2Wheeltips

There are times when we open our mouth,
and all the scent in it comes out;
It depends upon the type of bike you ride,
whether your breath is one that gives you pride;
Now I know what you are thinking,
Is it the bike that I ride make it stinking;
When I say bike I am not talking about brand,
But that which you keep behind your underpants.
Please don't get upset and rude with me,
I am just trying to help you just to see;
See what is what I can hear you say,
 It is what you friends have been trying to tell you all day;
When ride 600 miles a day, and in the saddle you do sit,
Please don't take pride and not stopping for a quick;
Ahh be brave and say what's on your mind,
Do not chicken out and cut your words short,
2wheeltip will not take you to biker's court;
What was it you were going to say that rhymn with sit,
but you did not have the nerves, so you use the word quick;
I really am trying to keep it clean, I really did not want to be mean;
I know you love not to change clothes,
or take a bath when on a roll;
You try to see how far you can ride, and how many days as well,
and you forget that your body begins to smell;
You love to stand close in the face of others,
and open your mouth and we smell trouble;
Because you are really kind,
We do not tell you what's really on our mind.
That is why you keep asking yourself,
IS IT JUST ME OR IS IT MY BIKER'S BREATH?

It is a choice that I have made,
to be sure that others are paid;
I see the gear and I hear the rap,
It makes my head hurt and I want to take a nap;
How much is it going to cost me today,
to ride with the big boys and play it safe;
Helmet on my head,
Chaps around my leg;
Glasses covering my eyes,
Armor covering my thighs;
Jacket wrapped around upper body,
and gloves covering my hand,
 And I am riding around looking
like the wrapped up mummy man.
My colors are black and drawing in the heat,
But the gear is so safe, it is a must to keep;
Boots on my feet feeling real tight,
squeezing my toes with all its might;
Down the road, I must go
Dressed like a mummy ready for a show;
I see my friends checking me out,
Scratching their heads with a sign of doubt;
They are wondering what's wrong with me,
That I am riding around looking like a biker's mummy.

Something that comes up quite often is the topic of helmets.

In one camp, you have some who refuse to wear one or, if they do, they wear a novelty helmet to keep from getting stopped by the local police.  They feel wearing a helmet isn't needed and mandatory helmet laws equal the govt. getting in their business. Some even claim that motorcycle helmets are dangerous and will cause whiplash in an accident.

Then there are some who wear novelty helmets for lifestyle reasons. For them, a helmet is a fashion accessory and must look good with the bike and the clothes they are wearing. Nothing else matters.

But the real reason for wearing a helmet should have nothing to do with any of that stuff. You wear a helmet to protect:

1. your head and face from flying debris such as rocks, nails, sticks
2. your head if you crash or go down on your bike

Unfortunately, there are plenty of helmets out there that can't do any of these things. If the helmet you are wearing can not, then you should start looking for a "real helmet".....one that can.

You may be asking, "how do I find one that can give me protection?" Look for one that has passed a helmet testing standard. DOT is one, SNELL is another, ANSI and ECE 22.05 are others.We are not recommending one standard over the other, but the better made helmets will have a sticker on the back that indicates that it has satisfied some type of helmet standard. If it doesn't, then you should keep looking.

Some of the things the test standards check:

1. Will the chin strap break if it is yanked hard
2. Will the outer shell get brittle and crack in cold weather
3. How well it will resist puncture from flying debris
4. How much head protection it offers if it is smacked....hard
5. Will the face shield shatter into sharp cutting pieces if it is hit

A tested helmet is not "magic" and will not save you in very extreme situations. But they definitely can protect you from serious injury and even death in many common motorcycle accidents.

 

So, you curse those darned "cagers" on the road as you are out there enjoying your ride....  Well, fellow bikers, it is not just the people in automobiles and trucks and buses that we have to watch out for; we also have to pay attention to the irresponsible bikers who share the roads with us.  Below is an e-mail I received today from a friend of mine who is a very experienced biker and an MSF rider/coach.  I thought it was worthy of sharing with all of you!

