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Posts Tagged ‘Motorcycle’

As a writer and business professional, my natural tendency is to test the limits and share my experiences. These qualities cross over into my passion for riding motorcycles.

Humbling moments on the road can hurt for motorcyclists.

Obviously, BestScenicRoutes.com is my personal effort to not bogart the best scenic routes and to share my experiences of the open road. As for testing the limits, well that is a constant endeavor to find my limits and expand the boundaries they create while riding.

It took several years of riding motorcycles with self-taught skills before I learned the value of taking a motorcycle safety course. In fact, after several years of riding, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic Rider Course as a means of rating my abilities to properly operate a motorcycle.

The basic course was a humbling experience. It was during the course that I finally learned what counter-steering was and how it worked on a motorcycle. Proper cornering techniques of outside-inside-outside improved my abilities in the twisties. The course also taught me the difference between an everyday stop and a quick-stop – just keep squeezing the levers.

I went into the BRC thinking that I already knew it all. I left that weekend with skills that have saved my hide more than once. Developing motorcycle skills is a continual effort. Similar to professional programs that encourage continued education to keep up to speed.

As riders, we pride ourselves on our motorcycle skills. It is pride that can get in the way of our development of skills. Humbling experiences open our minds to the possibilities that there is always room for vast improvement. These experiences can come in the form of motorcycle safety courses, track days, riding with skilled riders or even a good book on motorcycling. There are many opportunities to learn if we just open our minds and absorb the information that is around us.

As soon as evidence of over-confidence creeps into my everyday riding, oops moments appear. That’s when I actively seek out a humbling experience to keep me grounded.

Pushing limits and learning skills is what motorcycling is all about. The key is to not get humbled while deep into a corner on a high mountain pass when options are limited and risk is high. These types of humbling experiences hurt.

How do you test your limits? How do you recognize when you’ve exceeded your abilities? Share you experiences and perhaps a few of us will be humbled by them.

Are you interested in taking a motorcycle safety course? Find a listing for all motorcycle safety testing locations at the bottom of the article: Nearly 40-percent of Washington State Motorcycle Deaths are Unendorsed Riders

Do you enjoy reading the articles at BestScenicRoutes.com? Every donation helps keep my motor running.

What color is your motorcycle, car or truck? Your paint is likely a color that is pleasing to the eye. Perhaps it is even your favorite color. Ugly paint jobs don’t sell automobiles.

What color is your riding gear? Perhaps your gear is black from head to toe. Looks cool, right?

Aerostich encourages the use of high-viz colors. This graphic from their site explains the benefits.

Riders need to stand out among the river of pleasing colors used to paint the SUVs, pickups and cars that flood the road everyday. As a motorcyclist, pleasing colors could also be explained as colors that don’t stand out in traffic. Personally, I prefer riding gear that will burn a hole in the eye’s of drivers all around me. Fluorescent colors such as blaze-orange, lime-green or high-viz yellow won’t be splashed on the wall of my house anytime soon. At least that is what my wife tells me. Fluorescent colors aren’t found in nature and really stand out in traffic. That’s exactly why they are perfect for motorcycle riding gear.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) nearly 55 percent of fatal motorcycle crashes involve more than one vehicle. The overwhelming majority of those crashes involved a motorcycle and a passenger vehicle, i.e. car or truck. In the battle between motorcycle and car, the riders lose. Yes, there’s a stat to back that up. Approximately, 98 percent of fatal motorcycle versus car crashes results in the death of either the rider or passenger, and not the passenger-vehicle occupants.

A side-by-side comparison of the black and day-glo fluorescent colors for the Firstgear Kilimanjaro jacket.

If you have been involved in a motorcycle crash or heard stories, then you likely heard that the driver “didn’t even see ‘em.” The very characteristics of motorcycles that make them fun and economical lead to them being hard to see. That is exactly where good protective riding gear can come to the rescue.

Riding gear helps to protect you in a crash. For me, the most important part about the gear is its ability to help prevent a crash in the first place. A high-viz yellow jacket or riding suit may be just the ticket to having a driver say, “Phew, that was close, I’m glad that I saw them.”

Patrick Hahn from the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center stated in a June 2010 interview on the SideStandUp podcast that a New Zealand study shows that simply wearing a white helmet instead of a black helmet reduces your chance of a crash by 24 percent. That stunned me when I first heard it. What a simple way to save your life!

If changing the color of your helmet helps that much, just imagine what more real estate could do. The New Zealand study also showed that riders wearing a fluorescent reflective vest were 37 percent less likely to be involved in a multiple-vehicle crash than riders without one. That’s almost the same risk reduction as not drinking and riding. A $25 fluorescent reflective vest isn’t going to get you a date, but it is a very cost-effective way to avoid a crash.

Even hi-viz patches on my Roadcrafter improves visibility.

Of course, there are ways to add conspicuity and remain somewhat fashionable. My Aerostich Roadcrafter riding suit has high-viz patches at the shoulders, elbows, knees and shins. It is an option to have the entire suit in high-viz. At the request of my pillion, I went with the patches because it was easier on her eyes while staring at me lovingly for hours on rides. She can’t get enough! The downside of this is that there are fewer square inches of bright fabric to catch drivers’ eyes.

The main thing is to find a balance. As you’ll hear in MSF courses, manage your personal level of comfort and risk. You may be comfortable in all black or all fluorescent colors. I am comfortable with some retina-burning color on my suit.

The end goal is to avoid being laid out on a stretcher hearing someone in the distance saying, “I didn’t even see ‘em.”

What is your gear comprised of? Do you wear a helmet and jacket? What colors are they? Post your responses in the comments section. I’d love to have a full-blown discussion on this topic and perhaps learn a thing or two from you.

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