fl'()ln IVI()tm'clfcle C()nsLilnel' News Ill' Ilavicl L. li()ugh BQWTIE PRE 5 5 A Division of BowTie, Inc. Irvine, California ® Also by David L. Hough, Street Strategies: A Survival Guide for Motorcyclists. More Proficient Motorcycling: Mastering the Ride. Ruth Berman, editor-in-chief Nick Clemente, special consultant Amy Fox, editor Michael Uyesugi, designer Rachel Rice, indexer Copyright © 2000 by BowTie Press® Photographs and diagrams copyright © 2000 by David L. Hough Additional photographs courtesy of: front cover, © Eric Putter; back cover, © Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA; back cover flap, pp. 38, 55, 58, 171, 175, 218, © Lee Parks; pp. 4, 30, 125, 129,227, © David Searle; pp. 64, 137, © Jay Koblenz All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of BowTie Press®, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hough, David L., 1937Proficient motorcycling: the ultimate guide to riding well / by David L. Hough. p. ern. Includes bibliographical references aud index. ISBN 1-889540-53-6 (soft cover) I. Motorcycling. 1. Title. TL440.5 .H67 2000 629.28'475--dc21 00-008873 BowTie Press® A Division of BowTie, Inc. 3 Burroughs Irvine, California 92618 Printed and bound in Singapore 109 •• '-'4yP Proficient Motorcycling ----------------- e hile the contents of this book are really a collective wisdom gleaned tram fellow motorcyclists and the school of hard knocks, two individuals were instrumental in allowing this book to come to life. First, it was Bob Carpenter, the editor of Road Rider, who salvaged my lirst article back in 1972. Bob encouraged me to keep submitting, showed me by example how to write, and then suggested I taclde the "Proficient Motorcycling" series that eventually served as the basis for this book. Thanks, Bob. It's been quite a trip so far. Second, my wife, Diana, has been tolerating my travels, travails, and tantmms since we got married. She has accompanied me on many long motorcycle journeys on a variety of motorcycles that weren't very comfortable; endured more than a few cold, wet, windy days; put up with my motorcycling fanaticism for the past thirty years; and kcpt me moving on this project even when I would rather have gone riding. We got married in a little country church on Bainbridge Island forty-three years ago, and we're still together. Pretty amazing, huh? Foreword ........................................ 6 Preface ......................................... 9 Introduction .................................... .10 Chapter 0: FUsid • • • Cany()n Bites ..................................13 li()w Fal' Are Y()U lianging It Out'? .................. .19 Fixing the Odds ................................29 Chapter 1\!t)~:m'Ci® K)y!~l@mC, What Keel)S It Balanced'? ........................ .39 What lVIal{es It Tum'? ............................ .48 C()merlng liabits ...............................56 m: Chapter m: DY!1tUnii:s ('ettlng ()n the Gas ..............................65 Delayed Apexing ...............................69 The L()wd()wn ()n the SI()wd()wn .................... 76 Taldng the I'anl(: Out ()f Panic: Stol)S .................82 1~lght Pa(:e, I~ight Pla(:e ..........................90 Chapter ~: U~"b€']n "rn~ft( t~U"\.fhl'c] City TI'afti(: ....................................99 I~()by Trap Interse(:tillns ....................... .104 Suburb Survival . ...............................110 SUI)erslab Ta(:tics ............................. .118 Aggressive Drivers ............................ .127 Evasive A(:tl()n ................................ .132 Chapter ~: El{}()blf Tl'aps Surfa(:e I-Iazards .............................. .139 Curbs Ahead ................................. .147 Ihll1l1ing Out ()f Pavement ....................... .154 I)eer, Oh I)ear! ............................... .162 Fel"()(:i()us Fid()s .............................. .169 Chapter m: 8pl!l(,:IK!i !im:W"ithms ................................ .177 When It l~ai1s When Y()u're li()t, Y()u're I-IOT ..................... .185 I)ang Wind ................................... .191 Freezing Y()ur Gas ()n the Pass . ................... 197 Night Owls ...................................205 White Line Fever ...............................212 • • !~ldz" Bat(:hes ()f l~iI{ers ..............................219 The Se(:()nd I~ider .............................. 226 Let's Get L()aded ..............................234 Slde(:al's .....................................241 Chapter i): 8h0lr!ng ti1t'O Resources ...................................... 251 Glossary ....................................... 252 Index ........................................ 254 • '.~:;" , WJ!!: ------ike most motorcyclists, my initial rider training (in dare call it that) came in the f01111 of a salesman pushing a bike off the showroom floor into the parking lot and pointing out its control features to me, "This is the throttle and this is the clutch. Your left foot does the shifting-down to first gear, then up to each of the other four-and yonr right foot does the braldng. There's a front wheel brake at yonr right hand, but try to avoid using that." With that, he kick-started the little Kawasaki and held it for me to climb aboard. After about 15 minutes of wobbling around the parking lot, getting a feci for the strange beast, 1 went back into the dealership, wrote a check, and within a few minutes was out on my own, dicing my way through city traffic at rush honr. I'm very lucky to be alive today. I believe the year was 1973, and with my new-found interest in two-wheeling I immediately went to a newsstand and pnrchased every motorcycling magazine available. Luckily for me, one of those publications was a fairly new one called Road Rider, produced by a renegade publisher in California named Roger Hull. And within its pages 1 fonnd, during the ensuing years, the wisdom that I credit with keeping me alive and riding to this day. Most of that wisdom came in the f01111 of detailed instructions on how to ride a bike safely and efficiently, written by one David L. Hough. I read David's semi-regular articles for the next fifteen years or so, often carrying a dog-eared copy of the magazine with me to a vacant parking lot, where I could practice the procednres he outlined. Then 1 would stop and read them again, then practice again, and on until I achieved the desired results in cornering, braking, obstacle avoid- .. • .1'.' .•. --'_fil;:,' ance, etc. Eventually I discovered a professional motorcycle riding academy, and signed up for their training conrses. I suppose I expected to learn something new and different but was surprised to find that the teaching texts and range exercises were nearly identical to those 1 had learned from Hough's "Proficient Motorcycling" magazine series. Many years later I would discover that nearly all of the private and state-rnn riding schools that sprang up dnring the great motorcycling boom of the seventies were based on David's prolific output in one way or another, whether they credited him with it or not. In fact, to tlIis day I often find exact, word-far-word copies of David's nearly thiltyyear-old writings being used and repeated on the Internet, in newsletters and magazines, and as traiuing materials in schools around the world-without one word of credit as to their source. And I don't believe David has ever made a dime off of, or even complained about, this rampant plagiarism of his life's work. My love of motorcycling eventually led me away from my engineering career and back into college for journalism traiuing, after which I became a full-time writer and eventually the editor of a motorcycle club magazine called Wing World in Phoeuix, Arizona. Then, several years later, through a series of odd twists of fate that would seem ludicrous if they were fiction, I came to California to accept the post of managing editor at Road Rider. Immediately, I set about attempting to resurrect "Proficient Motorcycling," which David had ceased writing, believing he, "had said all there was to say on the subject." Through his mentor; Road Rider's editor, Bob Carpenter, I tracked David down in ;t.. \.: '.~ f!..J' <:fjf' t,.· \ ,-<~:; " ~t:f the wilds of northem Washington State, and began badgering him to revise and revive his much-copied series, He was reluctant at first, but I convinced him that there was a whole new crop of riders that had grown up since his initial series who were entitled to the same life-saving teachings that I myself and so many like me had benefited from. Luckily for me, he eventually agreed, and the next generation of "Proficient Motorcycling" was born in January of 1991 in the pages of Motorcycle Consumer News, the offspring of Road Rider, which Bob Carpenter and I created that year. In the nearly ten years since then, David has written over one hundred new "Proficient Motorcycling" articles, also contributing all of the photography and drawing all the detailed diagrams and sketches for the training exercises. "Proficient Motorcycling" has won several awards, not the least of which was the National Motorcycle Safety Association's award for "Excellence in Motorcycle Safety Journalism"-twice. In his spare time, David has produced the world's [n'st comprehensive training system for sidecar operators. He has also served as a consultant on motorcycle safety and training issues for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, the American Motorcyclist Association, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, the State Motorcycle Safety Administrators Association, and too many other groups to mention, both here and abroad. But beyond all the awards and accolades, I believe David received his greatest recognition in the smmner of 1999. He came down from his Washington cabin to California for a week to participate in a "Meet the Stan" ride put on by Motorcycle Consumer News. On Saturday moming, nearly one hundred riders from all over the U.S. gathered at our offices, and we rode together through the Santa Rosa and San Bernardino Mountains to the Mojave Desert with David bringing up the rear. At our lunch stop, spealcing to a group of the riders, David commented that the state of rider education in the country must be better than he had thought, judging by how well this diverse group had ridden through the mountains. He was impressed with their liding skills and told them so. Then one of the older liders spoke up. "Hell, Dave, we're just practicing what you been preachin' to us for all these years. I don't know about these other folks, but I ride well because I learned it from you!" He looked around himself, and suddenly everyone else began nodding their heads and adding their comments and thanks to what had been said. I have Imown David Hough for many years, and he is not an emotional man, nor one to take undue pride in himself, or even take himself too seriously. But I guarantee I saw an extra bit of bounce in his step for the next couple of days. Whether you are a novice to motorcycling or a seasoned old campaigner, I think I can safely promise that there's something in this book for you to learn. Something that will malce you a better lider than you were before reading it. And afterwards, you'll join the thousands of other riders, like myself, who owe David Hough a debt of gratitude we can never hope to repay. FredRau Senior Editor Motorcycle Consumer News i ~f.'-"<, , '~:". ", .:'~ ',- PrefciEe -----'ve always been interested in how things work T remember taTang apart my new cap pistol when I was six years old, and then hiding it when I couldn't get all the springs back inside. After a few more years of dabbling in things mechanical, I could overhaul the planetary-geared hub on my bicycle and respoke wheels. I worked on outboard motors and built a few boats. In college, I took some mechanical engineering courses and learned about machining, casting, and welding before I switched over to industrial design. I started maintaining the family automobiles out of necessity, and when we needed a new house for a growing family, I leamed concrete work, carpentry, plumbing, and electJical. When I started riding motorcycles back in the 1960s as a way to get to work, it was natural for me to wonder about the curious behavior of two-wheelers. T realized that riding motorcycles involved not only mechanics but also the dynamics of how to control them. My commute to work by motorcycle eventually extended to a thirty-year passion. I absorbed more than a few lessons about motorcycle dynamics and experienced the joys and challenges of long-distance touring, group riding, foreign travel, three-wheeled motorcycling, off-pavement riding, fighting for motorcyclist rights, rider training, and, yes, writing abont it all. In the mid-1970s, I started putting down my thoughts on paper, contJibuting occasionally to Road Rider, a small southern California touring magazine with a fiercely loyal family of subscribers. I began to offer safety tips at the local motorcycle club meetings and taught several "road survival" courses. When the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) came into being, I became MSF certified. The "Proficient Motorcycling" column sprang to life in the May 1984 issue of Road Rider after editor Bob Carpenter asked me to write a six-part skills series, which he intended to publish every other month for one year. Tdidn't want to call this a safety column because I didn't think people rode motorcycles to be safe. I figured readers might rise to the challenge of getting more proficient. So I named it "Proficient Motorcycling." Little did we realize at the time that "Proficient Motorcycling" would outlive Road Rider, capture a few awards fi'om the motorcycle safety folks, stretch out another fifteen years, and start a trend toward the inclusion of riding skills articles in other enthusiast publications. By 1991, Road Rider magazine had been purchased by Fancy Publications and was reborn as Motorcycle Consumer News (MCN), a black-and white, advertisement-free, no-nonsense, quick-turnaround, product-oriented monthly. The "Proficient Motorcycling" column jumped the gap from Road Rider to MCN almost without skipping a beat, and seventeen years later it is still a popular feature of the magazine. Over the years, since "Proficient Motorcycling" had become a staple of MCN, more than a few readers have asked two questions again and again: How do you pronounce Hough? and When are you going to publish all the "Proficient Motorcycling" columns as a book? Hough is pronounced like "tough." And the book? Well, here it is. -David L. Hough --------Begin at the Beginlling 've been trying for years to break the taboo about discussing the risks of motorcycling, Motorcyclists know instinctively that the risks of riding are higher than those associated with other vehicles, but there seems (0 be a general consensus that ignoring the risks will make them go away. Certainly, motorcycle salespeople tend to sidestep the safety issue for fear of squelching a sale. Most motorcycle magazines focus on the bilce as a machine or a lifestyle or an addictive pursuit, but seldom will one lind articles on how to control a bike or how to get through traffic unscathed. If a motorcyclist is still trying to convince his or her family that riding a two-wheeler is an acceptable mode of transportation, maybe it would be smart not to bring up the risks. In my opinion, it is possible to reduce the risks of motorcycling to an acceptable level. In Proficient Motorcycling, the subject of risk is faced openly and honestly. Yes, motorcycles are potentially dangerous, but whoever is holding the handlebar grips can significantly change the odds. If you want to avoid pain and lost dollars, you need to understand what the risks are and take positive steps to control any situation to your advantage. The proficient motorcyclist knows what trouble looks like and has the skills to avoid whatever happens along. The big payoff is that becoming a proficient motorcyclist is immensely satisfying. In the name of efficiency, I've often stacked up a lot of hazards in close order even though I know that can be a bit intimidating. A novice rider faced with all these hazards might consider just parking the bike and hanging up the key. In real life, however, one person is not Ii kely to encounter hazards as frequently as I've tossed them out. The point is for you to be aware of hazards that have caused other riders grief. If you can learn from the mistakes of others, hopefully you won't have to learn it all through trial and error. Every attempt has been made to keep discussions of motorcycle dynamics simple, but some people may still have difficnlty understanding the concepts. Sometimes they won't become clear until you take the book out to the garage and experiment with your motorcycle, or until you take your machine for a spin and listen to what it's telling you. And if you don't feel comfortable with any of the riding exercises suggested in the book, perhaps you should be practicing under the watchful eyc of an instructor at your local rider training site. When experimenting on your bike or practicing a skill, please wear your best crash padding. The subject of protective riding gear alone can take up an entire book. In other words, I'll try to give you all the no-nonsense information I can, but this is only a book, not a training course. So for the purposes of this book, appropriate protective gear includes abrasion and impact resistant full jacket and riding pants, tall leather riding boots and full-fingered gloves, a genuine Department of Transportation- (DOT-) approved helmet, and shatterproof eye protection. This book is based closely on the "Proficient Motorcycling" column from Road Rider and Motorcycle Consumer News. It includes the core knowledge and skills that the proficient motorcyclist should possess. You can study this book in any sequence you choose, but the contents are arranged so that one subject leads to the next. It will probably make more sense to you if you start at the beginning and read through to the end. Throughout Pr~tlcien Motorcycling, you'll meet characters such as Biker Bob, Rider Ralph, Cruiser Carla, and a few others who may seem familiar to you. Be aware that the characters in this book are fictitious, although most of the situations are based