Go Faster or Safer or Both
Adapted from Bike U.K© August 1997
"Speed": it does matter what your responsible self says, speed is the reason for biking and if you do not like speed (any kind of speed) you should stick to different sports. If, on the other hand, you want to use motorcycles not only as a transportation vehicle but also as a sporting/touring tool you must understand speed. A racer is safe at 180Kph on a circuit while extremely dangerous at 50 KpH in a village. Speed per se is not dangerous: speeding it is.
What makes speeding dangerous is the level of experience and the lack of training and self evaluation common to most riders. Testing speed riding without proper knowledge it is not only stupid but also criminal for all road users.
So, if you want to welcome speed as your partner, we need to learn the sporting use of motorcycle.
Speed should be our friend: the conclusion of the following article points out an important consideration: “ If you've done your homework (improving riding techniques) right, you'll be faster and smoother. More importantly, you'll have a bigger safety margin. You can ride at the same speed with less risk, or keep the risk the same and go faster. Whatever you do, remember you don't know it all - no one does. Treat every ride as a lesson, learn what you can and, when you find people faster or smoother than you, check their level of self-evaluation and, if good, pick their brains and their skills”
GO FASTER!
Sort your mind out. You will need this in top working order. Without it, you are just so many stone of bone, flab and sinew, careering hopeless towards a big accident. Every action you take is controlled by your mind. Think to yourself: what do I want to do? If the answer is "Go bloody fast regardless," then forget it. The right answer's something like, "Ride as fast as I can and still live to be 80". Tell yourself, aloud if necessary: "I am going to be aware of every single action I take on the bike". You will get some funny looks, but not so many as you will get lying in a ditch. Most top racers spend the pre-race period calming their mind of every distraction, concentrating on the start and the run-up to the first corner. No one wins championships on pure aggression.
Sort your body out. Ever had that tight, cramped sensation between your shoulder blades? Blamed it on the riding position'? It’s actually tension and if you are tens you cannot ride well. You cannot move about smoothly on the bike, and every action is slower, jerkier and harder. The trick is to start relaxed, then you have a chance of staying that way, and especially if your head is right and you are riding smoothly. So every few minutes when you are riding check if you are tensing up. If you get that knife between the shoulders, a stiff neck, or grinding teeth and locked jaws, back off, breathe deeply, hold a half-smile (try it!), and stay slower for at few miles while you work on getting smooth again. In the end you will go faster naturally.
Scan the horizon. If you look just in front of the front tire you will wobble around and react to things after they have happened. If you look as far ahead as you can see you will follow a smooth, accurate line, anticipating and dealing with whatever happens in advance. Think of main and dip beam at night: the closer your patch of vision is to the front of the bike, the harder it is to ride smoothly. So, make looking further ahead your mantra, from U-turns in the street to flat-out roads. You will notice the difference straight away. The first symptom of tiredness is gradually focusing closer to the front wheel. Learn to recognize this and deal with it. A short rest now is better than running yourself into the ground.
Take the wide view. Just looking miles ahead is never enough. You need some attention in reserve to check in all directions and keep you updated on anything likely to affect you. Think of it like radar in a low-flying plane. The pilot uses radar mainly to keep warned of things coming up ahead. Also wants to know about enemy and friendly aircraft, missiles, flocks of birds anything that might conceivably be a threat or help in the near future. On the road you'll be continually updating your mental reports on following traffic, side roads that could spill slow-moving cars into your path, road surface and feel, and a hundred other things. You'll quietly be keeping tabs on your bike, too: fuel level, revs, gear, it is all going on in the back of your mind, only coming to the front when an alarm goes off. That's it. Now get riding and see for yourself how much difference it makes just looking further ahead than usual, staying relaxed, and monitoring your whole environment.
Time for the serious practical stuff: dealing with trouble (and avoiding it in the first place).
Meet Your Brakes. Brakes are not on/off switches. They are capable of being used as subtly as your throttle. When most riders try going faster, there's a temptation to do it by braking later and harder. Often, the result is an unsettled bike going into a turn too fast, and the terrified conviction that there is no way you could go quicker. Which are, of course, cobblers. Think: "Do I need to brake at all?" We have been conditioned to brake, turn, go, but it should be stabilize speed, turn, and go. The crucial thing is to arrive at the turn-in point at the right speed - whether you have had to brake, accelerate or keep a steady speed.
