THE DOWN SIDE OF KNOWING “EVERYTHING” ABOUT RIDING
Written by Vic Motley, AGWA Safety Director
NOW THIS IS THE STORY OF A RIDER WHO KNEW EVERYTHING THERE WAS TO KNOW ABOUT RIDING AND DIDN’T NEED ANY
HELP OR ADVICE FROM ANYONE,
OR SO HE SAID.
Welcome back to another installment of the AGWA SAFETY Article for this month. I still haven’t received anything in from our membership in the form of motorcycle mishaps or accidents so we’ll just have to make do with another one of mine.
This one takes place sometime in the early to mid 90’s and involves a rider that I can’t even remember his name. They say your memory is the second thing to go and I can’t remember the first, so I guess that is probably true. We’ll just use the name Lucky for this one. We met Lucky at an Antique Car and Motorcycle Show that is held in Red Boiling Springs each year on the first Saturday after Labor Day. It’s free admission and is a huge event and quite well done so we made it a regular event for years. To be honest, the only antique bike I ever saw there was about a ‘42 model Military Harley with a gun holder, suicide clutch, OD green, and was always on a trailer. The quality of the old cars there made up for the shortage of bikes and was always a favorite run with good attendance. Red Boiling Springs is in the northern part of Tennessee, just a few miles south of the Kentucky border. No matter how you get there you have to ride some beautiful back roads with a lot of sweeping turns. Depending on the route you take the curves, on a scale of 1 to 10, run anywhere from about two’s on the easiest route to 9.99 on the most challenging route, which is also the one we almost always took home. Lucky and his lady friend seemed like good folks and we invited them to ride back to Nashville with us. We hadn’t gone very far when I noticed Lucky seemed to be having a problem making the corners two up, as in going all the way out on the gravel shoulders on several turns. We stopped for a break and to let a little rain blow over and noticed the lady riding with him was in tears. She asked if she could ride behind one of the other riders. Lucky said that was fine with him and she picked one of the guys who had just gotten his cast off from an accident he had on Hwy 129, AKA Deals Gap. She could have been going from the frying pan into the fire, but the rider she picked did have a high skill level with a lot of miles on his bike. We all made it home ok but Lucky made a lot of really wide turns, but seemed to be doing better one up.
A few of us invited Lucky to ride up to Center Hill Lake on the back roads the next weekend, namely 3 of us who had ridden together for years and Lucky. We took it really easy just wanting to let Lucky ride his own pace and stopped to take a lot of breaks. Each break we would sit around and discuss group riding procedures and our chapter safety guy offered a little advice from time to time in Lucky’s direction. You know, look where you want to go, don’t ride staggered in the corners, ride your own line, counter steer in the corners, don’t ride over what you feel safe with, leave a safe margin between bikes, using the apex of the corners, riding smooth not full throttle or full brakes, let someone know if you need a break, just simple common sense stuff. Well Lucky said that some of us might need that advice but he didn’t, he knew everything there was to know about riding a motorcycle and didn’t need any help or advice from anyone. Well, sometimes pride will cause a fall. We started riding the loop around Center Hill Lake, traveling a lot slower than we normally ran, and proceeded to have a really slow pickup pull out in front of us. We waited a long time for a good straight stretch to pass, mainly so everyone would have a chance to pass safely. This truck was only running about 25 MPH. The first bike passed, second bike passed, Lucky started to pass, got beside the truck and then braked down and dropped back in behind the pickup. At the end of the straight away was a fairly sharp left turn, well Lucky then decided as he neared the left turn to now pass full throttle, saw the turn and turned right to get back on the right side in front of the truck, noticed then the road was starting to go left as he was turning right, got into both brakes really hard as he headed for the shoulder, at this point he had made the left turn into a 15 on a 10 scale, where it was really only about a 4 or 5.
He was really hard in the brakes and there was no way that bike was going anywhere except straight, got to the shoulder and front tire locked and skidded then slapped around full lock, the bike went in backwards and removed Lucky from the saddle and he went sliding on his back, with his head in front of him. Lucky traveled about 40 feet, and the bike skidded about 75 feet before coming to a rest. Lucky really was lucky, he didn’t break anything and really didn’t hurt his bike that bad. We secured the site, checked him out, broke out the first aid kit, cleaned up rash on his back, put on a lot of disinfectant, the fact he was wearing a t-shirt didn’t help him much in the crash, got out the tools and straightened up his bags and did a few minor repairs and then headed on out for lunch.
He was a lot more humble for the rest of the day, but I was also impressed that he got back on and rode to lunch. If you are wondering whatever happened to him, when he got home he took the bike to his brothers, put it in the garage, and put it up for sale. I think he realized that knowing everything there is to know is somewhat dangerous at times.
Now lets review what caused this, besides pride and lack of skill.
Carrying 2 up changes the weight of the bike, and you should give yourself plenty of time to get used to a bike before riding 2 up.
Look where you want to go, not where you are worried about going.
Use countersteer and the apex of the turns.
Never ride over what you feel comfortable with, it is a lot easier to wait on or slow down for someone than it is to have to pick them up or wait on an ambulance.
When he waited on passing he should have not gone approaching the corner, instead of trying to turn right and therefore making an impossible left turn out of it, he should have maintained a straight line towards the corner and scrubbed off speed with controlled braking, he could have then used countersteer after releasing the brakes, and allowed the bike to scrub speed and drift out on the corner until after the apex and then come smoothly out of the curve.
By over braking the front wheel and then locking it he made it impossible to make the left he needed, in fact in this instance he could have ridden off the road and used the embankment to slow down. There was no ditch and the embankment went through most of the corner in a gentle arch. This is also what kept down damage to him and his bike.
Always wear protective clothing, he would have been a lot better off with a long sleeve shirt or jacket and gloves. His helmet also got a bit of rash; it would have been his head if he didn’t have on a helmet.
It never hurts to listen to what people with more training or years on their bikes have to say. Take some safety courses and give plenty of time to get used to a new bike. No two bikes handle exactly the same.
Well, that’s our article for this month. If you have any events we can use for an example, if you would like to write a short article or story concerning safety, please feel free to do so. Remember we don’t want to use last names; the idea is to help someone else keep from making a mistake, not embarrass someone who has had a mishap.
I would be interested in any feedback or opinions you might have on these articles. Good or Bad. Send any articles or info for the safety program to Vic Motley, P.O. Box 8062, Hermitage, TN. 37076, or I can be reached at agwachptdtn@att.net.
Congratulations go out this month to the following people on the AGWA Safe Miles Program:
John A. Suhr at 95,000 miles
Joe Lopez at 35,000 miles
Chris Munson at 35,000 miles
Marvin Hahn at 30,000 miles