on real accidents and incidents. You may even recognize a bit of yourself in these fictional folks. Think of these tales of woe as myths, which may not be exactly true but have the potential to be learning experiences. In some cases I know I've played the part of "Bob" myself. Please do us both a favor and don't get hung up on the names or the gender. You'll notice that once in a while a mysterious we offers advice. That's because I get a lot of feedback from veteran motorcyclists, rider training professionals, and other journalists, and the advice reflects this feedback. Even when I go out on a limb, most of my information is a collection of knowledge I've gleaned from a widespread family of motorcyclists. Consider this book only the beginning of a journey toward becoming a proficient motorcyclist. Ten years ago I mentally added up the various bikes I'd ridden and figured I'd accumulated about 750,000 miles. I haven't bothered to keep a tally since then, because I'm more interested in the lessons than the miles. One thing I know: Over the horizon, there are many other lessons waiting to be learned. CHAPTER 't " --------,'* , '}"- 'yIlt -'-'"fr- Call1'()11 Bites ugust 23, 1998: A sunny Sunday morning in the Colorado mountains, Perfect weather, Light traffic. The pavement is clean and dry, Norman and Christine are motoring eastbound through scenic Boulder Canyon, enjoying the ride and the view Both riders are wearing protective gear, inclnding high-quality full-coverage helmets, Norman is paying attention to the curves, planning good cornering lines, and keeping his Suzuki well in controL Notice where the rider is crossing the centerline. When you are approaching a blind curve, remember this image, and make a point of avoiding the crifi([J1 orea. Westbound, Mark and three of his buddies on fast sportbikes are dicing with each other, enjoying their race-bred machines, the excellent road conditions, and the msh of friendly competition at the spirited pace, showing little regard for the speed limit or the double yellow lines. At the moment, Mark is slightly more willing than the others to jack up the risks, and his Honda is pulling ahead of the pack. Just east of Hurricane Hill, Norman slows the Suzuki for the sharp blind tum through the rocks, and leans the bike over into a nice curving arc that should kiss the centerline just at the apex. At the same instant, Mark carves into the same tum west- t ee; ·<~0 < +t,j.Jf bound on his Honda, realizing too late that the curve through the rocks is tighter than he had assumed, There is nothing Mark can do to prevent the Honda from driftiug wide across the double yellow lines, right into the path of the approaching Suzuki, Frantically, Norman shoves his grips toward the right to swerve the Suzuki away from a 100 mph head-on collision, and Mark pushes so hard on his grips that the Honda low sides in a shower of sparks and plastic. The Honda's tires clip the Suzuki just hard enough to send the Suzuki cartwheeling into the rocks. Norman dies instantly, his helmeted head ripped from his body. Mark tumbles to a stop, bleeding profusely but alive. A second later, Mark's buddy carves around the corner and spins through the mess of wadded-up bikes and bodies. Norman's wife, Christine, dies an hour later at the hospital. This is a true story, and we're not relating it just to gross you out. Similar accidents occur over and over again to weekend motorcyclists on various twisty highways across America. And, yes, there is a moral: If you want to survive those entertaining twisties, it's not enough just to cruise along minding your own business. You've got to plan for the stupidity and arrogance of other motorists, including other motorcyclists. Let's consider some practical tactics for avoiding such "canyon bites" on your weekend rides. Years ago, road crews were more frugal with those double yellow lines. We could pretty well depend on the double yellow no-passing zones warning us of hazards such as dips where another vehicle might be hidden from view. These days, road engineers continue to extend the double yellow lines farther and farther, until some highways are double-yellowed from one end to the other. If you're riding a quick motorcycle, it's frustrating to hang back behind a creeper car when you can see the road is clear and you know you have plenty of zip to get arOlmd. More and more of us are giving in to the temptation to just ignore the yellow lines and get on with the ride. Legally speaking, it's no more illegal to pass over a double yellow than to exceed the posted speed limit, but the laws of physics are self-enforcing. Being on the wrong side of the road at warp passing speeds is certainly an invitation to a head-on collision with a car that may suddenly appear from around a corner, or a farm truck chuffing out of a hidden side road. You'll have to decide for yourself when and where you are willing to risk passing over the double yellow. My advice is to never ever be out in the wrong lane while crossing a bridge, approaching the crest of a hill, or rounding a blind curve. But what about a long uphill sweeper, where you can see the road 8 or 10 seconds allead? What about a wide intersection with no one in the left turn lane? And when you come up behind a vehicle waiting to turn left from a busy two-laner, is it smart to come to a sitting-duck stop, or should you swerve over onto the shoulder, pass on the right, and keep moving? Regardless of the law, before you decide to zip around any slow-moving or stopped vehicle, talee a good look at the situation and try to figure out what's happening and what's about to happen. It's not just you and the road out there. Is there a side road or driveway into which the other vehicle could turn? Is there a tree-shaded intersection allead from which another vehicle could suddenly materialize? It's unwise to pass in any areas where there are roads or driveways along the highway, even if it isn't a no-passing zone. And before you pull aroillld a stopped vehicle, talee a good look behind you to ensure that someone else isn't in the process of zooming around you. Sl~jht [}Istam~( We often use thc phrase, adjust your speed to sight distance, Let's be specific about what that means. At any given speed, a certain minimum distance is needed to stop a specific motorcycle. If you expect to avoid that wild deer or those motorcycles splattered on the pavement just around that next blind tum, 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 120 feet. If you can't see any farther ahead than 120 feet, your speed shouldn't be any faster than 60 mph. Of course in real world situations, it also takes a half-second or so to react, and another second of progressive front brake squeeze to get full on the stoppers. At 60 mph, l.5 seconds will eat up an extra 132 feet. Uh-oh! That means that your actual stopping distance from 60 mph is more like 252 feet. If your sight distance is only 120 feet, your speed should really be no more than perhaps 40 or 45 mph. While we're riding, very few of us can accurately judge distance in feet, yards, meters, or car lengths. The pavement goes by in a blur, too quickly to make a mental measurement of distance. The trick is to make time measurements. Pick out some fixed object ahead such as a signpost, and count the seconds it takes you to get there. Count out loud, one-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two. ... By taking an actual measurement of your sight distance and comparing it to your speed, you can malce intelligent decisions about how far you are hanging it out. I'll offer some guidelines: SPEED 40 to 50 50 to 60 60 to 70 70 to 80 mph mph mph mph MINIMUM SIGHT DISTANCE 4 sec. 5 sec. 6 sec. 7 sec. Give these numbers a try, and see if you agree with the minimums. If these minimums make you a little nervous, add a second. If your retlexes are really quick and you can make consistent hard stops without flipping or high siding, shave otf a second. The point is that you arrive at a method of gauging honestly how your speed staeks up to you and your bike's stopping performance. If you eonsistently find that you are entering blind situations at speeds too fast to stop within your minimum sight distances, the message should be obvious: get on the binders and slow down quicldy whenever sight distance closes up. When you are out riding with others, it's amazingly easy to get stampeded into doing things that you wouldn't do if riding by yourself. Speed is so intertwined with self-worth and motorcycling that most of us will risk an accident rather than risk being seen as a slow (unskilled) rider. When someone zips past me and cuts in too close, my natural reaction is to crank up the gas and show them some speed (skill, bravado, daring, etc.). One of the hazards of riding in a fast group or following a big dog rider is that we tend to fixate on catching the taillight of the bike ahead. This usually means focusing on steering and throttle, while ignoring a whole bag of other cornering tactics that maximize traction and minimize risk. It's often the second or third rider in a group who takes the soil sample attempting to stay with the leader. On more than a few occa- sions, I've seen small groups of three to six riders pull out onto a busy highway, with the tail-end riders so fixated on catching the taillights ahead that they didn't even remember to look for approaching traffic as they roosted out of the parking lot. When riding a twisty road with other riders, the smart tactic is to back off from the bike ahead until you can't see its taillight. Then yon can ignore your position in the group and ride your own ride, choosing for yourself what line to follow, when to brake, when to roll on the gas, and what your maximum speed should be entering a blind turn. One advantage to this tactic is that you aren't challenging the guy or gal ahead to race. But you may tlnd it amazing that you can back off 4 or 5 seconds, and arrive at the rest stop only 4 or 5 seconds behind the leader, without having to take unnecessary risks. An obvious spin-off to this tactic is when you discover that the three or four people you've been riding with can't accept your riding style. Maybe you should go back to the motorcyclist store and get some different buddies. And if you're the one who is always looking for a race, that's a hint it's time to consider the advantages of amateur road racing on a closed track rather than risking it all on public roads, as Mark and his buddies were doing. The other day a minivan driver who had been tailgating me for several miles of double yellow finally zoomed on by, straddling the centerliue. Even though myoId BMW sidecar rig was maintaining 60 in a 55 zone, 1 think the close pass was a message, perhaps you've been holding me up long enough, or motorcycles don't belong on the highway, or maybe just move it or lose it, biker boy. While such aggressive actions tend to anger me, they don't scare me quite as much as do drivers who wander over the centerline or the fog line, or those who change speed for no apparent reason. 1 can only assume that wandering drivers don't have their brain fully engaged in Drive, or their brains are fogged with chemicals. Either way, it's a scary situation for vehicles to be hurtling toward each other at closing speeds in excess of 100 mph, separated only by a pair of 4-inch yellow lines painted on the pavement. Whether it's an act of aggression or a disengaged brain, drivers who wander over centerlines can pick you off if you don't take action to stay out of the way. There are specific locations where motmists tend to wander out of their lane. You can adjust your line to avoid these areas. Consider Wandering Willie, who doesn't understand the importance of entering corners from the outside. Halfway around a turn, Willie suddenly realizes the road is turning tighter than the bike, but by then it's too late to prevent an excursion into the opposing lane. Imagine yourself approaching from the opposite direction and noticing that Wandering Willie is drifting into your lane about two-thirds of the way around the corner. Now, let's convert that top view to a perspective more like you'd see approaching the same corner. Place your left index finger on the location - ---- Crossing the centerline is usually 0 result of opexing too early in (] blind turn. Wandering drivers are on important reason to enter turns from the outside of your lane. where opposing drivers tend to wander over, make a fist with your right hand, and bonk yourself in the forehead while shouting No! No! You don't ever want to put your hike in that location. BLIND CORNER OUTSIDE Avoiding thaI no-no area and entering a turn from the outside olso improves your view through the corner. As it happens, avoiding that no-no area also improves your view through blind turns. The farther you are toward the outside of your lane as you enter a turn, the more you can see of what's coming, whether that's a Wandering Willie, a wild bull elk, or a patch of loose gravel. It's important to maximize your view, whether you intend to putt along and stay out of the way or attempt to increase your velocity. Remember, a longer sight distance enables a higher corner entry speed, if that's what you're looking for. Out in the country, those right-hand turns present some special problems. The view is more limited than that of a left-hander of the same curvature, and there is a natural tendency to get a target fixation on the inside edge of the pavement, which tends to steer the bike too close to the inside too early. Come to think of it, that's why Willie ended up crossing the centerline two-thirds of the way around, right? Once we allow ourselves to enter a turn pointed toward the inside, it gets awfully difficult to avoid drifting wide a couple seconds later as we pass the road apex. The smart tactic for staying in your lane is to enter right turns from close to the road centerline. That provides the best view around the corner, which increases sight distance, and puts the bike on a better line to exit the turn without sneaking over the centerline. It may sound like a paradox, but entering the turn from the outside allows you to lean the bike later but get the turn over sooner. And this becomes an advantage because you can do the hardest leaning on pavement you can see better. Even if you in the distance will be hardcan see all the way around the corner, surface hazr~s er to recognize. And if you can't see the surface all the way around, it's smarter to spend your cornering traction early. If there are surface hazards around a blind corner, you'll encounter them with the bike in a more vertical position and with more traction available for avoidance maneuvers. And what if an oncoming vehicle crosses the centerline? Entering wide gives you the best view of what's coming. If you see a vehicle wandering on the approach, you can reduce speed further, turn tighter, and duck toward the inside to stay out of the way. One way to think of this is by mentally sliding the apex a little farther around the corner than you think the road apex actually is. To reach the delayed apex, you have to enter the turn on a wider line. A different way of thinking about this is to imagine an entry window out by the centerline through which your tires must pass. I• ENTRY WINDOW.f/J ,,, I , I I: \ DELAYED I APEX , LINE \ \ \ \ \ FAST LINE \ \ your lane cornering, avoid the fast line and concentrate on a delayed apex you the best view of the lurn, and puts the bike on a better line. AY~idlng th~ ~Ite Avoiding crashes while riding the twisties is not just a matter of motoring slowly down the center of your lane and waiting nervously to take evasive action. The best bite remedy is to practice smart cornering habits. If you think about all line the points I've mentioned, you'll see a pattern emerge. The same wide-entry , that keeps you out of the no-no zone and provides a better view during left-handers is the mirror image of the wide-entry line into right-handers that gives you the best view, helps avoid crossing the centerline, and maximizes traction. Next time you're out on the back roads, practice that delayed-apex line, and from time to time evaluate your speed habits with a quick sight-distance time hack. Don't be overcautious about using those big brakes to scrub off speed right away when sight distance suddenly closes up. That one little tactic might have saved Norman's and Christine's lives in Boulder Canyon in August 1998. I-I()\/\( Far Aloe Y()U l-Ial1gil1g It ()ut'! I don't know how you learned to ride a motorcycle, but r taught myself. Back in the mid-sixties, myoId buddy Ricochet Red had started commuting to work on a Honda 90 and quicldy graduated to a big Honda 160. I tried Red's 160 and immediately saw the potential for beating automobile traffic on and off the Seattle ferry. Within a week, I fouud a clean used Suzuki 150 twin for $300. Of course there weren't many training courses around in the sixties. Red gave me a half-hour lesson behind the grade school one Saturday afternoon. Monday morning I climbed on the Suzuki and zipped off into rush-hour traffic. It rained that very first day, and I remember squish-squishing around the office as I mulled over the implications of tramc and weather. That was the start of my motorcycle education. Of course there were people around the office who clucked their tongues at my foolishness. Everyone knew motorcycles were dangerous, and riding a motorcycle to work in heavy traffic had to be high-risk foolishness. There were snide remarks and stupid jokes. One coworker even approached me, gripped my shoulder with fatherly sincerity, and offered the opinion, I sure wouldn't want my son to ride one of those things. When I arrived at the ophthalmologist carrying my helmet, the doctor gave me a 20-minute lecture on the hazards of riding motorcycles and a 5-minute eye exam. I wouldn't admit it to anyone at the time, but that barrage of antimotorcycle flak caused me to have some serious doubts about motorcycling. I had a wife, two children, and a mortgage. And I sure didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I recall one day toward the end of the second week when I nearly gave it up. I'd strapped my lunch box to the back of the bike, put on my