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.

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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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."

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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Yes, He Crashed His Gold Wing

No. Not me. I haven't crashed my bike since, well, let's just say not in a while. But you Gold Wing riders may know a guy who goes by the name of Yellow Wolf. This is a story about HIS crash. It happened not far from the famous Tail of the Dragon. Here is how Yellow Wolf tells the story about what happened during his Super Secret Ride In.

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We rode over near Deals Gap to do our Killboy drone shoot. It was wet with leaves and sticks on the road. We did the Killboy photo shoot and then a couple of the guys did a run on Deals Gap.

We left and did Route 28 down to Franklin and had lunch at Shoneys. The afternoon started to get sunny, and we all headed down Route 281. There are some nice sweepers there and the road was getting cleaner so the pace was faster!

We rested in Canada "the town" at the park. Afterward, we ran 281 some more and a couple of other roads. The sun was shinning bright and in my eyes. We were going into sun then into shade, and it was messing with my eyes real bad.

I could see the road edges, but I could not see the road surface. I pride myself on seeing thing most miss, but in these conditions I could not! I tried raising and lowering tinted face shield, but I still could not see well! Had I had been with my self, I would have just slowed down, but because I was with my friends on a fast ride I did not!

Well, as we were on Silversteen Road, coming into a right hand turn, I hit some unseen sand with the front tire. I was down fast. The crash tossed me hard on my right side. I was off the bike before I knew it. The bike slid on its right side, across the road and into the gravel where it dug in its tires and did a real nice flip onto its left side. I did not know it at the time but, yup, it was totaled!

Afterwards, I went back and looked at what I hit. It was sand. Then I walked back to the bike. My friends had it up by then, and it made me sick. Just about every part had some sort of damage. It was not leaking anything, so I said, "Well, its time to go home." The bike started and rode fine back to my house.

Time is a strange thing. I originally thought it was just sand and no biggie, but the more I thought about it, the more I started asking myself questions. I asked myself the questions I would have asked someone else, if they were telling this same story. When I did that, I started to see things differently.

So what did I learn:

1. My job as a Ride Leader is to warn my friends about sand, rocks, cars, dogs or what ever could cause them an issue. My job is to keep the ride as safe as possible. I failed to do that and, lucky for me, I went down and not one of my friends.
2. Had I been by myself, I would have slowed down. I did not slow down due to ... what? Ego. Not wanting to slow down. Getting to caught up in the moment. It doesn't really matter why I didn't slow down.
3. Riding is fun. Brisk riding is fun. The problem, when you get like minded folks together, is that it can become a bit more than fun. 

To my friends who were there, if you have anything to add--good or bad--please feel free to be very  honest about that day.

I guess it comes down to this:

1. If you can't see the road surface, then slow down
2. If you are leading, or following, and don't feel comfortable with whats going on, don't worry about what others may think, just do what you feel is right, even if that means to slow down
3. If you are leading a ride, its up to you to keep the group as safe as possible.

A huge thanks to the riders directly behind me for not running me over!

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In my opinion, Yellow Wolff is a brave man, and a straight shooter, to share what happened so openly and honestly. Having ridden these mountain roads on a Gold Wing, let me second Yellow Wolf's advice: If something is not right, slow down. 

The video above does not show the crash--just a typical fun run in the Blue Ridge Mountains. For the worry warts in the crowd, the speed limit on most of these roads is 55 mph. They are so curvy, you don't need to go more than that to have one heck of a good time.