Emergency Stops. Is a lottery unless they are second nature. Most people spot trouble, hit the anchors hard and pray. If they lock up, that is it - down they go. Not really good enough. Although the front tire does 75-90 per cent of braking, the front/rear balance of every bike is different, and changes with weather, pillions and road conditions. You are searching for the point just before lock-up. You can only get that from long practice and, whenever you try extreme braking, plunging your head into a state of concentration where you focus on nothing else.
Defensive Riding. Basically, assume everybody and everything is trying to maim you, and ride accordingly. Try to cultivate a state of mind where every accident would secretly be your fault for not seeing it coming. On a bike, there is no point being in the right if you have no legs.
“I Am Going To Die!” Two main emergencies that catch bikers out.
Nightmare 1
Into a comer too fast, or comer tightens unexpectedly. This is a major sin, but there you go. You want to brake, but you will either lock the front and crash, or sit up and plough straight on. Not good, especially on left-handers. Instead, lose what speed you can with the rear brake and take the only sensible choice you have: try to make the corner.
Nightmare 2
Car pulls out, piano lands in road, etc., leaving .0002 of a second to deal with it. If this has happened before, why didn't you anticipate it this time (see defensive riding, above)? Were you going so fast the driver saw you but thought you were far away enough? Wake up! Got that? Fortunately, even this desperate situation has a possible way out.
You Go Where You Look
Whether it is a car pulling out or a brick in the road, you seem to steer straight at it as if pulled by the USS Enterprise's tractor beam. It is partially because you are staring at what looks like inevitable disaster, and partially because it is impossible to steer anyway with the brakes on hard. So drag your eyes off the danger (and your hand off the brake, until you are sure you really want to commit yourself to stopping) and actively look for the gap.
Corners. It's what bikes are all about. You will need a Standard Corner that is a 90' bend, recently resurfaced, with plenty of visibility and no traffic. Get the fundamentals right here and you can apply them anywhere.
Corner Approach. Easy in theory. For a right-hander, you should be as far over to the left side of the road as possible and, for a left-hander, you should be as far over to the right. This gives you maximum forward vision as you approach the turn. In real life, left-handers usually restrict you to your side of the white lines and on right-handers, the left gutter is bumpy and full of rubbish, so already you're modifying theoretical perfection to cope with real life.
Flick The Bitch! You would be surprised how hard you can turn a bike. Ride in a straight line at 40mph and gently nudge the left bar away from you. Feel how the bike turns left. Now nudge the right bar. Now slalom. You have just discovered counter-steering. It's the way to fling a bike on its side where and when you want. Once you have the hang, build on it by trying the next stage - weighting the left footrest for lefts, and vice versa.
Entry, Apex, Exit. OK, so the corner is in your sights. It is a right-hander. So where do you start to turn? Tricky that, almost certainly later than you think. (Very few riders turn too late. Most turn too early, which means they run wide on the way out of the turn.) To work it out, you need to be aware of the three distinct parts that make up every single bend in the world Entry, Apex and Exit.
To find out where to turn, you have to know where you want to end up on the far side of the comer. For our Standard 90' right-hander, that's back over on the right hand side of the road on the Exit, ready to drive down the following straight. Draw a curve back from your chosen Exit point just touching the inside of the corner on the right - that's the Apex of your turn.
Continue the line back to intersect your approach. Where the two join is your turn-in point - the Entry. Putting that into practice is easier than it sounds if you have done your homework. Remember "You Go Where You Look"? Here is where it really earns its keep. Practice again and again and again. Try different lines on your approach, and get a feel for how to interpret what you are looking at. If it does not gel immediately, park up and do it on foot - the principle is the same. Once you really have the hang of this, you have the basic knowledge to tackle any corner, anywhere in the world. Refinement comes later, but for now keep practicing until it gets dark. Exit, Apex, Entry. Exit, Apex, Entry…
Now we will adapt the standard approach to different types of corner. We will also learn how to decide what type of corner it is before we get there. First, here is another tip to help keep you shiny side up.