helmet, and prepared to start the engine, but I was a little reluctant to get rolling. Factory traffic is notoriously aggressive at shift change. T sat on the bike for a long time in the corner of the parking lot, watching cars wedge into the stream and trying to control my rising panic. Eventually, I forced myself to get on the bike and ride home. And I'm still riding. Over the next thirty years, I gradually learned some important lessons about motorcycling. The first lesson was that my coworkers and my ophthalmologist didn't know diddly about motorcycling or motorcycle safety. Looking back, T have to agree that the basic concern of my colleagues was probably realistic. A lot of people have been messed up in motorcycle crashes, and new riders are particularly vulnerable. But what neither my associates nor I understood at the time is that the risks of motorcycling vary significantly from individual to individual. One rider may have a serious accident soon after taking up motorcycling. Another rider may survive years and years without having a single crash. Is it just a matter of chance that one rider suffers an accident while another rider avoids crashing? Is swinging a leg over a motorcycle just a two-wheeled form of Russian roulette? I don't think so. During the years I've been riding, writing, and teaching, quite a pile of statistics has been collected, and several important accident studies have been done. We don't have nearly as much data available as we'd like, but we have a much better idea of the risks now than anyone had back in the sixties. Yes, we understand the discomfort of bringing the risks out in the open and talking about them. After all, part of the thrill of motorcycling is challenging the odds. We ride motorcycles partly because they are more dangerous than other vehicles. Now we can be pretty vociferous about nasty crashes once we have survived them. But we're pretty tight-lipped about our individual potential for crashes that are still out in the future, especially if our relatives, coworkers, or doctors are asking tough questions. Perhaps not talking about the risks will hold them at bay. Maybe talking about risks is inviting the odds to strike. Or maybe we just don't know enough about managing the risks to know how far we're hanging it out. Road racers understand the need for crash padding because they intend to ride at 99 percent of their limits, and they know how easy it is to punch through the envelope. But the street rider may also be riding at 99 percent of the risk envelope entering a busy intersection. If that's the case, then why doesn't the street rider wear abrasion and impact resistant riding gear? Let's take a short, fast ride through risk territory. I'll give you a little quiz at the end to help you see how you're doing. If you ride primarily in city traffic, your specific risks are probably defined fairly well by the "Hurt Report" (Volume I: Technical Report, Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures, January, 1981-Final Report conducted by the Traffic Safety Center of the University of Southern California). The Hurt Report is the only reliable motorcycle accident research ever conducted in the U.S. Unfortunately, more current statistics do not exist. The USC team, lead by Dr. Harry Hurt, investigated 1,100 motorcycle accidents that occurred in the area of the city of Los Angeles over a two-year period and analyzed 900 of those accidents for the report. That study is approaching retirement age, but we suspect that the same sort of accidents occur the same way in any other city even today. So let's take a look at some Hurt Report results. MULTIVEHICLE (COLLISIONS) SINGLE VEHICLE ~ 74% OTHER 18% 26% RIDER ERROR 17% ;' ~/ ;' /- SURFACE HAZARDS 2% ..... --\ ANIMALS, BLOWOUTS, ETC. 6% ANGLE COLLISIONS 29% LEFT-TURNERS 28% DATA BASED ON THE HURT REPORT The majority of motorcycle accidents aren't riders exceeding the limits of traction and sliding off into the weeds, but rather they're collisions with other vehicles, mostly automobiles. About 26 percent of urban motorcycle accidents are single vehicle accidents, as when a bike slides out on gravel in a corner. But 74 percent are multiple vehicle accidents, including at least one vehicle colliding with another. The important point of tllis big picture is that almost three-fourths of urban motorcycle crashes are collisions. And roughly half of those motorcycle crashes are precipitated by auto drivers. About a fourth of all city motorcycle accidents are collisions with left-turning cars. The two most common errors motorcyclists make are believing the other driver sees tllem and not taking any evasive action. For example, 32 percent of accident victims rode into a collision without doing anything. If you ride around in city traffic, it is important to know where collisions occur, what they look like, and the correct evasive action to get out of the way. The Experienced RiderCourse (ERC) offered at motorcycle training sites can help you develop such skills. If you haven't taken the ERC recently, you may have missed some important accident avoidance strategies. About one-fourth of all motorcycle accidents in the Hurt Report were precipitated by rider error. For example, tbe motorcyclist goes wide in a turn and sideswipes a car or overcooks the rear brake trying to stop and then slides out. We might suspect that such riders don't really understand how to control tbeir motorcycles. So that's probably a good hint that we ought to study our control skills. In the meantime, let's consider the experience and licensing status of riders involved in crashes. In the following table, 1.0 indicates the average of those studied. Numbers higher than 1.0 indicate a greater than average accident involvement. Those statistics hint that riders with no license, a revoked license, or only an auto license are about twice as likely to be involved in a motorcycle accident as those with a permit, and three times as risky as a licensed motorcyclist. Now, it should be obvious that just getting a piece of cardboard doesn't change a rider's skill. We might suspect that the different odds are a result of better skills, more experience, or perhaps a different mental attitude. Let's consider risk in relation to riding experience. Does your risk go down as you gain experience? Tn the following table, 1.0 would be average. The numbers hint that a rider with less than six month's experience is almost twice as likely to have an accident as the rider with more than four year's. We would expect that. The shocker is that the rider with two to three year's experience is even more likely to crash than the new kid. The lesson here is that riders tend to get cocky as they think they have leamed it all-about two years into the leaming curve. What about training? Did Ricochet Red do me a favor giving me that riding lesson in the schoolyard? I guess Red did me a favor by limiting his advice to a half-hour. Apparently, riders taught by friends or family are about a third more likely to crash than those who teach themselves. But the smart ones who took a rider training class were half as likely to crash as we do-it-yourself types. Since the Hurt Report took place at just about the same time as the Motorcycle Safety Foundation came into existence, it would be interesting to have current statistics. Obviously, a lot more riders are getting professional training these days, and we can see that the motorcycle accident and fatality numbers are gradually decreasing. There's no proof that training is what's bringing down the statistics, but we believe there is a connection. ~oze It isn't a popular subject to discuss at motorcycle rallies or biker bars, but too many motorcyclists have a serious problem with alcohol. I'm not just talking an innocently sober rider getting squished by a drunk driver, I'm talking about a motorcyclist riding while under the innuence and crashing into something. For comparison, let's consider the alcohol and drug involvement of riders who survive accidents: There seems to be a direct link between alcohol or drug consumption and fatal motorcycle accidents. Roughly half of all motorcycle fatalities involve a rider under the int1uence of alcohol or drugs, mostly alcohol. One big reason for motorcycle accident fatalities is crash speed. The greater the speed, the greater the injuries when the crash happens. And riders who have alcohol in the brain are much more likely to ride faster than their sober speed, even if they are not legally intoxicated. In the Hurt Report, 41 percent of riders who didn't survive crashes had some alcohol or drug involvement. What's the message here? Well, the bottom line is that around 10 percent of motorcyclists involved in accidents have been drinking, but drinking riders represent over 40 percent of all motorcycle fatalities. If you allow yourself to ride a motorcycle after you've been drinking, even after just a few beers, you're really hanging it out. I~ig l~n(eS VS~ S~na i~lI(es Periodically, we hear suggestions for limiting the power of motorcycles. States with tiered license categories based on displacement assume that big, powerful bikes are potentially more hazardous than small bikes. The insurance industry frequently attempts to show that powerful race-style motorcycles are overrepresented in accidents. Are bikes with hig engines more likely to he involved in crashes? Well, according to the Hurt Report statistics, larger machines are less likely to be involved in accidents than smaller motorcycles if you factor in the numbers of machines on the road. Part of the reason may be that riders move up to larger motorcycles as they gain experience and perhaps have learned some valuable lessons in traffic survival along the way. But remember that the Hurt Report statistics are primarily about urban riding. A lot of us live in the country or do much of our serious riding on roads far from the city. Back in the early 1980s, Road Rider magazine did a survey to come to grips with the sort of accidents readers had actually experienced, whether reported or not. Of course, the Road Rider survey wasn't nearly as sophisticated as the Hurt Report, but the responses were spread over the entire U.S. Among accidents reported to the authorities, Road Rider readers indicated approximately twice as many single vehicle accidents most notably due to surface hazards and wild animals. The Hurt Report shows 26 percent of all accidents are single vehicle. The Road Rider survey indicated 45 percent were single vehicle accidents. That would make sense, since many of those accidents were out in the country, away from a major city. The Road Rider accident survey brought something else to our attention. A lot of motorcycle accidents don't get reported. Let's say someone slides out on loose gravel and smashes his or her bike into a ditch. If no one calls the police, MULTIVEHICLE (COLLISION) OTHER ANGLE COLLISIONS 28% SINGLE VEHICLE 45% RIDER ERROR 15% /' /,"'/' /' ./ SURFACE HAZARDS 15% LEFT·TURNERS 24%, ROAD RIDER SURVEY RESULTS (BASED ON REPORTED ACCIDENTS ONLY) the rider is still mobile enough to ride, and the damaged bike can either be ridden home or hauled home in a friend's truck, the accident doesn't get reported. When we included both reported and unreported accidents from the Road Rider survey, the numbers came out quite differently from the Hurt Report. Singlevehicle accidents accounted for 66 percent of the total accidents, reported and unreported. MULTIVEHICLE (COLLISIONS) HEAD-ON FRON SIDESWIPE ,REA:.1,----. 4% \ 3% 34% \ \ \ \ MERGING \ \ CROSS-TRAFFIC\ \ 13% \ \ -_ -- ---- ~ 86% LOOSE DEBRIS, SAND GRAVEL lS% "" ",,/ EDGE TRAPS 4% LEFT-TURNERS 14% I I DRUGS, PHANTOM I VEHICLES, ETC. 8o/z.( /' /' II I TIRE FAILURES, ETC. 6% I ~ ? --- II \ II I I I I "" ~ --/' ./---- SLICK \1 \\ SINGLE n/) VEHICLE SURFACES, OIL, WATER, FUEL _ - - - 10% \\ ---_ \ \ ANIMAL STRIKES 10% CORNERING\\ ERRORS 13% ~- ROAD RIDER SURVEY RESULTS (BASED ON ALL ACCIDENTS) Note that the Road Rider survey hinted at more single-vehicle accidents, and a much higher percentage of these were caused by surface hazards, animal strikes, and cornering errors than the Hurt Report indicated. That would make sense because outside of cities, we would expect a higher percentage of those types of accidents. The point is you can get hurt just as badly in an unreported, single-vehicle accident as in a collision. And while the Road Rider survey isn't one of those huge, government-funded, university projects, we think it hints that motorcyclists face a somewhat different mix of hazards than the Hurt Report showed. That's why I will get a lot deeper into hazards such as edge traps and wild deer than the typical rider training course includes. Even with the best of licensing, training, and skills, some accidents simply are unavoidable. For example, a wild deer suddenly jumps out of the shadows and knocks you off your bike, or an oncoming coal truck swerves over the centerline in a blind corner, forcing you off the road. When you get your chance to crash one of these days, you'll be hitting the landscape in whatever gear you typically wear. Knee, elbow, and shoulder armor cushions the blows and protects your skin from the pavement. Leg and arm injuries can be painful, but chest and head injuries are more likely to be critical or fatal. That's why some riders wear a spine protector as well as knee and elbow armor. A helmet is designed to pad the brain, but it also can provide facial protection. According to a German study by 0.4% -------, 1.8% \ ----- .. -.-... -~ ,... '" 6.5% 5.7% ..-...... __.--0.4% .'_ __ ,..-' 'L.._---:'/.. , fr-_~ -----------.. 1"2.1% \ 19.4% ... ..... f 15.2% ,• 6.4% r------------- ! 1.9% DISTRIBUTION OF IMPACT LOCATIONS ON MOTORCYCLE HELMETS, ALL COLLISIONS BASED ON A STUDY BY DIETMAR OTTE. Dietmar OUe and GUnter Felton that was published in The Proceedings of the 1991 International Motorcycle Conference, the majority of helmet strikes in accidents are to the left and right chin areas. You need to remember these points every time you fire up the engine to go for a ride. Thne Qu~:z Okay, now that I've rambled through a few of the statistics, put on your thickest skin and tally up your personal score. The numbers are weighted in an approxiAdd Subtract mate relationship to the statistics. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. ~ 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Have motorcycle license Commercial driving license Learner's permit, no license License revoked No motorcycle license Less than six month's experience Twenty-five to thirty-six month's experience More than forty-eight month's experience Taught by friends or family Self-taught Passed Motorcycle RiderCourse Passed Experienced RiderCourse No training within last five years Sometimes ride after drinking Never ride after drinking Often ride in city traffic Mostly ride 250 to 500cc Mostly ride 750cc or larger Can name twenty common surface hazards thRvk1 L H~)Jgh 10 5 2 10 10 2 5 8 2 2 10 10 5 20 20 5 2 2 5 Add 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. ~iey Know technique to cross edge traps Practiced quick stops this year Not practiced quick stops this year Frequently use countersteering Don't understand countersteering Rider age under twenty-seven Rider age over forty Always wear armored riding gear Usually wear only denims Always wear approved helmet Seldom wear approved helmet It's Subtract 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Subje~tlv Sure, sure, we 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 we stacked up, go back through the statistics and write your own quiz. With our quiz, a total score of 80 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. Wherever you are on the risk scale, I'll be offering some suggestions about managing the risks. Fixing the ()dds All right, we've looked at an accident, reviewed some motorcycle accident statistics, and offered a little quiz to help you get some perspective on your relative risk. We recognize 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 suspect of accident studies that look only at how and why people crashed. Rider training con benefit olmost all riders in one way or another. 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 hased on accidents give us hints ahout what not to do, hut they don't tell us what successful riders do to avoid crashing. The traditional approach to ahsorbing a helmet full of the right stuff 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 MeN editors were picking up a test motorcycle for a photo shoot. Mostly, they were 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 hetween the ears is even more important hecause that's where we decide what to tell our muscles. Novices start out with the physical skills of mastering the clutch, throttle, hrakes, and halance. 