ATGATT

It is amazing what the mind can do, even (especially?) in times of danger.

A few weeks ago I took the four day course "Ride Like a Cop" offered by the Northwest Motorcycle School. The training consisted of various slow- and high-speed exercises and at the end of the four days we were tested against four benchmarks: high-speed braking and evasion; a timed slow-speed precision course; lock-look-lean (tight figure eights); and counter steering.

The high-speed braking exercise required that we enter a gate (a set of cones) at a miminum of 40 MPH and then come to a complete stop within 62 feet, all the while down-shifting into first gear, checking the rearview mirror, and then immediately turning left or right around an imaginary object stopped in front of us and pass through another gate without knocking over any cones.

I was doing well and all through the course had been trying to increase my entry speed. The precision drill looks neat and requires skill, but it is the braking and evasion that will save your life. The instructors had both praised and warned me that I was coming close to the edge (the edge being locking up the front tire). Feeling quite confident of my ability, I hit the gate at 48 MPH and pressed on the brakes ... too hard and too long on the front brake as it turned out.

One of my fellow students later said all he heard was a screech and turned to see me flying sideways off the bike ... at 48 MPH, according to the radar gun. At that moment time slowed down for me, and as my kevlar covered shoulder skidded along the pavement and my DOT approved helmet bounced off the blacktop, I thought to myself "Huh. This is why you buy good gear."

I was later told that I came up kicking and cussing at my own stupidity. The instructor immediately came over and asked if I was OK, to which I replied in the affirmative. Not a scratch. He then asked me if I knew what I did wrong, and I responded, "You mean besides crashing the @#&* bike?"

He later said that when I came off the bike I did a perfect shoulder roll. To which I must thank all the years of martial arts training. My martial arts instructors always said our most dangerous opponents would not be others, but ourselves. Who knew how right they were ...

I thought of this moment often during the past two weeks as I engaged in another summer Long Ride. Too many times I saw other riders with little or no gear on whatsoever. While in Sturgis I happened to see a man in shorts on a bike, with a three or four year old child in front of him and an eight or nine year old behind him, neither of whom had any gear on what-so-ever. Though I am not really a confrontational kind of guy, I turned around to have a word with him but he had disappeared by the time I returned. That man was an idiot and his own hubris will get him - or more tragically someone else whom he claims to love - hurt.

At another time I chatted with someone about wearing gear and he simply said "I don't plan to crash."

No shit. So who does? I certainly didn't, but it happened. I am an experienced rider and had been practicing that particular exercise under controlled conditions for four days. But nonetheless down I went, and good gear saved me from road rash and sprains at best to something potentially far worse. Far bigger surprises can happen in a nano-second while on the road and faced with so many other X factors.

None of us plans to crash, but we better be prepared if we do crash. This is true not just for motorcycling, but for many things in life. None of plans to lose a job, but we better be prepared if that crash comes; none of us plans to hurt others, but we better be prepared to respond if we do; none of us plans for all the hurts in life, but we better be prepared when they come, for they will.

ATGATT: All the Gear, All the Time. For motorcycle riders and for life.

Motos, Modernism, & Metaphors

Modernism is the name given to the period which began roughly with the Enlightenment, as rationality and science began to replace superstition and religion as the primary arbiter of truth. It really gained steam with the Industrial Revolution and served as the philosophical foundation for most of the Twentieth Century. But throughout that period Modernism had its detractors, those who argued against universal truths, until finally towards the end of the Twentieth and the beginning of the Twenty-first centuries a new school emerged, which is referred to as post-Modernism (which says more about what it is not, than what it is). Science itself has lent credence to this movement, as the new physics, specifically Chaos Theory, is demonstrating that at the sub-atomic level there appear to be no rules, or at least none which are detectable to us at the present. Modernity as a system of approaching ultimate truth is rapidly crumbling in the face of various truth claims from science, philosophy, and religion.

I have been struggling with this changing reality for some time, as it has a tremendous impact on my professional life. The Christian faith, so long held (or at least given lip service) as the arbiter of Ultimate Truth, has found itself challenged in this claim from various fronts, including from within.

And now, after having read a couple of recent essays dealing with motorcycles and Modernism, I find that my struggle is extended from my vocation to my avocation! Sigh ... is nothing safe!?

