Welcome Back!

The weather has turned better (not great, just better) in the Seattle metro area so we are starting to see more bikes on the road. To this reality I have three distinct and parallel reactions:

1) Welcome back, it's great to see you!
2) Where have you sissy's been for the last eight months?
3) Oh-oh.

Now let me unpack each response.

WELCOME BACK! It's always great to see more riders on the road. I pulled up behind two other riders at a stop light the other day and it was fun to head down the road as a group, something I have not done in quite a while. And now I often find riders at the supermarket or coffee shop and take the opportunity to chat, discuss bikes, and get to know folks in this region, to which I am still a newbie.

WHERE HAVE YOU SISSY'S BEEN FOR THE LAST EIGHT MONTHS? With daily commuting in all types of weather comes a certain arrogance; having endured rain, sleet, ice, hail, snow, and all the crap that comes with it, such as freezing one's jujubes off and having to pry one's fingers off the handlebars, one tends to romanticize one's Moto Creds.

OH-OH. The truth is that motorcycle skills are perishable; that is, if one does not ride regularly and/or practice certain skills, those skills will diminish. Any idiot can ride in a straight line at 70 MPH; only a skilled rider can manage stop and go commuter traffic at 5-10 MPH. Basics such as throttle management, picking an appropriate line, and carving curves at a decent speed must be re-learned to a degree.

So we are now in what I would term the Danger Zone. Folks who have not been on bikes in several months have checked the tires, filled the tank, zipped up the leathers, loaded momma on the back and are hitting the road. But too many of them forget that their skills have gone rusty; just like a fifty-five year old who thinks he can do everything he could do when he was twenty-five, they imagine that they can pick up right where they left off at the conclusion of the last riding season. But they can't.

I ride every day and every day I practice figure eights, tight turns, and weaving through parking lots and the truth is that some days I am really on and some days not so much so. Thus it is fair to say that one who has not ridden in several months may not be at his or her best performance level.

All this makes me wonder what other skills that we imagine are up to par have in fact diminished. Skills like listening, relating to others with compassion, or sensitivity to others. Humans are by nature self-interested. This is important for survival and not necessarily immoral. What is immoral is when naturally self-interested persons become unable to transcend themselves when appropriate so as to recognize the needs and concerns of others.

There is nothing wrong with choosing not to ride in inclement weather; in fact it may show a certain intelligence that I appear to be lacking! However, to imagine oneself a better rider than one actually is can result in putting oneself - and others - in harms way, and that is by definition immoral. And so it is with many aspects of life; living as a moral person does not come easily and requires daily practice.

Pre-programming

Many years ago when I was young enough to play Little League Baseball, I had a coach who worked very hard at teaching us not just how to play the game but to use lessons from the game for life. One of the first things he taught us was to think with about what we would do if the ball was hit to us in our position in the field. For example, I was a first baseman, so if someone was on first and a ball was hit to me, I was to "pre-plan" what I would do with that ball - would I tag the runner, touch the bag, throw it to second, etc.

When I began receiving professional motorcycle training I got the same advice, though with the advent of computers and new studies of the brain it was now called "pre-programming." But regardless of the name, the principle was the same: the best way to avoid trouble is by being prepared. For example, if you are riding along in traffic with proper following distance and you see a car coming from a side street and the wheels are still rolling - if they try to sneak into that space between you and the car in front of you, what will you do? Hint: accelerating, laying on the horn, and flipping them the bird is probably not a good strategy.

Last weekend I took a class with a former Motor officer trainer; we worked on control at slow speed through manipulation of throttle, clutch, and rear brake as we rode through various course layouts. There were eight of us and at one point we were broken down into two groups of four as we practiced riding figure eights. The class consisted of riders of various skill levels, and with that many machines in such a small space, something was bound to go awry. Experience has shown over and over that when riders get a bit nervous they tend to look at the problem and grab brake; in a figure eight this translates into a low side to the inside of the circle and with four bikes in tight formation if one goes down the odds are pretty good that everyone will go down.

I have enough experience dropping my bike without any help from others, so I asked myself: "What am I going to do when bikes start tumbling?" Once again, experience has indicated that people at slow speed will grab the front brake, which means they will fall towards the inside of the turn. So the answer was simple: "Keep your friggin' hand off the front brake and turn sharply to the outside."

We were having a ball but sure enough one guy lost RPM's, grabbed the front brake and went down, followed in quick succession by two other bikes repeating the same mistakes. I was the guy left standing because I turned outside and throttled away from danger.

Now, I would like to say that it was my superior skill and reflexs that helped me avoid the pile-up, but that would be a lie. I have pretty good reflexes for a middle-aged guy, but they are certainly not what they were when I was 25 years old! The truth is that I simply used my brain and pre-programmed my response. When you are an old dude you gotta' compensate with your brain for lack of physical ability!

This notion of pre-programming has many applications. In my professional life I often find myself asking "What is the worst possible outcome of a certain action?" and adjusting my behaviors accordingly. Too often we let emotion over ride intellect and honestly that is a poor use of resources. We have been given this amazing tool called the brain which can be used to keep us out of serious trouble, if we only use it. Too often we resort to a sort of "Yeehaw" default setting in our actions; we need to re-program by pre-programming. Taking a tumble at three miles per hour is not a real serious problem; getting run over at fifty miles an hour, or making a decision that will negatively affect the rest of your life is a serious problem.