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. Formal rider training courses can give you a big dose of information all at once. But you can also gain a lot of information from motorcycle magazines and hooks. A year's worth of monthly reading adds up to a hig dose of information to help stack the motorcycling risk deck in your favor. A lot of motorcyclists miss out simply hecause they don't take the time to read what's availahle. The tronhle with knowledge is that it's 'a lot like French bread-it doesn't stay fresh very long. A nnmher 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 hy now, but that's not the way it works. They are still around hecause they contin\HHo refresh their knowledge. If you've found time to take the MSF Experiencet}·RiderCourse, you've skewed the odds even more in your favor. The one-day ERC 'includes hoth accident avoidance strategies for the hrain, and skill exercises for the muscles. I've humped into a lot of veteran riders who take the ERC every couple of years as a refresher. If you haven't gotten around to taking any rider training, I strongly suggest you make that a high priority. The track schools are useful for learning motorcycle control skills or for getting in some track time, but to hone your accident avoidance skills for public roads, the ERe gets to the basic techniques. Now aud then you'll exit a restauraut to find someone circling your machine. He or she will be a little wide-eyed and irrational, perhaps drooling at the mouth. When you hear the typical questions about fuel mileage and engine size, you know you're talking to someone infected with the motorcycle hug. Do the novice a favor by pointing him or her toward the nearest rider training course, where motorcycling can be tried out under the guidance of a trained instructor. Bikes are provided for those who don't own one. If the novice decides to become a motorcyclist, that initial training provides a good fonndation for gaining experience. And if that new rider is a relative or friend, all the more reason to send him or her to the local training site rather than act as a teacher yourself. I:mel'~y l~ea(:t)i1S F()liml\f ~iablts One of the important lessons I've learned is that in au emergency, actions follow habits. Riding through the high desert of eastern Oregon one night, two eyes alongside the road snddenly reflected back the headlight heam. I rolled off the throttle and squeezed the brake lever gently. This is deer country, and the reliable tactic for avoiding a deer strike is to stop short of a collision. Those shining eyes were too low to the ground to be a deer, but whether a deer, raccoon, or skunk, I didn't want to hit it. When the uitiml moment presents itself, chances are your reaction will follow your habits. If you expect to have the right skills in a crisis, you must practice the right techniques every time you ride. When the reflecting eyes suddenly darted toward the pavement, my hand sqneezed the hrake lever, the BMW transferred its weight onto the front tire, and my hand squeezed even harder, braking the front wheel to the maximum jnst short of a skid. Twenty feet from impact, the headlight beam illuminated a very large porcupine bobbling out toward the centerline, then changing its mind, malting a Utum, and scrambling back toward the verge. As Porky amhled off the pavement, my haud eased off the brake, the suspension stabilized, aud I rolled back on the throttle. What amazes me still, is that Tdon't recall any decision to brake barel. My right hand just produced a classic quick stop, as if it had been controlled by some animal-sensing device programmed to cover the lever and then make a stop in the shortest distance without falling down. Of course, we all carry such a device. It's located on the bike somewhere between our ears. In an emergency, the brain follows whatever programs have been leamed through practice. If you always favor the front brake for normal stops, and you have experienced enough power stops to know what an impending skid feels like, your brain has a quick-stop program available for emergencies. The moral of that story is that we must constantly practice the right skills if we expect to use them in a pinch. If you expect to be able to handle the loose gravel or the wandering motorist you discover as you round a blind turn, you must practice control skills such as rolling on the throttle in curves, countersteering, and maximum-effort stops, as well as choosing cornering lines that maximize traction. To put this another way, there aren't really any emergency maneuvers you can pull out of your bag of tricks when something goes wrong. There are only proficient control skills you can practice every day as you ride along. And, if we assume there are physical habits to be practiced, then there must also be proficient mental skills that we must practice so that they become habits. I~(»oby Tn:R~JS The roadways are full of booby traps just waiting to spring shut on the unwary motorcyclist. Road sUlfaces have potholes, bumps, loose gravel, edge traps, grated bridge decks, shiny steel plates, slick plastic arrows, and spilled diesel oil. Streets may ascend or descend hills right where the railroad tracks cross the pavement. That curve ahead may be the one that tightens up and slants the wrong way halfway around, just beyond your line of sight. That intersection ahead may have offset lanes or a spoke of three or five streets. Freeway lanes may disappear with no warning. Road signs may be placed just far enough from the intersection to mislead a visitor. The roadways ore full of booby traps just waiting to spring out on the unwary motorcyclist. A critical stop sign may be covered by untrimmed bushes or painted on the road surface where it is obscured by the glare of the morning sun. Veteran riders allow for such booby traps. They have become veterans by riding a little more conservatively than their personal limits; scrutinizing the situation far ahead; taking a second look at strange happenings; and avoiding sudden, impulsive moves. Swerving across three lanes of traffic to get to your turnoff is a clue that your motorcycle is traveling faster than your awareness of the situation. Sudden darting maneuvers don't leave you the extra observation time, additional space, or reserve traction needed to negotiate whatever booby traps you're likely to encounter. Lilcewise, experienced riders don't snuggle up to the back bumpers of other vehicles at stop signs because once in a while the driver ahead accidentally selects Reverse instead of Drive when the light turns green, or tbere may be an open manhole hidden from view just up ahead. Part of your motorcycle education should include the motorcycle itself. If you believe the Hurt Report, only a small percentage of accidents are caused by defects in tbe machine. Of course, it may be that on long-distance trips away from tbe city there are more frequent accidents caused by motorcycle defects. But, whatever the actual statistics, if you happen to have a blowout on your bike while zipping down the superslab, your tire failure statistics will be 100 percent. Tires provide the critical connection between motorcycle and road surface, yet many motorcyclists don't keep their tires pumped up to correct pressure, and many wait too long to replace worn tires. If you find yourself asking any of the following questions, the answer is always the same: Yes. Should I check the rear tire pressure before the ride? Should I increase pressure when carrying a heavier load? Should I replace that worn tire before the trip? Should I buy the more expensive tire just for a little more traction? Should T replace that tire just because of a little sidewall cracking? No one else is going to be os interested in the condition of your machine os you ore. There are a few other mechanical details that you should take care of before a ride. Hydraulic brake systems should be flushed every couple of years or annually in humid climates. Brake pads get hard with age. Worn brake pads should be replaced long before metal screeches on metal. Electrical problems should be traced down and fixed, especially those relating to lights. Critical fasteners such as fork tube clamps, axle bolts, and suspension connectors should be checked for tightness. You don't have to get your hands greasy yourself, but at least take an active interest in the condition of your motorcycle. Don't expect a mechanic back at the shop to keep everything in perfect condition without frequent checks. The bottom line is that no one else is going to be as interested in your machine as you are. One of these days you will get your turn to crash and tryout your body armor. But even if you don't get to crash, your riding gear has a lot to do with your ability to control a bike. I'll leave it up to your imagination how I know this, but a couple of yellow jackets dropping into your boot takes a lot of attention away from the task of keeping your motorcycle pointed between the lines. A sunburned neck can make it too painful to turn your head to find that car hidden in your blind spot. A bouncing stone cracking into your shin can distract you from the leftturning car ahead. Riding gear is more than just uncomfortable body armor worn reluctantly day after day just in case today happens to be yonr tnrn to crash. A good riding jacket protects against wind, heat, and cold. A good helmet insnlates the head from wind, sun, and cold rain; and a shatterproof face shield also keeps your face from getting chapped. Leather gloves not only protect your palms from road rash during a spill but also keep your knuckles from getting burned by wind and sun, and help your fingers avoid blisters. Tall leather boots provide ankle support as well as protection from a hot exhaust pipe or nasty biting insects. But if today does happen to be your turn to crash, it's handy if your gear also provides impact and abrasion protection. Competition-weight leather slides for something like 80 to 100 feet on rough concrete before it If today is going to be your lurn to crosh, whot do you want between your body Dnd the pavement? grinds through to your underwear. Cotton denim rips to shreds in about 5 feet. Fabric riding suits with armored patches can be almost as abrasion resistant as leather, and a lot easier to clean after a few days under a broiling sun. Of course, we can adjust our gear to the riding conditions. The more hazardous the situation, the greater the need for good stuff. When I'm making a nighttime transit through deer country on my two-wheeled rocket, I'm inclined to wear my leathers. When I'm driving the sidecar rig, I usually wear a two-piece fabric riding suit. The ultimate purpose of a helmet is to prevent brain injuries during an accident. You can crack your skull and survive, but scrambled brains will bring you to a permanent halt. One really important reason for protecting your brain is that the brain doesn't heal itself like other body tissue. If you bang your head hard enough to black out for a few seconds, you've injured your brain. And a concussion cau turn into epilepsy a year or two down the road. So, if you intend to get back in the saddle after the big crash, consider the importance of keeping brain injuries to a minimum. Even a $50 helmet that's DOT approved can provide excellent protection because it's the crushable foam inside that protects the brain, not the outer shell. h:ientifl' Yourself Consider why a blind man canies a cane painted white. Why not a black cane? The color of the cane isn't for the blind man, it's to warn sighted folks that the man with the cane has a visual handicap. The same principle applies to motorcyclists. Novice riders who haven't yet learned to figure out what's happening around them on the street might be wise to warn others of their handicap. In England, learners must carry a learner plate, a large white rectangular plate with a red L on it. If you are still going through your novice phase of motorcycling, say your first three years or 20,000 street miles, there is good reason to wear conspicuous riding gear such as a reflective vest. You can't prevent other drivers from running into you, but you can at least make yourself conspicuous enough to give them a chance to see you coming while you're learning how to get out of the way. If you are just learning to ride, it's smart 10 wear conspicuous riding gear such as (1 bright, refledive vest. CHAPTER --------\"'hat l \ ~- ~ !? . \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ . INCREASED TRAIL DECREASED TRAIL BUMP When the front wheel rolls over a bump, trail can decrease or increase. Th'e Cm'()ss e"pl'(:»flle") Se(~tlo1 With a wide, low-profile tire cross section, the CP shifts farther sideways than a narrow, round section tire, for the same lean angle. And the farther out the CP, the greater its off-center drag. The CPs of both front and rear tires shift laterally as the bike leans over, so tbe sizes and profiles of front and rear tires ROUND SECTION TIRE CP CP LATERAL SHIFT LOWPROFILE TIRE CP CP LATERAL SHIFT Alow-profile tire experiences greater laferal shift of the CP than 0 round section tire when leaned over. are interrelated. That's one reason changing tires to different profiles or changing just one tire to a different size or profile can change steering geometry, for better or worse. Self~a&u!'g With carefully selected rake, trail, and tire profiles, a machine can have selfbalancing dynamics, whether moving upright and straight ahead or leaned over into a curve, and whether at fast or slow speeds. The point 1 don't want you to miss is that the front-end geometry is designed to counterstecr itself into a straight line. If the bike leans over to the right, the CP shifts farther right, causing the front wheel to steer itself slightly tighter toward the right, countersteering the bike back toward vertical. As the machine returns to vertical, gravity, steering head position, and CPs all balance again. This is a delicate balance, and sometimes the engineers have to walk a tightrope between low effort (flickable) cornering and bad manners such as sudden unexpected tucking, uncontrollable oscillations (speed wobbles), or falling into turns at slower speeds. STARTS TO _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ FALL OVER I CONTACT PATCH STEERED \, BALANCED AGAIN The bike is balanced by steering the (ontact patch under the center of gravity. If you watch a motorcycle cruising down the superslab, you'd swear it follows an absolutely perfect straight line. But if you could measure accurately, you'd discover that it rolls ever so slightly from one side to the other as it balances itself, sort of like a clock pendulum. This self-balancing act is more obvious at slower speeds because the front tire requires more steering input at slower speeds than at higher speeds to get the same effect. If you were to ride your bike slowly through a puddle of white paint, and then go back and look at the tire tracks, you would see that the front tire sometimes tracks to CM",i r&.f, , ! The front wheel makes a snake trock (IS front-end geometry continuously restores balance. the left and sometimes to the right. In other words, the front tire rolls along in a snakelike track as the bike continuously rebalances itself or as the rider makes small corrections. (~ln's:opc £:md ~i'Utal Stability Two big contributors to straight-ahead stability are the inertial effect of the motorcycle/rider mass, and the gyroscopic forces generated by the spinning wheels. Perhaps the best way to think of inertia is that objects "want" to keep on doing whatever they are doing. Kick a brick sitting on the ground, and you'll discover it doesn't want to move. Throw the brick, and it's obvious it wants to keep moving, at the same speed and in the same direction. Putting a name to this "wanting" is tricky. The popular unscientitic term is momentum. The correct name for this property of matter is inertia, but if we start to add vectors and measurements of force, we need to start calling it kinetic energy, To avoid a war over definitions, I usually call itforward energy. A motorcycle, once up to speed, wants to keep rolling along straight ahead. Forward energy contributes to straight-ahead stability by pulling the motorcycle's mass back toward center and by providing a resistance against which the tires can react. For example, if the front of the motorcycle is steered away tfom center, forward energy attempts to pull it back toward a straight line again. The wheels of a motorcycle also contribute to stability, but in a different way, Spinning wheels generate gyroscopic energy that resists lateral shifts or leaning, A spinning gyroscope wants to stay spinning at the same angle. Basically, forward energy helps keep the motorcycle pointed straight ahead, and the gyroscopic effect of the wheels helps keep the motorcycle from falling over or lurching sideways. One of the interesting characteristics of gyroscopes is gyroscopic precession. What that fancy term means is that if you hold a spinning motorcycle wheel vertically by the axles and tum it toward the left, the wheel wants to lean over toward the right. Since this seems to correspond to what happens when a motorcycle is leaned into a tum, many people are fooled into believing that gyroscopic precession is the FORWARD ENI,RG,y dominant force that causes a motorcycle to lean into turns. It's a nice, simple theory, but it turns out to be a fable. First, the demonstration suggested is applicable only if you suspend the wheel off the ground, as when a motorcycle is doing a wheelie. Second, when the motorcycle tire is in rolling contact with the road surface, tire traction enters the equation, and traction can produce stronger forces than precession. Third, the front wheel is connected to the rear "gyroscope" via the motorcycle frame. And fourth, there have been experiments that demonstrate that a two-wheeler can be balanced with a very low mass front wheel. Regardless of what makes it happen, you can trust that countersteering will cause the bike to lean. Part of the confusion over motorcycle balancing and steering is that different machines handle differently and give different feedback to the rider. Ideally, if a rider eases pressure on the grips, the motorcycle should settle into a straightahead path. If the motorcycle is leaned over into a turn, releasing pressure on the low grip should allow the machine to gradually Even if the front wheel fracks off on a tangent, forward energy attempts to pull the bike bock into a straight line again. lift itself up and return to a stable, vertical attitude again. We call tltis neutral steering. By comparison, some motorcycles have a tendency to fall into turns at slower speeds. With such machines, you can initiate a right tum by pushing on the right grip, but once the bike starts to lean, it just wants to keep on falling over. The rider may not appreciate what's happening, but once the bike is leaned over, it is necessary to maintain a pull on the low grip to keep the bike from falling. So, the technique to control lean angle is to push on the grip to make it lean, then pull on the low grip to maintain the lean angle. That can be confusing to the rider who doesn't understand what's happening. (~ent!' ()f (~ravlty When you hear someone attributing a motorcycle's good or bad manners to the elevation of its center of gravity (CO), remember that it's mostly steering geometry that makes a machine feel sluggish or top heavy in turns. Certainly, a cruiser that's built low to the ground will have a lower CO. But some cruisers with a low CO have heavy steering. And there are tall dual sportbikes with the engine mass up in the stratosphere but with flickable manners. Next