" I ride to and from work in Newark almost every day.  On my way home from work yesterday around 1620, as I merged on to Rt.78w,I was very nearly hit on the left side from behind by a sportbike doing well over 100mph. ( I couldn't tell you what brand of bike it was,color of bike or what rider had on if anything. Did have a dark full face.)
I was in the merge lane doing about 45,looked over my left shoulder,saw it was clear and continued to accelerate into the right lane when something screaming almost hit my left side,close enough to feel the wind blast and cause my body to jump.Two others blew past my right side an instant later.I felt rage flush through my body and wanted to give chase,but we were in moderate traffic and they were weaving through the traffic so fast they were more than a 1/4mi.ahead in a second. I even found myself wishing they'd crash!
Glad they didn't only because of the trauma they'd cause the innocents. They just pissed me off big time. You expect things like that at bike rallies,but not where we all travel on a daily basis. Guess I forgot I was in Newark NJ. It bothered me all the way home. I guess this is why I have always believed the "Angels" ride with me! (God's Angels,not the other ones)
We tell our RENJ BRC students to "Turn your head" after a mirror check. We urge Car drivers to "Look twice,save a life!"
I guess the moral of the story is   "Look twice, Save your own life!""

Well it finally happened.  I knew it would eventually - statistics rarely lie, and I am a new rider after all.  I dropped my bike.  Nothing damaged but my pride, thank goodness.  It happened at a stop during my commute home yesterday, and it was the highlight of what turned out to be a really bad ride.

The drop happened when I came to a stop at an intersection on a left-curving road.  In hindsight, I was way too casual about braking smoothly, and I underestimated how much the left-leaning camber of the road would affect my balance and left foot plant.  By the time I realized it, the bike was down.  I got it back up pretty quickly, and a nice guy even pulled his car over and got out to see if I was OK (a fellow rider, perhaps?). 

But like I said, that was only the highlight.  The entire ride seemed riddled with mistakes - rolling on and off the throttle too abruptly, jerking the handlebars around instead of using smooth counter-steering, braking erratically, and those are only the ones I'm not too embarrassed to mention!  Now I've had my bike for several months, and I've put over 1,000 miles on it in practice sessions, pleasure rides, and commuting to work.  I've never even come close to dropping it before yesterday.  I thought I was getting the hang of this - how could I have such a bad ride?

The answer (I think) is that I've hit the first of many plateaus in my motorcycling career, and that may have brought on a touch of complacency.  Lately I've been feeling very confident with basic riding techniques, and more comfortable at higher speeds (I don't mean going fast, I mean actually getting up to the speed limit).  I'm past the super-newbie stage and ready for the next step, but that will require finer honing of the basic skills, and learning new ones as well.  It will also require a renewed commitment to concentration, or to SEE, as the MSF basic course taught me.

So my recovery from this bad ride will begin as my motorcycling career did, in an empty parking lot at low speeds, further honing the basic skills that make the bike go and stop exactly where and how I want it to.  Or as David Hough calls it, "doing my homework".  And the next time I come to that intersection on the left-curving road, I'll be keeping the shiny parts up.

Ride Safe!

Doug

In Industry, we pay a great deal of attention to safety for many reasons. Companies that truly care about their employees want them to go home in the same condition as they started the day. It makes good business sense and it’s simply the right thing to do. For that reason, it’s important to understand safety statistics, measure and track them, analyze trends, and take corrective action when things are going the wrong way. What’s this have to do with motorcycle safety you maybe thinking, well actually a lot!!

Near misses and or close calls are a warning that you are on the path of a serious if not fatal incident. OSHA statistics say:

• for every 600 near misses, there are 30 accidents involving property damage.
  

• for every 30 accidents involving property damage there are 10 minor injuries (first-aid cases).

• for every 10 minor injuries there is one serious or fatal injury. So, if we are having many near misses, it gets our attention in a hurry because we are on a path that will eventually result in someone being seriously hurt or killed. What this means to you is, if you find yourself having near misses and or close calls on your bike, then you need to take serious stock of your riding skills, the environment you’re riding in, and or the decisions you’re making while riding, and take corrective actions before you become a statistic!

Let’s talk about “near misses” for a moment. A near miss is an incident when something goes wrong and something bad happens, but just because of chance, nobody gets hurt. In my work environment, let’s say a fork truck driver picks up a load on a broken pallet. He lifts the pallet to put it in a rack space 20 feet off the floor. The pallet breaks, the 1,500 lb. load falls, and, by chance, no one was close enough to be injured or killed by the falling load. A riding example might be, you pull up to a stop sign, you don’t feel like coming to a full stop as traffic is light, and the road looks clear, so you roll through the STOP sign and make your right hand turn but go wide into oncoming traffic. A car coming towards you (that was actually closer than you thought) luckily sees you in his lane and he slows down to let you get back into your right lane avoiding a head-on collision. In either incident, once the load falls or once you’re in the wrong lane, it’s simply a matter of chance what the outcome will be!! You’re no longer the master of your destiny, chance and happenstance are!! In other words, “do you feel lucky today?”

