Proficient Motorcycling - David L. Hough

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5 29. Always wear full coverage helmet 5 30. Seldom wear approved helmet 5

       Hey, It’s Subjective

      A total score of 85 or higher is a pretty good indication you’re doing a lot of the right things. On the other hand, if your score is less than 40, maybe you’re hanging it out further than you intended. Sure, sure, I know this is awfully subjective. The point is to be honest with yourself about your motorcycling risk exposure. If you don’t like the questions I stacked up, go back through the statistics and write your own quiz. Wherever you are on the risk scale, I’ll be offering some suggestions about managing the risks.

      All right, we’ve looked at an accident, reviewed some motorcycle accident statistics, and taken a little quiz to help you get some perspective on your relative risk. I realize that such exercises may be way off track. After all, statistics are based on averages, and there are very few Joe Average motorcyclists. What’s more, we might also be a little suspicious of accident studies that look at only how and why people crashed. It’s sort of like the patient who went to the doctor complaining of a sore tongue:

      Patient: “Doctor, my tongue really hurts.”

      Doctor: “Does your tongue hurt all the time?”

      Patient: “No, but it really hurts when I bite down hard on it.”

      Doctor: “Well, don’t do that!”

      The statistics based on crashes and fatalities give us hints about what not to do, but they don’t tell us what successful riders do to avoid crashing. The traditional approach to getting a helmet full of knowledge is just to keep riding and riding. Experience, the veterans might suggest, is the best teacher. In other words, just ride far enough and long enough, and life will eventually present you with all the lessons to be learned. That’s probably true, but the trouble is some of the motorcycling errors can ambush you before you learn enough to avoid them. It’s a lot safer and less risky to learn what you can from other people’s mistakes and experiences. That’s why I pay attention to the grizzled old motorcycling veterans when they occasionally drop hints about lessons learned.

      I happened to be along one day when the MCN editor was picking up a test motorcycle for a photo shoot. Mostly, he was engrossed in details of the new machine, the fleeting time, the need to find a photogenic location, and the urgency of beating the evening rush hour. The dealer, obviously a veteran rider, was on a different mental plane. He knew I wrote skill articles, and he offered some advice about one small but important detail: adjusting mirrors: “Most people adjust their mirrors so that the view converges behind the motorcycle. I figured out that it is more important to see more of what’s coming up in adjacent lanes. So I adjust my mirrors more toward the sides.” As we rode away with the test machine, I observed that I also adjusted my mirrors far enough outward that I could pick up only a corner of the saddlebags at the inside edges. Big deal! you may be thinking. Who cares how the mirrors are adjusted? Let’s get to the really important stuff!

      Well, maybe a helmet full of such small details adds up to the important stuff. Sure, our physical riding skills have a lot to do with keeping the bike under control. But what goes on between the ears is even more important because that’s where we decide what to tell our muscles. Novices start out with the physical skills of mastering the clutch, throttle, brakes, and balance. Veterans understand that motorcycling is really more of a mental process of scrutinizing the situation, evaluating the hazards, and deciding what to do with the motorcycle.

       The Noob

      Now and then you’ll exit a restaurant to find someone circling your machine, a little wide-eyed and irrational, perhaps drooling at the mouth. When you hear the typical questions about fuel mileage, engine displacement, and prices, you know you’re talking to someone infected with the motorcycle bug. Do the newbie a favor by pointing him or her toward the nearest rider training course. If the novice decides to become a motorcyclist, that initial training provides a good foundation for gaining experience.

      I wish I could be more enthusiastic about today’s standard rider training courses, but I believe that the quality of training has slumped in many states, with the emphasis having been shifted away from giving the new rider the tools to deal with riding in the real world, more to getting a new rider licensed and ready to buy a new bike as quickly and efficiently as possible. Training sites with veteran instructors seem to do a good job with the latest simplified curriculum. I’ve also heard from instructors who are embarrassed at turning out students who passed the simplified test but obviously weren’t ready for the road. The good news is that some state programs are taking more responsibility for their training courses, and some are even developing their own training to meet the needs of local riders.

      Rider training courses can give you a big dose of information all at once. The trouble with knowledge is that it’s a lot like French bread—it doesn’t stay fresh very long. You can gain a lot of fresh information from motorcycle magazines and books. A year’s worth of monthly reading adds up to a healthy dose of information to help stack the motorcycling risk deck in your favor. A lot of motorcyclists miss out simply because they don’t take the time to read what’s available. A number of veteran motorcyclists have told me they clip and save helpful articles in a notebook to study again on cold winter nights. You’d think the veterans would have learned it all by now, but that’s not the way it works. The veterans are still around because they continue to refresh their knowledge.

      I used to teach the MSF Experienced Rider Course (ERC), and I was an enthusiastic supporter for a long time, encouraging everyone to take the ERC and take it again every couple of years as a refresher. But the “new and improved” version of the ERC eliminated most of the crash avoidance strategies and control dynamics instruction, and I’m disappointed with the results. If you’re a relatively new rider, take the ERC. In my opinion, the latest ERC will give you an opportunity to practice your control skills. But if you’re an experienced rider, it won’t give you much of what you need.

      Fortunately, there are some alternative street riding courses available, including Lee Parks’ Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic, Atlanta Motorcycle Schools Street Smarts course, Bob Reichenberg’s Streetmasters Motorcycle Workshops, and the on-road Stayin’ Safe Motorcycle Training developed by the late Larry Grodsky. There are also a number of track schools that focus on controlled cornering and braking at real-world speeds, including Keith Code’s California Superbike School and Reg Pridmore’s CLASS Motorcycle Schools.

      Most important, there are several books about riding skills available, including the MSF’s Motorcycling Excellence Second Edition, Lee Park’s Total Control, and Nick Ienatsch’s Sport Riding Techniques. So perhaps the best “training” for an experienced rider is just to study the books and practice the skills on your own. I’ll provide references for the books and riding schools later on.

       Sight Distance

      I often use the phrase “adjust your speed to sight distance.” Let’s be specific about what that means. At a given speed, it takes a certain minimum distance to stop a specific motorcycle. If you expect to avoid that porcupine or those motorcycles splattered on the pavement just around that next blind turn, your speed must be limited to your stopping distance. For example, let’s say your machine is capable of coming to a stop from 60 mph in 190 feet. If you can’t see any farther ahead than 190 feet, your speed shouldn’t be any faster than 60 mph. If your sight distance is limited to 150 feet, you shouldn’t be riding any faster than say, 50

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