In slow, out fast. Do you frequently enter bends slightly too fast, just about get through on a completely closed throttle, run wide on the exit, then convince yourself you were on the limit? You can go faster but first you have to slow down and learn to work the back tire, not the front. The idea is to spend as little time as possible on a neutral or closed throttle, to drive through the corner. Once you get the hang you will find you can use lots of throttle mid-corner, so long as you use it smoothly. And, diesel-slicks excepted, if you are on the power you will never lose the front. Which is good because front-end slides are usually terminal, and rear ones (if they happen at all) often aren't.
Reading the road. You cannot be a fast, safe road rider unless can read the road, any more than you can be a top musician without being able to read music. It means taking every scrap of information from your environment, and processing it in terms of two main questions: What is going on? There is obvious stuff, like the car that might have seen you, jaywalking pedestrians, and lurking cops. You should spot these half asleep. However, get subtle. Horse shit in the road? Expect cars on your side as they overtake nervous equines. Farm nearby? Bound to be slow moving tractors and caked mud on blind bends. Lots of trees and shadow? Watch for slow drying patches after rain, and slippery leaves. Lorry crawling ups the hill towards you? Cue suicidal overtaking cars. Petrol station on a roundabout? Bet on a slick of spilt fuel. You get the picture: every piece of evidence has to be sifted, weighed and acted upon or discarded. As someone famous said the price of peace is eternal vigilance. He didn't add that the price of not looking is a big insurance claim. Where does the road go? Do not ignore the obvious. TEN MAGIC TIPS
1. Use the vanishing point
2. Counter-steer
3. Practice heavy braking every ride
4. Exit, Apex, Entry
5. In slow, out fast
6. Look ahead, process ahead
7. Read the road
8. Relax, be aware
9. You go where you look
10. Never stop trying to be smoother
Use road signs and markings that tell you what is coming up. But remember that there is plenty of flat out corners festooned with warnings, and doggy hairpins with no signs at all. The trick is not to rely too heavily on any one clue. Wait for extra evidence and, if it does not appear assume the worst. If you're prepared for a hairpin and it turns out to be a fast sweeper that's ok. The other way around hurts. If you look far enough ahead, roadside telegraph poles or trees point to the road's likely direction, but this is just circumstantial evidence. There are plenty of straight-on telegraph lines where the road turns a corner. This is where a trick of the trade can bail you out. It's called Vanishing Point and it is the point where the right and left sides of the road appear to meat. If that point gets closer to you back off: the bend is about to tighten up. If the point is staying the same distance away, the bend continues as it is. And if the point is running away from you chase it: the bend it is opening out and it is safe to get back on the gas.
Riding in the rain. "Rain - I hear you cry - we thought this vas supposed to be fun". It is, honest. Vet riding really tests how much you have absorbed the doctrine of smoothness and relaxation. If you ride tense, the wet will make you tenser, so you'll be afraid to touch the throttle and brakes, so you'll ride more jerkily so you'll become less happy, so you'll get more tense and so the cycle continues. If you are smooth you'll find of grip, brake nearly as hard as in the dry and grin like a loon.
Get Your Knee Down. First, it's got nothing to do with lean angle and little to do with speed. In fact, with two bikes at the same speed, the guy with his knee down will be leant over less and stressing his tires less. So is knee-down the badge of the responsible motorcyclist?
Not really. It's a fashion-dictated craze with no practical application for the road rider beyond being an incredible buzz. So here goes. Find a quiet, 60 80 km per hours, diesel-free roundabout. Ride it a few times as normal, getting a feel for a line and speed you're happy with. Next, slide your bum across the seat as you approach the corner so at least one cheek is right off the inside. Point your knee at the ground, then turn in. Don't shift weight and turn at the same time. The tip is to hang off as far as is safely possible so that - skrrrsll! - your knee goes down early. Then you can gradually refine your style for more comfort or more lean. Do not think that because your knee is down you cannot lean over any more - use it as a sensor, lightly skimming rather than digging in.
Easy, isn't it? That's it. If you've done your homework, right, you'll be faster and smoother. Your mates should see the difference because they will be chasing you. More importantly, you'll have a bigger safety margin. You can ride at the same speed with less risk, or keep the risk the same and go faster. Up to vote. Whatever you do, remember you don't know it all - no one does. Treat every ride as a lesson, learn what you can and, when you find people faster or smoother than you do, pick their brains. The ultimate compliment is when people start to do it to you.
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