The same is true of dropping your bike. How you drop it, how fast you’re going, where you drop it, do you fall and how you fall all become a matter of chance because you no longer have control. Chance takes over and will ultimately determine the outcome.

For you new and learning riders, a great tool to help you track your performance and progress is to critique yourself on every ride. I can remember almost every one of my close calls; when I went wide, when I target fixated, when I lost my balance and struggled to keep the bike from falling etc., etc. I started keeping a log and I listed the things I thought I did well and also, the things that didn’t go so well. Following each ride, I tracked if things were improving or not. I know this sounds really anal, and maybe it is, but we’re not talking about a bad round of golf here and a few lost balls. We’re talking about making mistakes that at the wrong time and wrong place can seriously impact your life.

What I did was take an index card and logged the date, where I rode, how many hours and miles, and the positives and negatives in bullet points. (You could do this on a spread sheet on your computer if you prefer.) When the positives were exceeding the negatives, I felt I was making progress. When it was the other way around (and it was a lot in the early months), I would go back to the parking lot and practice or to a place where traffic was at a minimum (quiet suburban streets very early on Sunday mornings) and work at fixing the mistakes. This critique took all of maybe 10 minutes following each ride, certainly not a huge investment of time or effort, but extremely helpful in keeping a scorecard of my performance.

Thanks for taking the time to read my article and I hope you got something worthwhile out of it.

Ride safe, be safe, live long and prosper.

 

It has taken me some time to pick up the pen,
and attempt to write something that is not only for men;
riding a bike is a universal divider,
that it is much like that of the soul of a scuba diver.
It is something that a lot of people want to do;
but afraid to try it because other people say, “It is not for you.”
Sure there are lots of deaths,
where divers did not have air to take their last breath.
Jumping in deep and going down below,
is like a rider mounting their bike ready to go.
Riding gear and Scuba gear is a personal choice that must be made,
and can cost you a lot of money and somebody wants to be paid;
Before you ride a bike they call it the T-clock,
before you scuba dive you need your sun block.
Check your air, your hoses, and gages as well,
to run out of air 90 feet below is asking for hell.
A diver must dive with a buddy plan,
and a rider must avoid the slippery sand.
There is such a thing as being in the zone,
but when you scuba dive you don’t want to be in it alone;
There is such a thing as a biker’s wave,
but for the diver it’s a sign that a shark is in the cave.
The old the young they all have fun,
especially when they are going on a biker’s run;
The old the young they all have fun,
especially when the dive just begun.

When I lived in Korea , and just started riding my motorcycle, often I would read the romantic stories of riders and dream that one day that will be me. I read an article where a rider described the different smells that one will encounter along the way. The smell of pine trees, hot tar at construction sites, the ocean, and one writer wrote about the romantic smell of cow manure. I chuckled within myself and said, “Yea, right.” I thought about the “honey wagons” that I had smelled in different countries. When I left Korea and lived in Hawaii, often I could smell the ocean, the pineapple fields, mangos, and fish from the marina. Well to my surprise while riding from Ann Arbor, MI on US-12 (Michigan Ave) headed towards Irish Spring and Sturgis, MI the great moment of a particular smell went up my nose. I first attempted to hold my breath, but that would not work, I knew I had to inhale and exhale in order to stay alive and what I was breathing was cow manure. I said to myself, there is nothing romantic about this as I thought about the article that I had read almost nine years ago. I made it through the smell and continue on down US-12 I went fast. Well I have been riding up and down US-12 for about two years and went I come to that particular spot, I prepare myself to inhale what the cows left behind. Today, I went for a ride and I rode to Monroe, MI to check out the state park to see what their beach looked like, and maybe go there on Labor Day weekend. On my way, I went through this town outside of Dundee, MI on M-50 and behold, I inhaled cow manure and it was strong, stronger than what I smelled on US-12. I said to myself, “That must have been a Bull.” I went to Monroe and saw the Vietnam Memorial, the State Park Beach, and several riders enjoying themselves. On my way back again, I passed “The Bull.” It was a very nice day. I stopped off at a Harley-Davidson place in one of the small town and did window shopping. I jumped on the bike and when down M-50 and onto US-12 and I came upon the old spot and for sure the cow manure smell was there. To my surprise it was not all that bad, and smell much better than what I had encountered earlier. The thought came to my mind to write an article “A Beautiful Day to Smell Manure.” It was a beautiful day to ride, the sun was shining and the temperature was nice. I was in a good mood and was enjoying the ride so much that even the smell of cow manure was a romantic smell over against that of “The Bull.” There are those who are reading this article and can identify with every word and there are those who think that I am “nuts”. Well, just keep riding and inhaling and exhaling as you ride down the old country road pass the farms and you will encounter a moment of breath taking manure that will truly take your breath away.

