Better Riding part three: thinking

With your bike purring like the cat that’s got the full fat and you’re looking like a full-on MotoGP racer (or extra from the Village People), it’s time to hit the funky highway.

So far, it’s all been about preparation. Now it’s time for execution. Those annoying statistic-types say that most accidents happen within a mile (let’s call it a kilometre, eh?) of your home. That makes sense as every journey starts and finishes at Chez Vous. And that means the brain has to go in gear before the bike comes out of the garage.

Welcome to the mean and unfair streets of Fwit City. Treating every other road user (in cars, on bikes, in buses, trucks and even in the taxes-paid cars with the disco lights on top) as an idiot is the first, and most vital key to being able to wipe your own ass (unassisted) after each ride. Presume nothing, anticipate everything.

Here’s a good test for you. Take a drive with a mate who, let’s face it, is to great driving what Gina Rinehart is to youth and beauty. As you go along, ask the driver what they see. I’ll bet the answer will shock you. They’ll be missing clues of upcoming danger; they’ll be distracted by music, phones and life in general. They’ll act like nothing could possibly go wrong. That’s the opposite of what being a biker does to you – it opens your eyes to the whats, whys, ifs and buts out there. Now you know how little drivers take in, it’ll reconfirm just how much smarter we have to be.

THE EYES HAVE IT
Of all the senses to lose in life, you’d have to agree that losing your sight would be right up there. None more so than for a biker. You wouldn’t survive the first bend blind, so your eyesight is your most essential weapon in the war on hurt. But how you use your sight makes the difference between skill or spill.

Any rider who’s had the benefit of being taught the basics of riding will know that the look over your shoulder – the Lifesaver – is the most important action you can make. And, unlike some other actions, you can’t bank previous Lifesavers. It can take just one lane change without looking to make or break your health.

And it’s also the quality of the Lifesaver that makes a difference. Experienced riders can get conceited about the action, taking a quick glance as they move lanes. Ninety-nine percent of the time you’ll get away with it. And that’s fine if you only want to get home 99 percent of the time.

Look, and then move. That’s the best advice I can give anyone on any subject. Even riding daily, this is the one thing that is uppermost in my mind. I’m dirty with myself if I’m looking and veering at the same time. There’s no one out there looking out for me, so I have to be my own teacher (and best student) in one. Even after all those miles, I’m still learning every ride. If you’re not, ask why not? After all, complacency’s a killer.

But you have you eyes, ears, nose and a much smarter brain. We don’t need phones and papers because riding a bike enlightens your senses more than any car (and they’ll only get easier and more boring to drive in the future) ever will. Yes, being a biker is all about the freedom, the feel and the frisson of life.

LEARNING THE (NOT) HARD WAY
There are so many skills that you acquire riding a bike, but it’d be impossible to know how to handle every situation. So the best thing is to keep asking “What if?” What if that car pulls out? What if there’s gravel on the next blind bend? What if I run out of fuel here? What if I get too hot/cold on the journey? What if that car door was to swing open wide?

By asking yourself the questions, you’re keeping your brain riding-active. Your reactions are peaked, your thoughts logical and the outcome much more favourable.

Why not make a top 10 list of things you think make you a better rider? You can even share them on the bottom of this article so other rider can gain from your experience. Here are mine:

As you can see from the above, I know that I know all these things. Now it’s essential, vital even, for me to remind myself to carry them out.

REAL LIFE. OR NOT
Here’s a situation I found myself with back in the UK. While working for Bike magazine, we were contacted by a Welsh police authority, which was sick of riders dying on their roads. We organized a safer riding weekend and I was assigned a handful of riders. All were keen to learn. Bar one. Ignoring all my speed limit talk, he set off to impress by overtaking on blind bends and doubling the limit. I pulled the other riders over and we waited for Mr Blind Bend to come back. Looking very pleased with himself, he asked how he was doing. The reply was short…

Later we did some machine control exercises in the carpark. He’d fail, complain that his bike “wasn’t built for this sort of stuff”, then go quiet when I demonstrated that it was. By the end of the day, I’d had enough of his constant whingeing. I was now “off-duty” and went out with a few of the more confident riders on a social ride. Mr Blind Bend came out and rode his normal reckless self. Soon it was just the two of us. I was watching his lines, trying to make out his though process and see his field of vision. He was quick, but lacked any finesse or riding “smarts”.

By now, I was done with watching and signalled to him to slow. He didn’t so I went past, put my head down and went far enough ahead that he wouldn’t see me as the “hare” and try to follow. A few miles up the road I waited – that wait when you know something’s up. One of his friends then informed me Mr Blind Bend had come off – uninjured – a few miles back.

When I got there, he was more sheepish that I reckon he’d been in a decade and apologised for being a dick all day. Later, as I was drinking with his friends that night (Mr Blind Bend had embarrassed himself to an early bed), they informed me that he suffers from fits and shouldn’t even have a licence and none of them liked riding with him. Basically, this bloke was just a danger to himself and everyone around. Hopefully that day’s embarrassing incident helped stop a potentially fatal accident down the track.

And the moral of this story? You can teach a young dog tricks but you can’t teach a dickhead anything.