Let me share my pondering. In a blog written by Paul d'Orleans (The Vintagent), he discusses the history of the "industrial suit" or one piece utility suit (coveralls). First developed as a "boiler suit" in the early 1800's to protect workers who had to climb into the fire box of coal burning steam engines to clean them, it rapidly gained favor in many industries as a pragmatic tool and became a symbol of industrial progress. d'Orleans goes on to state that Adolf Loos declared the one-piece industrial suit as the ideal expression of Modern dress, devoid as it was of useless ornamentation. The industrial suit, connected with ideas of efficiency as demonstrated in Henry Ford's mass production techniques and the Bauhaus School of architecture ('form follows function') became the "model for humanity's salvation from itself."

Let's explore this a bit. Anyone who is an aficienado of Moto GP knows full well the advantage and value of the ubiquitous one-piece riding suit, contructed of the latest in space-age developed and wartime-tested material and armor. In virtually every race one can see one of the superb riders taking a spill at VERY high speeds, man and machine sliding along not inconsiderable distances; when the dust settles 99 out of 100 times the rider stands up, basically unscratched to bang his head at the mis-step that led to the fall.

And therein lay the rub, so to speak. While it is certainly true that on occasion the machine will fail and result in a wreck, most often it is the man that fails: a poorly chosen line, an overly optimistic entry speed, a moments hesitation, a little too much brake or many other acts of pilot error usually cause the spill. Man puts himself at risk through his own hubris.

That is the Modernist error - thinking that we can save ourselves from ourselves, if only we have the right knowledge, applied correctly. The Utopian ideal of which thinkers such as Charles Fourier, Comte de Saint-Simon, Marx, Engels, William Morris, and Edward Bellamy all wrote. Yet they all failed in the same fashion; the very concept of Utopia came from the work of future Chancellor of England Thomas More, who used it to describe a perfect world which does not exist!

What does this have to do with one-piece riding gear? One must differentiate between protection and salvation; the riding suit protects us from the results of our own hubris, but it does not save us from the hubris itself. The post-Modernist understands that salvation lay beyond the self, just as the motorcyclist understands that good gear protects, but only right understanding (how to pick a good line, how to apply brakes - information which comes from beyond oneself) combined with right action (actually picking a good line and actually applying proper braking - choices one makes) saves.

Leadership & Group Riding

When I lived in Arizona I was part of the Black Mountain Motorcycle Club, a group of folks dedicated to having fun and riding safely. Group rides were always well organized, planned, and carried out with maximum fun and participation the goal. Ride Captains had scouted the routes prior to our group ride, rally points were established to make sure that if someone fell behind they were not lost, and if the group consisted of a large number of bikes (which was often the case)you were assigned to a smaller, more manageable group of ten-twelve riders.

Having relocated up here to the Seattle area some nine months ago, I have really missed the camaraderie of a club. Plus since I really don't know the area at all, I thought it would be great to connect with other riders who could show me around.

I looked around for a club and the one that caught my eye was affiliated with a local moto-store; although the store sells just one brand of bike, they are smart marketers and have a group which is open to everyone who is interested. They of course offer regular test rides of their bikes in hopes that you will eventually buy their brand, which is actually kind of fun.

I kept waiting for good weather to sign up for a ride, but finally decided that if I continued to wait for good weather then I would never ride with the group, so I signed up and headed out last weekend.

The weather wasn't bad, the scenery was lovely, the people were nice, but the group riding discipline was AWFUL! Probably 2/3 of the bikes were high-end sport tourers (that BMW K1600 GTL is absolutely gorgeous and transcends the mere sobriquet 'motorcycle' as it is something else ... but I guess it should be at $30,000+), with a couple of bigger cruisers (my VN 1600 and a dude on a Honda Rune ... a beautiful, funky bike with a wheel base about as long as my chevy), and a couple of smaller bikes - a V-Star and a V-Strom (both 650 cc's).

Anyway, all 17 of us gathered at the store, we were handed a sheet with directions, and then it was basically every man for himself. No real ride captain, no sweep, no smaller groups, and no rally points along the way. The leader pulled out of the parking lot and the friggin' race was on. I got cut off at a stop light with about half the pack behind me (figures the AZ guy with no GPS and no clue where he is going gets put in lead) but once we got through the city and on to the highway another guy whizzed past me (for which act I was actually quite grateful, as he had GPS and I was glancing down at poorly written directions in small font) and seemed to know where he was going, so I just twisted the throttle and kept up.