time you hear of a bike that's described as being top heavy or having a high center of gravity, check the rake/trail numbers and consider the sizes and profiles of the tires. And if your favorite machine has some strange cornering habits, be aware that you can do some fine-tuning by changing tire diameters and profiles. ~3()dy l:ilgUsh Remember Wobbling Willie, who can't seem to control the balance of his big road burner by slamming his knees against the tank? It worked fine with Willie's little 250, but it doesn't work with his heavier 1500cc touring bike, Sure, body English can cause a bike to change direction. But the result you get from throwing your weight around depends to a great extent on the relationship of your weight to the weight of the bike. The heavier the bike, the more it's inertial and gyroscopic stability. For instance, slam your lmee into the tank on a contemporary 250 lightweight, and it will head off in a new direction. Slam your knee against the tank of a 1500cc tourer, and it may wobble once or twice and then straighten right back up on its original path. With the larger machine, Willie needs to focus more on conntersteering and less on body English. The next time you are out riding, think about what you're doing to control balance and direction. Are you sitting rock-solid in the saddle and just resting your boots on the pegs? Are you pushing or pulling on the grips? Are you shifting your butt? Are you shifting weight from one footpeg to the other? In a turn, do you place more weigbt on the inside or the outside peg? Are you pushing or pulling on the low grip? I'm not offering any correct answers here, just pointing out that part of becoming a proficient motorcyclist is figuring out what it takes to control your machine, and what your machine is trying to tell you. \Nhat IVlal(es It Turn'! In the previous section, I discussed a number of factors that cause a motorcycle to balance itself and what a rider can do to help. Now, let's consider what we do to make a motorcycle turn. I'll try to keep the concept of turning as understandable as possible, while still giving you the information you need to achieve better control of your motorcycle. As I've already pointed out, a well-engineered motorcycle wants to go straight. The front-end geometry automatically steers straight ahead and vertically, while forward energy and gyroscopic forces help stabilize the bike. To get a two-wheeler to turn, we need to get it leaned over. So turning really is a process of unbalancing the bike to get it leaned over, then rebalancing it in a curving path. I. RIDER INITIATES RIGHT TURN BY One of the big differences between how motorcycles and automobiles turn is that a motorcycle must first be leaned over before it starts to turn. An automobile starts to turn as soon as you yank on the steering wheel. The same is true for a trike or sidecar oulnt or any other multitrack vehicle. But two-wheelers are different. Even with a flickable sportbike, it may take a full second to get the bike leaned over before it actually starts to change direction. And with a heavyweight tourer, that initiallean may require more than one second. A lot of arm waving and heated discussion has talcen place around campfires about how we really cause motorcycles to turn. The discussions always get around to countersteering, but there are often disagreements on what we really mean by countersteering, and exactly what the forces are that make it work. Let's see if r can clear up some of the mystery. PUSHING ON RIGHT GRIP; FRONT WHEEL POINTS LEFT The ~:»nes (ountersteering is ius! the first step in the leaning/{Ornering process. and (:~m'iuIng Leaning can be initiated by a number of different factors, including road camber, crosswind, rider's body English, and steering the handlebars. The most powerful factor in leaning is steering the handlebars, so I'll focus on that. Experienced riders usually refer to a rider's steering input as countersteering because the handlebars are steered opposite, or counter, to the intended lean. Push on the right grip to lean right; push on the left grip to lean left. That's where some of the confusion starts because leaning and cornering is really a process of several steps, while countersteering is just the first step in the process. The process all happens within a couple of seconds, so let's slow down ON GRIP; the action and go through it step-by-step. I'll FR~TEL illustrate this leaning and cornering process from the front, and exaggerate the graphic a bit so you can understand what the front end is doing. Countersteering initiates the lean required for a motorcycle to begin turning. From the saddle, it may appear that the front wheel continues in a straight line while the top of the bike leans over, but what really happens is that the bike and rider lean around the center of mass. The rider steers the front wheel off on a slight tangent, which shifts the contact patch away from the turn. That forces the top of the bike to lean toward the turn. 2. FRONT WHEEL TRACKS LEFT; BIKE ROLLS RIGHT 4. RIDER CONTROLS LEAN ANGLE BY COUNTERSTEERING tecU'~I1j For example, pushing on the right grip steers the front wheel off more toward the left, which forces the bike (0 lean toward the right. If you have been practicing countersteering for a while, it may seem as if you just nndge on the grip and hold it. But it should be obvious that if the tront wheel continues to track off on a tangent, the bike will continue to lean over until it slams into the ground. So when the bike leans over far enough to achieve the tum you have in mind, you ease pressure on the grips enough to allow the front end to steer itself back toward center. Now that the bike is leaned over, it starts to turn. Tire traction is actually pushing against the road surface to force the front end into a curving path. The front wheel is pointed slightly toward the direction of turn, and the rider applies just enough steering input to keep the bike leaning and turning. Of course, the bike wants to return to a straight line. We usually refer to that as centrifugal Jorce. If you were to tie a connecting rod on the end of a string and swing it around your head, you could think of the outward pull on the orbiting rod as centrifugal force and the string as the front tire. With the hike leaned over, gravity is pulling strongly on the turn side, so you can balance centrifugal force against gravity. You can adjust the lean angle by additional small countersteering inputs, if needed. 1::lI!'u»i1 Stel'h1~j If you've never heard of countersteering before, or if you haven't figured it out yet, you should probably start by experimenting with the concept of push steering. The simplest way to describe countersteering is to explain that you push on the right grip to turn the bike right, push on the left grip to turn it lett. Take your bike out for a spin, get up to 35 mph or so on a straight, vacant road, and consciously push lightlyon the left grip. The bike will lean over slightly left and move toward the left side of the lane. Now push on the right grip. The bike will lean slightly right and move back toward the right side of the lane. This isn't something new because it's how everyone steers motorcycles, whether they realize it or not. A lot of riders concentrate on body English such as elbow-waving or knee pressure unaware that the important input is through the hands. Accurate cornering is much easier once you realize that the primary input is through the grips. Once you've experimented with push steering, it's time to move on. Different machines and various situations provide different feedback to the grips when leaned over in a corner. So you need to understand countersteering as more than simply pushing on the low grip. Is ~t C~:)Untel'si"g1 A fellow rider pointed out an interesting phenomenon about steering input. While leaned over at speed on the racetrack, this rider observed that about half the time he was pushing on the low grip. steering the front wheel slightly away from the turn, and half the time he was pulling on the low grip, steering the front wheel toward the turn, all the while attempting to hold the bike on his desired racing line. He knew whether he was turning the front wheel toward the turn or away from the turn because he was hanging off the bike and could see the front wheel. Does this mean we eountersteer only half the time, or is something else going on here? What this rider's observation points out is that guiding a motorcycle in a curve may require small adjustments of line, not simply constant pressure on the low grip. Rememher, front-end geometry steers itself in a slight snakelike weave as the machine attempts to balance itself. Surface camber changes, wind drag, and throttle adjustment can all initiate lean angle changes. It's up to the rider to make inputs through body English and steering to hold the cornering line. Even with the bike stabilized in a turn, we may still be making slight corrections. For example, if the motorcycle is leaned over in a tight left tum and then a crosswind pushes it over a little too far, pulling on the left grip will keep it from leaning over farther. Are we still countersteering, even though the front wheel is pointed to the left of center in a left turn? Sure. Confusion over the term countersteering is often generated by our focus on the grips, when the action is really down at the contact patch. We should understand countersteering to mean shifting the contact patch opposite to where we want to go, whether that takes a push or a pull, whether upright or leaned over, whether fast or slow, and whether the bars are turned left of center or right of center. To put this another way, countersteering is shifting the contact patch in the opposite direction of the way we want the bike to lean at the moment. ()uFnea~ld1@ CENTER OF MASS In turns, the fronl fire trocks outside the rear tire path. When you countersteer, it may seem as if pressure on the grip pushes the bike over without actually pivoting the front wheel. Does the front end actually pivot away from center as the bike leans over into a curve? Yes. The movement is slight, but if the front end isn't free to pivot in the steering head, the motorcycle can't be balanced or turned. If you could watch a slow-motion video of a motorcycle nmning through a puddle of paint and then making a figure eight, you would see that the tront tire swerves toward the outside during the initial countersteer, then eases back, but it always tracks outside the rear tire in turns. In a left turn, the front tire tracks to the right of center. In a right turn, the front tire tracks outside the rear tire path. If you'd like another good example of out-tracking, record some motorcycle race footage, and play it back in slow motion. In those shots where the camera is looking back down the straight toward a corner, you can see the lean angle of the bikes head-on. If you mentally plot the path of the motorcycle's CO, you'll see that the bottom of the tires out-tucks, even arcing over onto the rumble strips as the rider uses every last inch of pavement. C()11il1g While your bike is leaned over in a curve, you might wonder why it corttinues to turn even though the front end seems to be pointed straight ahead. Part of the answer is that the front wheel really is pointed slightly toward the curve. The other part of the answer is called coning. To understand coning, let's consider the shape of the front tire where it meets the road surface. Although we can see that the top of an inflated tire forms a rounded shape, we have to imagine that the tire momentarily gets squashed flat where it contacts the ground at the CPo But we also know that the tire CP is really a continuous ring around the tread. It's important to recognize that with the bike leaned over into a turn, this CP ring forms a conical CENTER OF CIRCLE When the lire is leaned over, the conloet ring forms a cone, similar to the shope of a foam coffee cup. shape, similar to a foam coffee cup on its side. If you nudge the cup forward, it rolls in a circle because the distance around the cup at the closed end is shorter than the distance around the open end. If you stick a toothpick through the center of the cup bottom, the toothpick points approximately at the center of the circle. A motorcycle tire responds similarly when the bike is leaned over. The inside of the tire contact surface covers less distance than the outside. So when leaned, a motorcycle wheel rolls in a circle, with the axle pointed more or less at the center of the turn. Tn a very tight turn, the axle may actually point at a center that's below the surface of the ground. The more muscle you put into countersteering, the harder the front tire pushes to lean the bike, and the quicker it will lean (up to the limit of traction, of course). And the longer you hold pressure on the grip, the further over the bike will lean during the countersteering input. Those are key points to remember when riding a twisty road where you need to lean the bike left, right, left in a series of turns. Remember, it may take one second to get the bike leaned upright from a tight turn, and another second to get it leaned over the other way before it changes direction. Is it possible to muscle the handlebars hard enough to snap the tires loose? Yes. You may have seen this in a road race, where a bike suddenly snaps into a heartstopping wiggle in the middle of an S-curve, or the front tire loses its grip, and the bike crashes off on a tangent. Remember, a motorcycle leans (rolls) around its center of mass without a lot of resistance, but resists being pushed up, down, or sideways. That's why a bike speeding over a lumpy bridge on the Isle of Man can go airborne. Even if you aren't flying over a steep bridge, the bike's inertia will momentarily resist gaining or losing altitude. When a bike is rolled into a turn, the mass needs to lose altitude, and the inertia momentarily resists the pull of gravity, so we must expect less tire traction. But when rolling up out of a turn, the suspension must push the mass upward again, which substantially increases traction. If you consider the arc the contact patches would follow during a quick left-right flick, you can understand why the tires may lose traction as the bike is leaned over, but the bike squats on its suspension as it is rolled back toward vertical. What this means to you as a rider is that the front tire is more likely to lose traction when you are cauntersteering hard into a lean than when you are pulling it back up again. The bike wonts to lean around its cenler of gravity, so the tires may temporarily lose traction as the bike is leaned over, and gain tradion as the bike is lifted up oul of a curve. If you're paranoid about slow speed V-turns, you're not alone. Heavyweight machines can be a handful at slow speeds and in tight quarters. The novice technique is to drag the foot-skids, turn the bars to the stop, feather the clutch to creep around, and finally discover that the bike has a larger turning diameter than the width of the road (usually discovered just as the front tire threatens to bounce off the pavement onto a loose gravel shoulder). The trick for tight V-turns is being aware that as the bike leans over further, the turn becomes tighter. So, rather than drag your boots on the ground with the bike vertical, what's needed is for you to lean the bike into a steep angle. The technique is to lift your butt off the saddle, place most of your weight on the outside footpeg, lean the bike w-a-a-a-y over, and keep the engine pulling. It's okay to slip the clutch if needed to keep the engine from stalling, but squeezing the clutch in a tight turn is usually followed by the sound of a bike hitting the ground. Don't try to coast around LOOK TOWARD NEXT CONE ENGINE PULLING PUSH ON LOW GRIP TO MAKE TIGHTER TURN L BALANCE WEIGHT ON OUTSIDE FOOTPEG f5 The farther over you can lean the bike, the tighter it will turn. a tight turn; you need to keep the engine pulling to balance centrifugal force ABOUT against gravity. In tight turns. it helps to swivel your head around like a barn owl. and look where you want to go. Staring at the ground three feet ahead of the bike may result in finding yourself on the ground right where you were looking. If the bike seems to go wider than you want it to, you need ;I to lean it over further. Grab those grips and push it over. To avoid any confusion over whether you are pulling or pushing I I on the low grip, imagine pushing both grips toward the turn to I SHIFT WEIGHT lean the bike over further, and pushing both grips away from \ TO OUTSIDE \ FOOTPEG the turn to keep it from falling over, or to straighten it up. By \ KEEP ENGINE now, we know this is really countersteering, but at slow speeds \ PULLING your particular machine may give you some strange feedback. 18 FEET /-~o'" \ " \ '\ I \' \ , I WEIGHT ON RIGHT 1:~'g(lnOI"is FOOTPEG I I , If you've been ho hum about the subject of ergonomics (how a ...-...-...-' ...