bike in the world. However, what about riding solo? If passenger comfort isn't a priority, there are other bikes worth considering. Here are a few that are worth a look.

Me? I'd be very tempted to just keep the Wing, even for solo riding. I commute on my Wing most days and love the comfort, the radio, the cruise control and the storage. Personally, I find city riding a snap on the Wing.

On the other hand, even the heaviest bike in the above video is more than 300 pounds lighter that my GL1800! My pick, having not riden any of them, would be the Kawasaki Versys 1000LT. I like the comments in the video about the Versys having the most power (always good), stable steering geometry (for confident cornering) and arguably the best seat (a touring bike MUST have a good seat).

My only question is, can I get a UniGo trailer hitch for the Versys?

Gold Wing Riding Tip

The Vanishing Point is way done there!

Would you like to have your very own super power? I can give you a super power that very few Gold Wing riders possess, but everyone needs. I can teach you how to foresee the future. Ayup. It's easy, when you know how. Here's the secret:

Look Up. Look In.That's it.

Stop gazing mindlessly at the road 20 feet in front of your front tire. Get your vision up and ahead of the bike where it will do you the most good. Look up and find the place where the road disappears from view. That's called the Vanishing Point. That's the limit of your vision. Just by tilting your head back a notch and pulling your eyeballs up, you can see waaaay down the road.

Would you be safer if you could see 15 seconds, maybe even a minute further up the road? That's 5-10-30-60 extra seconds for you to see danger and react. That's plenty of time to slow down, move over or stop. Heck, when you look far enough ahead, you might have time to see trouble, pull over, turn around, ride down the road, pull into a restaurant and order a piece of lemon pie!

A nice side benefit of looking up and looking in, is that you have plenty of time to put your bike in the correct position for the next corner. That makes you a smoother rider. When you get your eyes up, you will also have time to scan every corner for rocks, logs, dead skunks or whatever. Knowing the road ahead is free of sand or oil can be a wonderful confidence booster.

Try it. You might like it.

How do you know you are using your vision incorrectly? 

Well, if you CAN look up, and you CAN look in, THAT's where you should be looking.

Am I saying you should stare mindlessly at the Vanishing Point? No. If you see danger, that's where you should look, at least long enough to make a judgement about what to do next. Then put your vision where it needs to be a make it happen.

It you enjoyed this tip, you might want to scoot over the my Amazon Author page for more. My author page has my Moxie Nixx Twitter feed and I frequently put short tips and fun stuff there. Here is the link: Click Here.

Caught Up with Re-Reading "Gold Wings are Murder"

I put this story aside for a little while. Now, I'm back at it. I've been reading the story out loud to my family, and we've all enjoyed it. My wife, Leigh--who lovers her Gold Wing--says it needs more cool Gold Wing trivia! (Easy enough to add in while doing edits and revisions.) So, the good news is that I WILL start writing on this story again today!

Slow Speed Gold Wing Secret

Slow speed control is often a problem, especially with giant touring bikes like Gold Wings and Electra Glides. While I strongly recommend the Ride Like a Pro class, there is one super simple, super easy technique that will make almost anyone a steadier rider at a walking pace.

Here it is: When you get down to single digit speeds (or anytime you feel uncomfortable on the bike), grip the tank with your knees.

Gripping the tank with your knees keeps your legs from flapping around in the breeze an unbalancing the bike. At very low speeds, a look, an elbow wiggle, or a knee flap will shift your center of balance and make the bike want to tip and lean. Gripping the tank with your knees puts an end to half that problem--the lower half.

Gripping the tank also locks your body onto the bike making you almost one unit. This allows your arms to work independently, and gives them better leverage for swinging those bars left and ride. It's funny that at high speeds, you almost can't see the bars move, even though the bike goes from perpendicular to the road, down to a 40-degree lean angle (on a Gold Wing). But at slow speeds, getting around a pot hole and over to the gas pump can mean steering so far that you bump the left steering lock, then instantly swinging the bars so far that you bump the right steering lock. To do that comfortably, without unbalancing everything else, well, it's a lot easier when your lower body is locked onto the bike from gripping the tank with your knees.

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Dunlop E3 Out Back

My rear tire had a slow leak so I stopped in at my friendly, local Honda dealer so they could check it out. The service writer found a piece of metal in the center of the tread. No problem. They could fix that easily enough, if the darned tire wasn't already down to the wear bars! My first Bridgestone G704 lasted about 8,000 miles. I replaced that one when I upgraded the suspension. The second Bridgestone went about 10,000 miles. Not bad, but I wanted more, and I just wanted to try something different. So, $325.00 later, I'm out the door with a new Dunlop E3 mounted, balanced and installed.

One hundred miles later, I like the E3 dual tread radial a lot. Turn in is quicker. Grip is good in the dry--even when leaned over going around a surprisingly sharp decreasing radius corner on Black Snake Road in Stanley, NC. Ride is fine. While this is a little taller tire, I can still reach the ground fine.

I'll update this post as I put more miles on the E3, and I'm hoping to get around 15,000 miles out of this tire. The E3 radial has a dual tread compound that's harder in the middle and softer on the edges. We'll see.