I don't know if these guys have ever had any group ride training; no hand signals, the leaders just zipped out or around other vehicles with no thought to the folks behind them, no use of good intervals or staggering, poor use of lanes, and many took curves at VERY high rates of speed. I can carve as good as the next guy on a cruiser, but there is no way on God's green earth I could keep up with the speed the sport touring bikes were holding through those blind and unfamilier curves. I've had enough pucker moments in my life, thank you very much! So I had to use every bit of track day training & technique I have ever learned and a lot of straight-away throttle just to keep up ... and you can imagine what it was like for those poor guys on the smaller bikes, as well as others with little or no training.

We went to this one beautiful spot overlooking Skagit Bay (the road up the mountain was narrow and pretty hairy, with tight switchbacks and decreasing radius turns - a neat technical piece of riding) and after parking all spread out kind of looking around when suddenly the "leader" (an employee of the store) and a few guys mounted up with no warning and headed down the mountain and on to the resturant! So the rest of us hopped on our bikes and headed down as well ... hoping for the best.

This was not a group ride; this was a pack headed in the same direction. There is a great difference in life between the two assemblies and I think we have forgotten that reality in America. We have confused individuality with autonomy, and thus lost the ability to self-differentiate which often leads to a herd mentality. At first I tried to keep up with the "leaders" but quickly realized that so doing would probably get me hurt. I decided that they could call me a punk if they so desired, but I was not going to get killed just for bragging rights while doing something stupid. Looking at the faces of some other folks I had to wonder if they had not succumbed to the herd mentality and survived mostly through luck and superior machinery that kept them from killing themselves.

Leaders have a moral obligation to act in the best interests of the whole; ripping out ahead of others because you like to do it or just for fun is irresponsible and thoughtless. While leaders in every endeavor in life must be out in front, blazing the trail and establishing new goals, they must never get so far ahead of the community that by so doing they endanger others. True leaders move forward in the manner best suited for the whole; true leaders share expectations with others. If a ride is not really a group ride but the chance to show off one's ability, then say so in order for others to make free choices about participation. There is nothing inherently wrong in going fast and pushing your limits; it only becomes wrong when you do not allow others to make informed choices on their own.

Leaders don't show off nor do they lead others into blind and unfamiliar territory for which they are unprepared. Leaders are not leaders when those behind them do not trust that choices made are in the best interests of the whole. Morality dictates not in constraining oneself to the least common denominator, but nurturing and protecting the most vulnerable. A group - any group of any size, whether a moto-club or nation - that neglects that rule has by definition become immoral.

Guess I'll be looking for another riding group ....

How Big is Too Big?

Some buddies and I have been giving thought to the question: "Generally speaking, if you could only own one motorcycle, what would it be?" We are not talking about manufacturer (that debate been beat to death) but rather about type and size of engine. We have gone ‘round and ‘round, but having ridden on the wide roads of AZ for several years and now with a whole eight months of commuting in an urban center under my belt, I personally keep coming back to ... "It depends."

It depends on what type of riding will be primary for the rider, as well as the location in which s/he is riding. If you are city type with lots of commuting, then a smaller displacement, lighter weight bike is definitely the way to go. As much as I love my VN 1600 Cruiser and as great as it is on that 5,000 mile long ride each summer, it is a ponderous beast in city traffic, especially on hilly terrain. I often practice tight maneuvers at slow speed and am reasonably adept, but flickable this Kawi ain't. So, while I would love a bit more torque out of my KLR 650, it is great in traffic and with the high center I have on more than one occasion jumped a curb and parked next to a building, avoiding the cost of a parking meter.

As a result of these experiences I have come to the conclusion that if one is going to have a single, all-purpose bike, something between 650 and 900 cc's is probably optimal. Light enough for traffic, big enough for longer cruises. After a couple of decades of emphasis on Brit Twins that ran in the 500 to 650 cc range (Marlon Brando rode a Triumph 6T in The Wild One) and with the Harley 74 ci (1200 cc – think Peter Fonda and Easy Rider) considered an absolute bad-boy monster, the introduction of a 750 cc bike was considered HUGE to the average rider. Remember that classic long distance trips such as Robert Pirsig’s famous Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Honda Superhawk CB77 – 305 cc’s) and Ted Simon’s Jupiter’s Travels (Triumph Tiger 100 – 500 cc’s) were made on pretty small displacement bikes.