-' ~ rider fits on a motorcycle), consider that how you sit on a bilce and reach toward the grips has a lot do with steering control. You'll have better //...control of the bike if you can reach the grips in a natural position / with your arms slightly bent and your feet braced down, not for;1 ward. So, if you find your motorcycle difficult to control, take a / close look at the ergonomics. It's not just a comfort thing. f I , I \ ~ \ FIGURE EIGHT EXERCISE , I \~' Here's a warm-up exercise for you to practice. It's just a long figure eight in a box. Most motorcycles can actually make a figure eight in an area 18 by 40 feet. It helps to mark the \ boundaries of the box with cones. Entcr at one corner, make a tight turn, another tight turn in the opposite direction at the other end, and continue out the far end. If tight turns make you nervous, this II ",~/ } /1 I ENTER exercise is just what you need to practice. Shift your weight to the outside peg. push both grips in the direction you want to go. and keep the engine pulling. Don't slip the clutch. If you can't stay within the IS-foot width, move the cones out to 20 feet at first, and then pull the box in as you gain skill and confidence. If you don't have time to layout the figure eight exercise, try making a figure eight before you park the bike at the end of a ride, or practice a few figure eights as you arrive in the company parking lot each morning. Anyone can ride straight because the bike is doing most of the balancing. It's in the tight turns where we find out who can ride and who is just going along for the ride. CC)I"l1el'il1g I-Iabits We've discussed the basics about how two-wheelers balance and turn. Now, we're ready to take the rubber to the road. First, I'd like you to answer some qnestions as honestly and realistically as you can about how you control your machine in corners. And if you aren't really sure what you do, take your bike out for a spin and focus on your habits while cruising down your favorite twisty road. * ** ** * ** Next lime you're out riding, focus on your habits while cruising down (] twisty rood. When turning, do you follow more-or-less the center of the lane, or do you follow a different "motorcycle" cornering line? Approaching a sharp turn, do you brake or just roll off the gas? If you brake, do you brake before leaning the bike, or do you drag the brakes as you continue around the corner? If you brake, do you use both brakes, just the front brake, O.r ollly the rear brake? When rounding a turn, where do you tend to focus your vision? Do you look down at the pavement in front of the bike, at the curb to one side, at the pavement farther around the corner, or where? Do you lean your head with the bike, or do you keep your eyes level with the horizon? To lean the bike, do you just think lean or do you consciously countersteer? As you lean the bike into the turn, do you hold a steady throttle, roll off the throttle, or roll on a little more power? Now, some riders might think such questions are silly. If you've managed to get your motorcycle down the road for thousands of miles without having to think about such boring little details, why do you need to start now? Well, if you're happy with the way you ride and don't feel you could use any improvement, you can slop reading here and get back on the bike. But during your ride, you may start to notice other motorcyclists who wobble through turns, cross the centerline, or suddenly decelerate in corners, forcing you to take evasive action to keep from mnning up their backsides. You'll probably agree that those folks need some cornering help. Of course, you might want to close the bathroom door, stare at that rider in the mirror, and see if he looks like one of those folks who can't quite put their bikes where they want to. However you perceive your skill level, let's see if we can help you improve your cornering tactics. You've probably seen a lot of riders who think that cornering is just a matter of stuffing the bike through the bends by gmnt and feel and cranking on more throttle until the tires start to squeal. But improving your cornering control (and yes, your cornering speed) is mostly a matter of technique, not fearless throttle twisting. We need to be doing the right things at the right time. That's why I asked those tricky questions. Now, obviously, big sweeping curves such as those on freeways don't need any special tactics. But those twisty back roads really challenge your skills, and there are even a few tricky freeway ramps that tighten up or change direc./' ", tion. The tighter the curve, the more ,,'" / important it is to use the right tactics. ./ S~)\Ilf! and L()()i{, Le~ul ~ol Different riding schools have different ways to describe the correct cornering techniques. One of the most concise descriptions is the slogan Slow, Look, Lean, and Roll used in state rider training courses. Having a slogan helps you remember the details. SI()w ,,- / / / / ,,- '" ./ / " I I \ ROLL AS YOU LEAN, SMOOTHLY ROLL ON THE THRonLE \ LEAN Approaching a curve, you \ ~ LEAN THE BIKE need to decelerate to a speed at which you predict you can make the turn. Most of the time, we roll EYES LEVEL, '-'!off the throttle approaching tighter SELECT CORNERING curves. It's smart to decelerate with the bike vertical-while in a straight lineLINE ~o '~ because that allows maximum-effort braking if needed, without the risks of a slide out. Ideally, we "- ... apply both brakes in addition to rolling off the gas. SLOW BRAKE TO CORNER • Why brake? Because rolling off the throttle applies ENTRY SPEED, THEN braking only to the rear wheel. To conserve traction both brakes GET OFF BRAKES KE~\' should be used. First, you should be prepared to brake hard for a turn that you discover is tighter than expected. Second, if a hazard comes into view only as you lean over, you should be prepared to use both brakes to the limit of tire traction. If front braking is part of your cornering habits, your survival reaction will be to brake harder on the front, which helps avoid a rear wheel slideout. L()()le Before you dive into a corner at full chat, you really ought to figure out where the road goes, scrutinize the surface for loose gravel and horse poop, and any other debris, and determine whether that's a deer about to leap out of the nickering shadows or just spotted leaves. Note that you'll get the best view of what's happening from the outside of the curve. So, for a right-hander, you'll get the best view if you point the bike way over toward the centerline while you're still decelerating. When you're ready to dive into the curve, swivel your head around to point your nose toward your intended line. Sure, it looks cool to just shift your eyes behind your blue aviator sunglasses, but turning your head actually helps provide directional control and a smooth entry into the turn. Leall allel I~() With the bike slowed and positioned for best view, and your chin pointed toward where you want to go, it's time to lean the bike over and roll on a little throttle. Now, there are a number of ways to cause a motorcycle to lean over. You can shift your weight in the saddle, punch your knees against the tank, push down on one footpeg, or apply a little pressure to the handlebar grips. How your machine responds to any of these inputs depends on a variety of factors such as rider-bike weight relationship, But regardless of weight, the most accurate way to lean any two-wheeler is by pressure on the handgrips. Push on the right grip to lean right. Push on the left grip to lean left. Yep, that's correct: Push right to turn right. Hold enough pressure on the low grip to get the bike leaned over and pointed where you're looking, then ease up on the pressure to hold a stable line. Wait a minute, you may be thinking. I understand that bit about push right to turn right, but hack up to that business about rolling on the throttle as I lean over. You're kidding, right? Won'/ rolling on the gas push the bike wide or cause a rear wheel slideout? Well, the answer will be obvious as soon as we think through some details. First, as the bike leans over, it's as if your tire diameters shrink. If you don't ease on a little throttle as the bike leans over onto the smaller diameter contact ring of the tires, you won't even be maintaining the same bike speed. And rear wheel compression braking is very much like dragging the rear brake. So rolling on a bit of throttle as you lean over doesn't waste traction, it conserves traction. What's just as important, rolling on the gas helps balance weight between front and rear, helps stabilize the bike in the middle of its suspension, and maximizes leanover clearance. If you just try to hold a steady throttle through the curve, the bike is more likely to wobble and bobble as it changes lean angle. What's wrong with just rolling off the gas and letting the bike slow down, you may ask. Well, a trailing throttle not only uses up traction for engine braking but also causes most bikes to squat on their suspension, eating up leanover clearance. If you find your machine making sparks at the apex of a turn, check out your throttle habits. The correct technique is to ease on more throttle progressively to keep the engine pulling smoothly all the way through the curve, which not only smoothes out your line and conserves traction but also maximizes leanover clearance, Speed ~5 I usually get a chuckle from speed signs that say 35, when I know I can make the curve without a lot of drama at 50 or 55. Okay, the signs are posted for everyone, including top-heavy hay trucks. So, is there a mle of thumb for motorcyclists? Yep. But you won't find it posted on a sign. The ideal entry speed into a curve is the speed that will permit a gradual throttle roll-on through the rest of the curve. You'll have to figure out what that speed is, based on what you discover about the road. The key is if you couldn't gradually roll on the gas all the way through the last several turns, it means your entry speeds are generally too high. If you tind yourself panicking in mid-corner and snapping off the throttle, it's a message you didn't decelerate enough before leaning the bike over. Sage advice about curves is to go in slow and go out fast. I know a lot of riders who are paranoid about leaning their machines over too far and dropping the bike. If you're concerned about slide outs, it's time to get serious about cornering lines. One of the unique advantages of two-wheelers is their ability to follow a path of travel, or line, that is different from the curve of the pavement. Think about this: side forces on the tires are least when a bike is traveling in a straight line. The straighter the curves, the less risk of a slide out. If you ride around a curve following a car line, your tires are using more traction than if your path of travel followed a straighter motorcycle line. What's just as important is that sudden steering to change direction also demands more traction and eats up ground clearance. A smooth, gradual, stabilized arc is better than a line with constant corrections. So a big part of cornering is to decide where the pavement goes, and then plan the straightest line that smoothly arcs through the turns. This isn't easy because there aren't special motorcycle markings on the surface to give you any hints about where you should be doing what. We have to imagine our intended lines while also trying to utilize that slow, look, lean, and roll technique I suggested earlier. One way to put all the elements of cornering together is to imagine windows on the pavement where you'll be accomplishing specific tasks at specific DEMANDS / . ttJl.DIUS __ ,.. . ______ _ locations. You can figure out MORE ............ -:.,'~c DEMANDS where the bike should be TRACTION / ....... LESS TRACTION leaned over and on the gas, so mentally back up from ~ that window to where you / need to be off the brakes, where you need to turn ~I '" ~ ::51 your head to look / J/ / through the turn, and -.'/1<, then way back to where 1/,/ you need to start slowFollowing a motorcycle line with a large radius of curve demands less traction thon ing down. ~-= /"'sr:;;;; ~:-1 /~ro' vs>'\l , I J l'i~ /[t."O I /f 1// following a cor line. OFF THE BRAKES • It may be helpful fo imagine windows where you need to be off the brakes, look through the corner, leol1 the bike, and roll on the gas. I:yes Level Many riders find it helpful to tilt their heads to keep their eyes level with the horizon while cornering. It's not easy to calcnlate the curvature of the road at speed, and it's even more difficnlt if yon're trying to triangulate everything at a slanty visual angle. Tilting your eyes level seems to help keep things in perspective. See if it works for yon. EYES LEVEL 1-1'=1..--- - - - cornering. If you have ve1ified that your habits are good, you're well on the right track to faster, more controlled corners with less risk of slideouts. But if your habits aren't anything like what I've just ontlined, it's time to practice some specific skills. One good way to practice is just to take a class at your local motorcycle training site, where an instructor can help you correct any bad habits. But sooner or later you need to take your skills out on the highway. Why not find some twisty road that's not too busy and focus on the techniques I've described? Slow down to give yourself more time to think about each of the actions. For example, if you know you can stuff the old road rocket down Twisty Hollow Canyon at 50 mph, slow down to 35 and concentrate on doing the right actions at the light locations and the right moments. If you have trouble getting it right, slow down even more until you can do all the steps in sequence, including swiveling your chin around toward the curve and easing on the gas all the way around the tum. Remember, it's the techniques, not just bravado, that lead to better cornering habits. And if you're looking for higher speeds, the correct techniques are essential. If your cmiser or tourer has limited leanover clearance, you'll need to be a little more clever about turns. The giveaway is that your machine makes grinding sounds and leaves trails of sparks in every sharp curve. First off, when you get back from a sparkly ride, check your suspension. Ideally, your suspension should be in the middle of its travel with the bike loaded as you normally ride. The best way to check suspension travel is to sit on the loaded bike and have someone else do some measurements. If you normally carry a passenger, get the passenger on board, too. Tf you discover that your machine sits too low when loaded, first jack up the shock springs to maxinuum preload, and if that doesn't do it, figure on replacing the springs with stronger ones. Sagging front fork springs may be acceptable with spacers to increase the preload. If your suspension has air, carefully add a bit of pressure. Adjusting suspension toward the middle of its travel not only increases leanover clearance but also helps keep the tires in contact with the pavement. If you've jacked up the shock springs but your low-slung cruiser still makes sparks, you can either lose some weight, or modify your cornering lines. Within limits, you can adjust where you make the tightest part of your corner. For example, you can follow more of a V-shaped line that decelerates on a straighter entry toward a shorter, slower turn, then exits on a straighter line. Sure, you have to slow way down for the tight part of the V, but you can accelerate harder If leonover clearance is limited, try modifiying your cornering line to be exiting on a straighter line. more like II V. CHAPTER --------Gettil1g ()11 the Gas nterstate Al is motoring cross-couutry on his big touring machine. Al isn·t one of those peg-scraping zoomie bikers who terrorize the canyons. He prefers to ease down the road in the center lane with the motorcycle vertical and the engine idling along in fifth gear. At such a modest pace he can smell the flowers. listen to the tape deck. and allow his mind to wander. Today his thoughts drift toward a question. Why do some riders get so embroiled in meaningless details of" cornering? he ponders. Al has read about such concepts as delayed apex cornering lines and rolling on the throttle in turns, but frankly he thinks such stuff just isn't related to his riding style. Besides, his big touring bike is better suited to the superslabs where he doesn't have to worry about sharp turns. It's time for a coffee break, and Al decides to take the next exit. But traffic in the right lane has suddenly closed up bumper-to-bumper, and he must somehow jockey through to get to the exit lane. Al doesn't like to dodge between cars. He breathes a sigh of r~lief when a space opens up in front of an old pickup tmck. He signals, rolls on the throttle to rocket the bike forward, pulls in ahead of fhe truck with room to spare, and banks off onto the exit ramp, a little fast, but under control for fhe curve he can see. Al rolls off the gas as he leans into the otT-ramp, but he is surprised when the ramp doesn't curve around in a nice constant circle as he had assumed it would. About halfway around, it suddenly tightens up into a decreasing radius. Al had been pointing fhe bike toward the inside of the curve, and suddenly he's headed for the outside. Al tries to heave the machine over but can't seem to get the bike to tum as quickly as fhe pavement, and his scraping footboards limit how far he can lean. With the machine drifting toward the outside curb, his survival reactions take over-he snaps the throttle closed and stomps down on the brake pedal. In a flash, fhe rear tire breaks loose, and the bike goes down. The centerstand hangs up on the curb just enough to flip fhe machine into fhe concrete divider, and Al is mercifully high-sided into the bushes. Al is only bruised but will later discover fhat fhe bent metal and shattered plastic will add up to a total loss of his hig road burner. Considerthis: If Al had trusted his tires and just pushed harder on the right grip to lean fhe machine over to its cornering limits, could he have made the turn wifhout sliding out? If Al had entered the turn more from fhe outside, and pointed fhe bike more in the right di recti on, would he have had a better chance of turning it tighter as the road tightened up? And if Al had not jammed on the brakes while leaned over, would the bike have continued around fhe curve wifhout sliding out? Hopefully, Al will realize that his crash has answered his own questions. Serious motorcyclists get "embroiled in fhe meaningless details of cornering" because the world is full of strange comers, including superslab exit ramps. Good cornering habits are just as important for the touring rider as fhey are for those who seek out twisty roads for their sportbikes. Let's consider how throttle control relates to cornering. We usually think of fhe fhrottle only as a speed control, but how and when we twist fhe throttle has a lot to do with traction, stability, ground clearance, and suspension. Conservative riders such as Al may feel that techniques such as rolling on the throttle in corners is something that belongs only on the racetrack, but good throttle control is all about managing traction, and conserving traction is just as important on the road as on the racetrack. CI1&lnging I)h'e(~tim Inertia makes a moving motorcycle "want" to continue straight ahead. To make the motorcycle change direction, we must force the front end into a curving path, overpowering centrifugal force with tire