Here I am again, writing about something that I'm sure I've covered many, many times. There has to be a video, audio or pictures on this topic somewhere on 2wheeltips.com, but just not under this heading. So here goes......

Now that you have finished your motorcycle class and have a bike, it's now time to hit the road. Before you do, you need to understand how important it is to put on the right clothing.

Now, some of you are probably thinking, "I'm not going to dress up like a crossing guard. Part of riding a bike is looking good and there is no freaking way I can look good dressed up like Capt. Safety." I agree......some stuff that passes as motorcycle gear looks like it belongs at a construction site and not on a biker. But that doesn't mean you should ignore the need to protect yourself from the dangers you will encounter when on the road.  

Take a step back and think of the many everyday activities that are considered dangerous and how those who participate in them handle the danger:

• Construction site? Hard hats, safety lines, steel toe boots
• Baseball? Batters helmet to protect you from a 100mph fast ball to the head
• Football? Helmets & pads to prevent concussions and broken bones after a tackle
• Soccer? Shinguards to protect your legs from cleats
• NASCAR? Helmets & harness to keep you from snapping your neck in a crash
• Airline luggage handler? Earplugs to keep you from going deaf
• Road worker? Gloves to protect your hands from cuts and abrasions

            .......
            .......

• Motorcycling??? Hmmmmmmm.......
  

Motorcycling is just as hazardous as any of the above. If you fall off your bike at 55mph without the proper gear, guarenteed you will get hurt worse (perhaps death) than anything you could get from the above activities.  But guess what? Many people will go out riding dressed like this:

Instead of this:

Do you think the hot exhaust pipe can melt her flip-flops? Or how about a piece of metal hitting her at 55mph? Do you think it will split her arm open? What if they crash? Will that tight t-shirt and shorts protect her skin from road rash? We all know the answer to each of those questions.

I'm not deceiving myself here. I know that some people will never wear anything but jeans, t-shirts and novelty helmets. That image goes with a certain biker lifestyle and it will never change. However, you do need to understand, just like a football helmet or a safety line, how the right gear can prevent serious injury.

In the upcoming articles, I'll discuss why you need to wear:

• A helmet (a real one)
• Jacket & Pants
• Gloves
• Belt
• Boots

Stay tuned.......

As I begin writing this article I have four books and a magazine article open and lying on the floor in front of me:  

• “Corner Vision” an article by Ken Condon
• “Total Control” by Lee Parks
• “Riding In The Zone” by Ken Condon
• “More Proficient Motorcycling” by David Hough
• "Twist of the Wrist III" by Keith Code

The above books and articles are written by well respected authors and professional riders with a wealth of experience and expertise. All of the above authors have devoted at least one chapter of their books to the importance of vision skills and seeing “the big picture” while riding. I would strongly encourage you to read one or all of them as they are extremely well written, to the point and give you tips and information that is invaluable in improving your riding skills.

