Overconfidence
Saturday 17th November
Ah… so that’s what the overconfidence phase of motorcycling feels like.
Today I learnt what happens when you have to do an emergency stop from 70, and you overdo the back brake on a damp road, on your back wheel decides it would like to overtake you on the right and your bike decides it would like a little lie down on its left side.
The skidding around I did on my pushbike at Carsington seemed superfluous at the time, but fortunately it gave me a nice instinctive knack for keeping a single-track vehicle upright. But I did need a new pair of underpants. And it was back to old-man mode for the rest of my 60 miles.
I happened to bump into* my instructor later on - and I admitted what had happened. He said that a) it is very slippy out there today, and b) it still happens to him, as he realises he’s not actually superhuman and has limits.
(* well, ok… I was riding near the bike school, and spotted him with a trainee in classic “we’re heading back to base” mode, so I nipped right round the roundabout and dropped by for a chat - it’s quite handy that he has the only bike of its kind in the UK, so I knew it was him)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! phew!
sweavo
17 Nov 07 at 4:54 pm
Be glad you lost the back wheel under braking, it doesn’t do much then anyway. Most of the braking as you know is done by the front wheel on a motorbike as the weight transfer gives it improved grip and the back wheel loses grip as the weight lifts off it.
I hit a small oil patch accellerating out of a service station on the A46 which was a short slip road and led onto a national speed limit dual carriageway. That was clean trousers time for me, I hit the stops on both sides of the handlebars before I regained control and I still had to try to fit into the same gap that I was aiming for before the back end decided it wanted to run off.
It’s not really a question of overconfidence, It is more about an awareness of the road conditions which you will gain as you ride more, the ability to spot a diesel spill at 50 yards so you can go round it, the ingrained knowledge of how to get out of trouble without having to think about what an instructor has told you.
Trust me, a near miss like this is a better teaching tool than anything an instructor can tell you.
Keep having fun on the bike and don’t let one little slip put you off, I know loads of bikers who ride all year round and say it isn’t a real winter if you haven’t got road rash.
See ya soon (loughborough Juggling is on tomorrow if you are around)
plumsie
17 Nov 07 at 8:54 pm
I never came off either of mine but, then, I had proper BRITISH bikes.
henry
17 Nov 07 at 9:18 pm
I’m glad not to add you to the list of friends I’ve lost.
JG
17 Nov 07 at 10:54 pm
I’m sure I told you it would kill you. Take Care! *mutters midlife crisis…….
lordhutton
18 Nov 07 at 5:06 pm
You use the back brake?
Woofter.
Phil
18 Nov 07 at 10:34 pm
I’d rather lose the back than the front. I rarely do use it actually, but this was an emergency stop.
stu
18 Nov 07 at 10:37 pm
“Trust me, a near miss like this is a better teaching tool than anything an instructor can tell you.”
I absolutely agree.
stu
19 Nov 07 at 11:44 am