traction pushing against the road surface. By leaning the motorcycle, we balance gravity and centrifugal force with the position of the front tire. So, front tire traction is used for bofh pushing the machine into the curve and for balancing. Rear tire traction resists centrifugal force and also transfers engine thrust to the road. Bofh tires also can use up traction for braking, but let's keep fhe situation simple by staying off the brakes for the moment. Weight T~'&ulsfei Think about fhis: Acceleration and deceleration shift weight. Rolling on the gas shifts weight to the rear. Roll on enough throttle, and you can lift the front wheel off the surface. Rolling off fhe gas shifts weight forward. And remember that weight on a tire affects available traction. An unladen motorcycle at rest typically has 50 percent of its weight distributed on each of its tires. And since traction is related to the load on a tire. it might seem that coasting through comers would be ideal. balancing traction equally between the tires. But that isn't ideal for several reasons. First, the rear wheel needs to keep pushing the bike around the comer and overpowering centrifugal force, so we really could use more traction on the rear, say a 60:40 weight balance. Second, just rolling off the throttle isn't coasting-engine compression adds drag on the rear tire, which uses up traction. Keep in mind that it's nearly impossible to match engine speed exactly to bike speed. Even if you squeezed the clutch and coasted, at some point you'd need to get back on the power, with a resulting wobble and possible slideout as traction transferred front to rear. To achieve a wobble-free turn, maintain that ideal 60:40 weight balance and conserve traction. The technique is to be on the throttle when the bike is leaned over. The ideal throttle technique is to ease on the gas as you lean over and gradually roll on a little more throttle all the way through the turn. Oh, right, you may be thinking. Speed up and run off/he road? Well, let's think about that. Rolling on the throttle does make the engine speed up, but does that always make the bike accelerate? Remember that the contact ring of a tire moves toward the sidewall as the bike is leaned over. When leaned over, the contact ring is smaller in diameter. What this means is that if you aren't rolling on a little throttle as you lean the bike, you're using engine compression to brake the rear wheel, and that uses up rear wheel traction. CONTACT PATCH CONTACT PATCH CONTACT PATCH DIAMETER LEANED OVER When the tire leans over, the (ontoet ring moves toward the sidewall. You need to roll on the throttle just to maintain the some speed. Rolling on a bit more throttle while leaned over happens to do some other helpful things. The added thrust from the rear tire, which helps maintain a desirable balance of traction between the tires, also keeps the front end up on its suspension. I eif"'?] Yff, , On most shaft -drive machines, and many chain-drive bikes, the torque reaction of power to the rear wheel causes the rear end of the bike to rise. The results are that staying on the throttle while leaned over helps lift the bike up on its suspension at both ends, which increases ground clearance. And more ground clearance means a tighter turn is possible without levering the bike off the tires. Getting around a surprise decreasing-radius turn may require leaning over to the limits. ON THE GAS OFF THE GAS Rolling on the gas helps keep the bike up on the suspension, and thot improves leonover clearance. Since weight affects available traction on a tire, a weight shift toward the front reduces traction on the rear tire. When carrying a touring load or a passenger, there is plenty of weight and therefore traction on the rear. But when riding solo, any weight shift to the front takes away traction from the rear tire-traction that may be needed to push the bike around a turn. That's why it is important to avoid suddenly rolling off the gas or jamming on the rear brake while leaned over. Al had already rolled off the gas, so his bike had less leanover clearance. He didn't recognize the need to follow a delayed-apex line, so he wasn't prepared for the decreasing radius turn. And braking withdrew more traction than he had in the bank. This combination of bad habits sealed his fate. Bumps ~u'ld ~)ips Suspension is also affected by throttle control. And how the suspension works is more than just a comfort consideration. Suspension allows the tires to maintain contact with the pavement when rolling over bumps and dips. If the suspension is bottomed out, it can't absorb a bump and will jolt that end of the machine upward. For example, when the front end is down on the stops under heavy braking, it can't absorb a bump. A bump can jolt the whole front end off the ground and cause the tire to skip. If the suspension is already topped out, the wheel can't extend any further down into a dip, and that tire will momentarily lose traction with the surface. Best traction-and smoothest ride-is with the motorcycle floating somewhere near the middle of its suspension travel. What does throttle control have to do with suspension? Consider what happens to suspension when we twist the throttle. When we roll off the throttle, both ends of the bike drop, putting shock travel closer to being bottomed ant. When we roll on the throttle, both ends of the bike rise, and if we roll on hard enough, the suspension can actually top out. In a curve, the suspension is compressed by the pull of gravity and centrifugal force. Get the point? Easing on the gas while leaned over into a turn helps keep the shocks in the middle of their range, assisting the tires in maintaining traction even when bouncing over bumps and dips. So, the ideal throttle technique while cornering is to smoothly and gradually roll on the throttle through the turn. ~on ~t On Thl'ough the CUi'\fe When approaching a curve, we need to decelerate. Of course that makes the front end heavy and reduces ground clearance, but that's okay in a straight line. The trick is to decelerate in a straight line toward the ideal point where you can simultaneously lean the bike, ease on the throttle, and be able to continue easing on the gas all the way through the rest of the curve. Now, obviously, we can all think of situations in which rolling on the gas would be stupid. We wouldn't be gassing it during a steep downhill left-hander with a stop sign at the bottom, for example. But easing on the throttle in a curve is one of the keys to better cornering control. It's the best technique for conserving traction, whether you corner leisurely or swiftly. And it's a skill that we can practice while riding. Next time you're out on your favorite motorcycle, practice rolling on the throttle as you lean into a turn. When approaching an intersection where you intend to turn, lightly apply both brakes while in a straight line, then get off the brakes, look through the turn, and roll on a little throttle as you lean over. If you have to shut off the throttle before you're all the way through the turn, it means you didn't slow enough before leaning. And don't forget to enter turns from the outside. That is, for a right turn, enter from the left side of your lane, unless surface hazards take precedence. Getting more proficient with the throttle control is more than a way to ride faster. Developing good throttle habits is one of the ways we can expand our safety envelope. And good habits are the key to survival when we are suddenly faced with an unexpected hazard. Ask Interstate AI. He's a lot more interested in those "meaningless" details of cornering these days. He's thinking about better cornering lines and learning to roll on the throttle while leaned over. And he's a little more cautious-on his new bike-about bolting on highway boards that decrease the lean over clearance. Ilelayecl Allexil1g Let's face it. Riding the superslab cross-country is pretty much a no-brainer. Fill the tank, crank up the wick, keep it between the lines, and try to stay out of truck convoys. It's on the twisty roads where we separate proficient riders from those who merely own a motorcycle. If riding the superslab can be compared to line dancing at the local tavern, cornering on a twisty back roadis like Gene Kelly dancing in the rain: exactly the right speed for the action, powerful leaps forward at precisely the right time, dramatic lean angles, perfect balance, and an obvious enjoyment of the whole thing. I~()ad l~a(:1ig vs. I~oad 1:tldil1Q When we talk about cornering, the image that typically comes to mind is of a leafher-c1ad road racer, knee puck scraping fhe tarmac, race bike leaned over to an unbelievable angle, fat tires drifting at fhe absolute limit of traction, with the rear end stepping out nervously and fhe front end twitching. Of course, fhe goal of racing is to beat fhe ofher guys around the circuit. l:::tisl{ Accelltam:e You'll encounter a lot of other motorcyclists charging ahead aggressively on public roads, seriously captured by a road race mentality, always measuring fheir worfh in terms of who passed and who got passed. Odds are 10 to 1 the road is clear, wifh no sleepy drivers wandering across fhe centerline, and no fresh boulders lying on the road halfway around a blind turn. Of course, on every sunny Sunday on twisty roads across America, a few of those daring riders with a higher risk acceptance lose fhe gamble. Blind corners are one reason aggressive riders don't make it to the biker cafe. Nine out of ten times you can ride faster than your sight distance and show those other riders your taillight. But when you do round a blind corner at a speed too fast to stop within your sight distance and fhen discover a hazard in the road, you may not make it to the cafe at all. The point is fhat each of us has a different level of awareness about potentially hazardous situations and a different risk acceptance. There are a growing number of motorcyclists who measure their self worth in terms of their own skill and fheir personal enjoyment of the ride, not someone else's. As one grows older, it gets easier to understand why riding on public roads must have a very different focus from riding on a racetrack. We're out to have a good time, which includes not only arriving home wifh body and motorcycle parts unscathed but also enjoying fhe scenery and taking some satisfaction from having fhe motorcycle well under control. It isn't necessary to push fhe limits to have fun. There's tremendous enjoyment in riding a motorcycle at fhe right speed for the situation, getting the motorcycle in fhe groove, and kuowing you have more performance in the bank should you need it or choose to use it. For openers, I think you'll enjoy motorcycling more if you master a few important cornering skills. It can be tremendously satisfying to have your motorcycle completely under your control, kuowing how it performs, and being able to malce it do what you want it to do. But beyond fhe enjoyment, fhere is the matter of risk. Ask yourself fhis: Even if you ride at the same speed on fhe same road, will certain cornering tactics increase or reduce risk? Consider some risk concepts fhat relate to cornering lines: The largest radius of turn demands the least traction for a given speed and therefore keeps more traction in reserve for dealing with uuknown hazards such as loose gravel or wild animals. The risk of riding into unseen hazards is reduced by following a line that enters blind curves at positions that provide the best view ahead. The risk of collision is reduced by following a line that achieves maximum separation from other traffic at critical locations. The risk of falling on surface hazards is reduced by making the sharpest part of the turn on pavement already within the rider's view. * * * * It should be pretty clear that cornering lines have a lot to do with the relative risks, whcther your riding style is to putt along serenely or blitz the countryside at full chat. Smal'tel' (:)I'nt~l"i1j tines One big hazard for aggressive motorcyclists is trying to adapt road racing lines to public roads. On the racetrack, riders don't have to be concerned about opposing traffic or deer leaping out of the trees or farm tractors chuffing onto the road. Racers can concentrate on the track, memorizing each corner and noting reference points for braking. Tire rubber on the pavement scribes an obvious motorcycle line. There may be distance markers to help adjust speed for upcoming corners. And racers know that they will be warned if hazards occur. If you watch road racing on television, you'll get a lot of views from above, and you'll notice that generally the racing lines curve as smoothly as possible from apex to apex, like a springy board bent around posts at the inside of each turn. Racing lines maximize both traction and speed. But for public roads, we must give priority to the unknown. On a strange road, we have no idea of the curve ahead, or what hazard we might encounter just around the tum. So our cornering lines must be suitable for all manner of strange uphill, downhill, off-camber corners, and also give us the best chance to avoid unannounced hazards as they pop into view. Whether or not I can keep my two-wheeler upright often depends upon the condition of the road surface. T would prefer not to discover that the smooth, dry pavement I'm riding on happens to be submerged in fresh diesel oil or cow poop halfway around the blind turn ahead. If the view is limited, it makes a ~lot of sense to plan the tightest part of the curve where I can see that the pavement is acceptable. Sure, there might be even better traction just around the corner. And if the surface around the corner happens to be smooth, clean, and tractable, I can use it for accelerating. But it's a poor gamble to plan 'u' '/'b',!,'· I'1./,,, ! ,1· jill.!. on the condition of unseen surfaces being SURFACE OUT better than what's already in view. OF VIEW --- """", W&1l1del"1I1g IJI'ivel's When a car or truck driver discovers way too late that the coruer is a little tighter than it seemed, the other vehicle ends up drifting onto the shoulder or over the centerline with tires squealing. The motorcyclist happening along in the opposite direction is at risk of a collision. A good tactic for avoiding such wandering drivers is to follow a cornering line that moves away from the centerline at the locations where opposing /,~ BLIND / SURFACE CORNER WITHIN VIEW It makes a lot of sense to complete the sharpest port of u furn on pavement you ((In already see. , I -.- traffic is most likely to drift over the line. It isn't necessary to hug the right side of your lane all the time, but it is important to stay away from the centerline at the critical locations-about halfway around the turn. Wailderll1g \ You wont to slay away from thot no-no orea, where oncoming drivers tend to go wide across the line. ~idel's Car drivers aren't the only ones who drift out of their lane. Novice motorcyclists also tend to drift wide in turns. Let's consider how this happens. Visualize a corner coming up. Somewhere along the inside edge is fhe tightest part of fhe curve, the apex. It seems to make sense to point toward the apex, following a line similar to road racers. And whcfher you think about it or not, it's awfully easy to get hypnotized by the inside edge of' the pavement rolling into view and point the bike toward fhe inside way too soon. The problem on public roads is that when a bike is aimed toward an early apex, it is likely to drift wide about halfway around the corner. When you suddenly realize you're running out of road in the middle of a corner, there aren't many options available. You'll either have to risk an excursion into the oncoming lane and gamble that no one is coming around fhe corner, or squander all available traction swerving back into the right lane and risk a slideout. A lot of riders who might describe themselves as fast or good assume fhat frequent excursions across the centerline or onto the shoulder are just a part of aggressive ," riding, but fhe embarrassing lmfh is fhat drifting wide is a symptom of poor cornering tactics. And drifting wide isn't just a sportbiker It's easy 10 get hypnotized by the edge of the rood rolling info view and point the bike way 100 soon toward the inside. phenomenon. A lot of touring riders drift wide in turns, even at much slower speeds. Drifting wide isn't so much a matter of excessive speed as it is a result of allowing the bike to get point· ed in tbe wrong direction at tbe wrong time. If we look at a typical corner from an eagle·eye view, we can see what the prohlem is. Pointing too soon toward tbe inside of tbe curve, tbe apex points tbe bike too wide for the rest of tbe turn, Rememher tbat people have a target fixation characteristic. We tend to point our vehicles where we are focusing, even if that's not where we think we're steer· ing, On a bike, it's easy to get hypnotized hy the inside edge of tbe pavement (the fog line) as it rolls into view. That's one reason novice riders tend to point the bike toward an early apex without realizing it. It's important to focus on where you want tbe bike to go, not at that hypnotizing edge. The smart tactic for driving on public toads is to delay tbe apex, In other words, plan on an apex farther around the curve. To reach an apex farther around tbe curve, you have to enter the turn more from the outside, The delayed apex line starts from the outside of tbe lane, turns tightest as the bike is leaned over, tben follows a gradually increasing radius of turn, apexing about two· thirds of the way around the curve. -- ,. .',. '. " " .. " " " / I I I ~_.",7 doesn't get headed around the corIler; and once the bike runs wide, you don't hove (I lot of options to get bock to where you belong. -_/ '~ /'''> /' /6..\d'l, "I,'~i( 1 ~)t§,fl:J' i!;"'* "Thl'~fl ' ' §~dl"'f,%*IR:& ~.