My objective in this article is to discuss some of the concepts and skills the above mentioned “experts” describe that will help you avoid mistakes like “target fixation” that is so prevalent with new riders. Let me share with you some quotes:

• “Spotlight versus Floodlight: What you are able to see is based on not only the amount of light available, but also on the types of things you choose to concentrate. Some people choose to illuminate the world with a spotlight. Others view their surroundings with a floodlight…. Using your vision as a floodlight slows down your sense of speed and allows you to be aware of more potential hazards and opportunities.” Lee Parks

• “How far ahead a rider scans is one measure of proficiency. Most new riders struggle to look more than a few second ahead. It’s natural to look down at the road when we are anxious. Unfortunately, focusing in the near distance exacerbates anxiety, which can develop into a vicious cycle of escalating fear”. Ken Condon

• “When riding, every decision you make is governed by the amount of space you have, think you have, feel you have or believe you have. The two basic functions (speed and direction change) of a motorcycle are totally dependent on the amount of space you have to do either of them. All riding “survival reaction triggers” (more on this a little later) have not enough space as their common denominator”. Keith Code (This is my favorite quote!! Read it about half a dozen times and the genius of it starts to sink in, which is why having good vision skills is so important.)
  

• “It’s not enough to simply look ahead. You must practice visual attentiveness and actively search for hazards by keeping your eyes moving, never fixating on a single object for more than a couple seconds. By scanning continually your mind can assess multiple hazards in a short amount of time.” Ken Condon

• “Imagine riding an urban street where sight distance changes from moment to moment. When riding a long straight boulevard it may appear that you have unlimited sight distance, but remember that vehicles can appear suddenly from side streets, alleys and entrances to parking lots. So, your sight distance must also include the possibility of intruders who haven’t appeared yet.” David Hough (What awesome insight!!)

• “We should all be aware of common vision quirks as well as specific vision problems we might have. One important quirk is speed related tunnel vision. As speed increases, the eyes focus farther and farther out in front, and the brain blurs out the dizzying view towards the sides. That’s why it’s important to mentally keep track of surrounding traffic while motorcycling down the super slab.” David Hough 

If you find the above excerpts to be valuable information I would encourage you to spend a few bucks and buy the books. It might not be as cool as that new leather riding jacket but they are every bit as valuable, in a different sort of way, and far less expensive.

So let’s talk about the consistent theme here, the “big picture” as it were. I love Keith Code’s “Twist of the Wrist III” and his discussion about “survival reactions” and how they are usually exactly the wrong thing to do when you panic. I’m going to digress here a bit but I think it’s worth it to touch on Keith’s teachings. Keith uses the example that you have only so much attention to work with. He gives you a maximum of $10.00 worth of attention. If you spend all $10 bucks of that attention on a wet spot up ahead in your lane and fail to see that car pulling out of a parking place into your lane you just spent all of your attention on the wrong thing. Though Keith’s book is primarily focused on racing and improving your riding skills to go faster, it applies equally well to street riding and avoiding doing the wrong thing because you allow your “survival reactions” to take over when you’re scared and in panic mode. The following are some of the “survival reactions” Keith discusses:

• “Roll of the gas: more problems are caused by cutting the gas then staying on the gas and keeping the weight balance between front and rear in that 40% front / 60% rear than not.”

• “Target fixation: steering in the direction of what you’re fixated on, freezing and not steering at all.” VTXRon just covered this in his recent article.

• “Braking errors: both over and under braking.”

Let’s get back to vision skills and I’ll continue with more of Keith’s teachings on this. He proposes that you practice keeping your vision out wide. Rather than moving you eyes around, open your field of vision as wide as you can then let your brain decide what it wants to concentrate on as compared to moving your eyes around from one target to another. Widening your field of vision reduces stress, opens up space, slows things down and allows you to make better decisions. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to improve their vision/riding skills. The whole concept of “survival reactions” I found fascinating and by understanding how these work against have really improved my riding skills.

To conclude I’ll share with you what Ken Condon writes in his article “Corner Vision”:

“Visual information is abundant but you need to be selective which bits of data are most important and which should be given less attention….. The wider your visual field, the more likely you are to identify a potential problem. You won’t get a clear look at objects in your periphery because periphery vision is not sensitive to color and detail, however, periphery vision will alert you to movements that could indicate a possible hazard. Rapidly scanning between potential hazards within your wide field of view allows you to observe individual objects while keeping track of the whole environment to better prepare you to manage multiple hazards.”

Remember to:

• Look well ahead, 5 to 6 seconds is good.
• Look in the direction you want to go.
• Look at the solution not the problem.
• Keep you vision wide and your eyes moving.

Hoping you found this information thought provoking and useful. Again thanks to the wonderful authors I’ve used to pull this information from for their valuable insight and knowledge.

Ride safe, be safe, live long and prosper.