This of course is in opposition to the American standard of “bigger is better” but how big is big enough or, dare one even whisper it, too big? A modern liter sport bike can generate over 70 HP and run a quarter mile in 12 seconds, right out of the box. A BMW R1200 RT can produce 109 HP with 88 ft. lbs. of torque! Either of those, along with a list of others as long as my arm, will get you where you want to go with speed and style, or kill you in a New York minute. But a 2200 or 2300 cc bike? At what point does a motorcycle turn into a Frankenbike?

But maybe excess is the lesson for the day. Experts agree that the current economic recession is due in large part to a bigger and more is better gluttony, at both the individual and corporate levels. How many square feet in a house are enough? How much money is too much? How much credit is dangerous? Just how much can you squeeze workers before they pop?

Gluttony and greed are not limited to food or money but have to do with insatiable appetites. Winston Churchill pointed out that we shape our buildings and then they shape us; Sherry Turkle argued that in the 21st Century we shape our technology but then our technology shapes us. Is that also true with motorcycles? Is there a point at which we lose control and allow our appetites to own us? And if our appetites own us, who is consuming whom?

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.

Middle-aged Adolescent

When I was in High School I would on occasion perform an act that required forethought and consideration; on other occasions I would act as a typical adolescent male, by which I mean I would do something impulsive and stupid that lacked any rational explanation. Examples of the latter were usually followed by my mother shaking her head and saying somewhat wistfully, "Sometimes a man, most times a boy." The advantage of aging is that with enough life experience behind you (read: reflection upon stupid stuff you did), the middle aged man is better able to make decisions based on rational thought and consideration of logical consequences rather than impluse and a "Cowabunga!" mentality.

Better able does not translate into always.

A few days back I was cleaning and lubing the chain on my bike and noticed it seemed a bit loose. No problem: loosen the adjusting screws and axle nut, slide the wheel back a bit, retighten everything and you are good to go. Except the axle nut would not budge. I tired every wrench I had and even bought a bigger one using a pipe for leverage. No good. Not too many years ago my response would have been to get a hammer, yet larger wrenches, more pipe, and pushed-pulled-banged until the I sheared the nut or twisted my back. But experience has taught me that I would never get the bloody nut loose, so I simply called up a buddy who has a pneumatic impact wrench, set a time to load the bike up on his lift, and all was well. The middle aged man acting upon experience and rationality.

It was a glorious sunny day (rare this time of year in Seattle), the appointed hour came, and I rode the bike over to my buddy Pat's house. We pulled his project bike off the lift and prepared to put my bike on. Now, I know that one should not try to ride a bike onto a lift - it is simply too narrow for good balance and if you don't get the throttle just right the momentum can actually push the lift forward. This is why professional's never ride a bike on a lift - they wheel it on. But do you think those facts stopped me? Nah. The middle-aged adolescenct acting out of some ancestral gene labeled "Stupid - remove through evolutionary process". Except there seems to be a flaw in evolutionary theory, as it appears you can never evolve out of stupid.

So I fired it up, let out the clutch, rode up on the lift, couldn't quite get the back wheel over the lip, gunned it again and set down my foot - remember I said that lift's are narrow? - which of course slid off the side, causing me to lose momentum and balance. I looked at Pat as I toppled in slow motion and very calmly said, "I'm going over." You could just read it on his face: "No kidding." He later claimed that I was already shooting up the lift before he could suggest this was not a good idea; I personlly think he just wanted to see me do something stupid...

Anyway, over I went. Now, Pat has a small work space crammed with cabinets, half-disassembled motors, and various tools and parts laying around. There is only one small space in which one could fall and not smash oneself against various sharp objects. I landed in that very spot. It is said that God watches after young children and fools. I am proof positive of that proverb. We picked up the bike, levered it up on the lift, strapped it down and got to work. And as we were working, I swear I heard a heavenly voice: "Sometimes a man, most times a boy."

Yep.