< ~,-;:'%§dimkw.l" Quick stops require skill and experience with the machine you are riding. That's especially important if you are riding a different bike fi'om your usual mount. The only way to build braking skills is to practice the right techniques ~ \ until they become habits. til ! ;:. " I'm not talking just quick slowdowns from 80 to 60 here, I'm talking ~ l,__,' quick stops from road speed to zero, with no smoking tires, no fall downs, ~ anddno hhigh sides: If you intend to ride fast on public roads, you should be as goo at ard bralang and quick stops as you are at cornering lines and rolling Cl on the gas. Riders of ABS equipped machines are not excused from the drill. " • RETURN AND Z Find a long, smooth, tractable piece of pavement you can borrow for an TRY AGAIN ~ hour or so. An abandoned section of road will do if it's reasonably clean and !E dry. Perhaps you have a nearby parking lot that is vacant early in the morng ing. It helps to set up some cones or markers to define a braking chute, but .. all you really need is a long strip of clean level pavement. One little caveat: ~ Before you try any skill practice on your bike, do us both a favor and climb • I • into your best crash costume. If you do it all right, we're happy, too. But if !ci LOOK you don't get it right, we're not going to be there to point out bad habits or STRAIGHT help you pick up the pieces. AHEAD; KEEP BIKE Get the machine stabilized at about 18 to 20 mph in second gear. Trust VERTICAL me here, don't try your first run any faster. Maintain speed right up to the braking point. Keep your head up and look forward to where you intend to stop. Avoid glancing down at the instruments or levers. When your front tire passes the braking point, squeeze the clutch, roll off the throttle, and simultaneously apply both bralces, progressively squeezing harder on the front as APPROACH AT you count out one-thousand-and-one. Stop as quickly as you can without STEADY 18 MPH skidding either tire. Toward the end of the stop, shift into Ii rst gear. Come to a complete stop with your right foot on the brake pedal and your left foot supporting the machine. The habit of shifting to first prepares you for a quick getaway in case you need to avoid a rear-end collision. Return to the For braking practice, find some clean, end of the chute and repeat the exercise. See if you can better your previous level pavement you can borrow for a distance without skidding. As you gain confidence in your front tire traction, while. Start your runs at 18 mph and increase approach speed as you guin bump your approach speed up another 2 mph on each subsequent pass. ~ MAXIMUM ... ~ "\ / I t BRAKING l\ z. • ( ') •• I I I I • I I I a I • • confidence. Sidds An impending front tire skid makes the front end feel nrbbery. If the front tire does start to skid, immediately release the lever to regain traction (and balance). Be aware that as speed increases the rear tire is more likely to skid due to the increasing inertial forces. If you should accidentally skid the rear tire, my best advice is to stand on it and slide to a complete stop to avoid the possibility of a high-side flip, then malce a point of using less rear brake next time. If you can't seem to avoid skidding the rear tire, rest your right root on the passenger peg and try stopping with the front brake only. A machine with a longer wheelbase has less tendency to lift the rear wheel. When practicing hard braking, it's helpful to have another rider watching your technique. If you have a buddy to practice with, one rider can signal the other when to stop, to add some spontaneity to the drill. If you're a lillie fearful about practicing maximum-erfort stops right at the limits of traction, take a rider training coursc. You'll gct practice in straight-line stops, bralcing in curves, and combinations or swcrving and braking, all under the watchful eye of a certified instructor. Whether you practice on your own or during a training course, the most important part of the drill is to stay in the habit of fronl wheel braking for all stops, and using the brakes as part of your cornering sequence. Your habits determine what you will do in an emergency. Taldng the Panic: ()ut ()f Ilanic St()llS Roger Rider is out for a spin in the country. It's a beautiful day, thc weather is comfortably warm, and the bike is running sweetly. The road twists and turns predictably, dipping down into tree-shaded hollows, and climbing back up to snake between the farms aud meadows, It's too nice a day to hurry, but Roger isn't loafing, either, because it just feels right to roll on the gas exiting the corners and accelerate through the flickering shadows and sunlight. But Roger's fun is about to end for the day. Just as he crests a hill, he is startled by a brown object rising up from the roadside ditch and pivoting in his direction. Roger instantly recognizes the two big ears of a mule deer, and hopes it will just freeze there as he rides on by. Without thinking about it, his right hand rolls off the gas, and his left hand nudges the bike over to a course farther away from the deer. But the deer doesn't just freeze. As Roger gets within 30 feet, the deer suddenly springs to action, bounding onto the road and clattering along in graceful leaps. The deer tries to zigzag away from the motorcycle, and Roger tries to swerve around the deer, but they both guess wrong. Too late, Roger makes a panic grab for the front brake lever. The front wheel slides out, deer and motorcycle careen off each other, and both sprawl onto the pavement. Fortunately, neither rider nor deer is seriously injured, and both manage to stagger back onto their feet after a few seconds. The deer limps off into the trees. Roger limps over to look at his bike, now a mess of broken plastic and bent metal. Whether it's a deer alongside the road, a stalled hay truck in a blind corner, or a left-turning car at an intersection, a quick stop is often the best tactic for avoiding a collision. Sometimes we call a maximum-effort quick stop a panic stop, because the situation calls for immediate action. Of course, panic means sudden, unreasoning terror, and certainly Roger reacted in panic when the deer jumped in front of him. But what Roger really needed was deliberate, reasoned, and correct evasive action. Let's see what we can do to take the panic out of panic stops. is a QlI~( Stop the Best IVi&l'M:nJe~? Now, you may not agree that a quick stop is the correct evasive maneuver for a deer suddenly springing into your path. Wouldn't it be better to maintain speed so as not to startle the deer or to speed up to get by the deer quicker? Maintaining speed or increasing speed assumes you can predict what the animal is going to do. Braking reduces forward energy, so a quick stop gives you a good chance to avoid a collision if the deer does get in your way. When faced with a potential collision on a slick road, would it be smart to toss the bike on its side and let it slide? For example, let's say I have just realized on a rainy morning that the pavement is coated with diesel oil, just as a garbage truck is starting to turn left across my path. Should I try to do a quick stop, or should I toss the bike on its side? My experience with slick surfaces is that you won't have to make a choice-the situation will decide for you. T intend to stay on the lUbber and brake to a stop. My reasoning is that lUbber has more traction than metal or plastic, even on oil-slick pavement. In most situations, the bike will stop faster with the rubber side down. You do the best you can, and if you can't keep it upright, you fall. Once the bike is down and sliding, you've lost control. I'm sure Tcould think of other scenarios where the best tactic would be to gas it or try swerving around the hazard. But there is only a limited amount of traction, so you shouldn't attempt to swerve and accelerate simultaneously. 1f you choose to accelerate, it pretty well cancels out the other options. Maintaining speed and attempting to swerve is sometimes the best option, but you need to guess right about which way to swerve. When faced with a deer leaping onto the road, the odds are that Afler you've been warned, isn't it smmt fo be prepared for a quick stop? When you know fmmers me busy, it shouldn't be a surprise when a tractor snorts out onl0 the road. you're not going to be successful second guessing which way it is going to leap next. Hard braking has several advantages over either accelerating or swerving. One big advantage of straight-line hard braking is the potential of stopping short of a collision. The brakes on today's motorcycles are typically more powerlul than the engine. More often than not, a quick stop is your best collision avoidance tactic. If it isn't obvious, the first step in taking the panic out of quick stops is being prepared for them. A big part of that is actively searching the road for clues, and predicting hazards that you can't yet see. When you are riding through a forest at dusk, you shouldn't bc surprised when a deer or two leap out of the roadside bushes. In farm country, after you've noticed haying crews mowing, it shouldn't be a big shock when hay trucks snarl across fhe road on the way from the field to the silage pit. If you sec a sign warning of moose on that twisty Montana road, wouldn't it be clever to get that logging truck off your tail? Wouldn't it be smart to get out from behind that bus where people can't see you and you can't see what's happening ahead? Passing fhrough a string of busy intersections in the big city, you shouldn't be amazed to encounter a few car drivers making quick left turns across traffic. Out in the suburbs, wouldn't you expect cars to back out of driveways, kids to ride skateboards out into the street, and dogs to chase motorcycles? If you've got your head in the ride, you'll not only be searching for problems but you'll be thinking well ahead of your front fender. Once you recognize a hazardous situation, you can get yourself prepared for a quick stop. For example, as you round a blind turn with a barn roof in fhe background, you should already be covering the front brake lever, and gctting yourself psyched up for a quick stop. The big mistake Roger Rider made was assuming that if he just kept his motorcycle under control, everyone else would stay out of his way. He didn't brake when his sight distance closed up approaching the crest of that hill, because he assumed the road was fhe same ahead as behind, even though he couldn't see over the hill. And when he did finally spot fhe deer, he assumed it would stay put while he continued on by. He could just as easily have collided with a wandering cow, or a hay truck entering the road. It isn't sufficient just to keep your own vehicle under control and expect others to get out of your way. You've got to be prepared to get out of fhe way of other users, whether they are wild animals or other drivers. A couple of years ago 1 was having a discussion with a young rider who was limping around in a leg cast. He'd been knocked down in a merging lane by a driver who didn't yield the right of way. Young Rider: "1 can't believe he hit me! He was supposed to yield!" Me: "Did the driver get injured?" Young Rider: "Heck no. But I got a broken leg!" Me: "So, why did you let him get you?" Young Rider: "He should have stopped. I had the right of way!" Me: "Does your leg hurt?" Young Rider: "Sure it hurts." Me: "So, why did you let him get you?" It doesn't make any difference whether a motorcyclist has fhe right-of-way or not, the rider is fhe one most likely to get hurt. The way to avoid fhe pain and expense is to get out of the way. My fafher used to repeat a little ditty on the subject: He was right, dead right, as he sped along. But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong. If you wait until fhe last second before making fhe decision to brake hard, whatever you do is going to be in panic. It's important to get on the brakes early, when you first see or preclict a potential collision. When sight distance closes up or anofher vehicle gets into a position where it could turn across your pafh, you should already be on fhe bralces, scrubbing off a bit of forward energy and heating up the discs. If fhe other driver doesn't yield or makes a sudden swerve across your path, you can just squeeze a little harder and make a quick stop to avoid a smash. If the other guy stops after all, you can ease off the brakes and get back up to speed without a lot of fuss, You don't have to make quick slops every time you see a problem, but you should be prepared, Okay, let's say you're riding a busy urban arterial with many confusing intersections and a lot of cross-traffic, You are predicting the possibility of other drivers making sudden moves, You've passed that creeper car with the out-of-state plates, you've moved out from behind the view-blocking bus, and you've changed lanes to let that aggressive cabby get on by, You are scrutinizing the road surface for slick spots and edge traps, observing the hoods of oncoming cars for potential left-turners, and glancing at the tops of front tires to get the first indication of cars beginning to pull out from side streets, What more can you do? Let's review six veteran techniques for making successful quick stops with a minimum of panic, '* '* Get in the front brake habit. Stay in the habit of using the front brake every time you brake, even if your macbine has integrated front/rear brakes or antilock brakes. There is a reason the front wheel has the big stoppers: in a quick stop, it is the front tire that gets pushed into the pavement. It is tempting to fall into the habit of just rolling off the throttle, or using just the rear brake and believing that you can reach for the front brake on those rare occasions when a quicker stop is needed. The trouble is very few of us can out-think our habits. In an emergency, we will do whatever we have been in the habit of doing, then think about it after the fact. If you get in the front brake habit, you'll use the front brake in a crisis without even thinking about it. Approaching turns, use your brakes. Braking should be part of your cornering sequence. Sure, rolling off the throttle slows the bike but, remember, Stay in the front broke habit. 1 I Approaching turns, use your brakes. '* engine compression fnnctions as a rear wheel brake only. Adding a tonch of front brake to help decelerate prior to leaning over into corners makes two· wheel braking part of your habit pattern. If you're in the habit of braking when approaching tnrns, you will antomatically brake harder when you realize the cnrve ahead is a little tighter than yon thought or when you spot a gravel spill at the apex or the view suddenly gets blocked by roadside trees and bushes or a pedestrian steps off the sidewalk as you make your turn. Brake early. When you approach a hazardous situation such as a busy inter- 8rake early when approaching a hazardous situation. section, get on the front brake to reduce both reaction time and stopping distance before you are faced with an impending collision. All of us require a half-second or more to make the decision to brake and another half-second if we have to reach for the lever. Reaction time can eat up a lot more distance than you might think. At 40 mph, you are covering almost 30 feet every halfsecond. And even if you are quick enough to reach for the brakes in only a half-second, it takes at least another half-secoud of progressive squeezing to get the front eud loaded before you can get full on the brake. One wasted second at 40 mph eats up about 60 feet of critical road space--just about the same distance it takes to brake to a stop from that speed. If you are already on the front brake lightly to get the discs heated up and transfer a little weight onto the frout tire, it shouldu't take more than a half-secoud to squeeze harder and initiate a maximum effort stop. Getting on the brakes early can make the difference between stopping 5 feet short of the car fender or bashing into it at 30 mph . ........................ ~ * * ................... Slow down 10 mph for problems. Slow down 10 mph for problems. As you approach a hazardous area such as a busy intersection with a car waiting to turn left or a driveway with a bumper sticking out, ease on the brakes and decelerate just 10 mph, shifting down as needed to keep engine revs up. Typical urban intersection speeds are 30 to 40 mph. Slowing just 10 mph, from 40 ~ph to 30 mph, reduces forward energy by almost half. That means the same brakes and tires can stop the same load in half the distance. Reduce speed to sight distance. There is a tendency to settle into a steady cruise speed, rather than speeding up or slowing down for Changing conditions. One accomplice to that is an engine with a narrow power band, which encourages the rider to maintain speed comparable to the torque band rather than shift up and down constantly. But your view of the road ahead changes dramatically as you ride along. And when the view closes up, it is important to immediately shed speed, so that you cau always hring the hike to a complete stop withiu the roadway you cau see. What that really means is that when your view ahead is suddenly blocked, you should immediately get on the brakes and scrnb off speed. That's especially important on any twisty road where you can't see around corners or over hills. And the faster your speed in the straights, the more important it is to brake hard approaching blind situations. The more you are assuming where the road goes even though you can't see all of it, the Allenst once eoch year practice your quick stops. more you are hauging yourself out. If you are interested in being quick on public roads, remember that crashing really ruins your average speed. Practice. Reading is okay to improve your mind, but you've got to practice on the bike to hone your skills. If Roger had practiced a few quick stops, maybe he would have been able to stop short of that deer collision without dropping the bike. At least once each year, practice maximum-effort stops to sharpen your skills. The goal of quick stops is decelerating from traffic speed to zero in the shortest distance, without losing control. Even if your favorite road burner has integrated brakes or if you spent the big bucks for ABS. don't excuse yourself from practicing the skills. You must be able to separate braking from swerving quickly, and be able to do a quick stop on dry pavement or in the rain, pointing uphill or down. in a straight or in a corner. All of the veteran techniques we've suggested work equally well for riders or ABS machines. * •.H'" W:il0"~' I~.% """ '