This thread has been immensely helpful to me as I get back on the "horse." There is so much to think about when riding. I'm still getting used to that, and perhaps always will be.
This weekend I spent some time in an industrial park riding in circles and it was extremely enjoyable. I told my wife I was going to ride to work today (20 mile commute, mostly country roads) and she said she thought I should do some more "short rides" before I take the bike to work. Considering that my accident was on the way home from work, I think she may be onto something. My car is parked outside... Wife does not like this new hobby, so I have to give sometimes. On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 12:42 PM, <mark.wf...@gmail.com> wrote: > I like where this discussion has gone. > It also proved a helpful little seed in the back of my mind recently. > > I've been riding for a pretty long time now. > I'm old, experienced and capable of some occasional cocky behavior, > leading some to believe that I am accomplished. > > But there is always something that will help you recall what scary feels > like, how precarious two-wheeled travel really is. > > They are patching roads around here, and sometimes they decide they will > fill a gap between old road surface and patch with a little strip of tar. > NOW they have decided to dribble some coarse sand over the top of these > lines of tar. This makes them look like the older hardened patches, but > they are not. On a hot day they are little road traps waiting for > motorcycles. > > I was on one of our local two-lane curves, laid over the appropriate > amount and hit one of these lines. Like a banana peel, that crust on top of > the tar slid right out from under my front tire. It catches you so very > off-guard and shoots adrenaline everywhere. > > The normal response, in that split-second of panic, is to come off the > throttle, come out of the turn/lean which will take you into oncoming > traffic, or off the road, depending on which direction you are turning at > the time. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic, it was a curve right. > > It is right after this that I needed the reminder of this whole thread > lurking in my mind. In the next split second, still in panic mode now > because I am going into the other lane, I had to tell myself to stop > reacting and continue to counter steer to re-align myself and get out of > the path of oncoming. > > I am very confident with the application of, and even the mechanics > explaining counter steering. However, I am not so experienced that I can > handle all of those "hitting a banana peel" moments as though they are > routine. I'm not sure I really want to get that experienced at it either. > > This thread is timeless. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to nighthawk_lovers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to nighthawk_lovers@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nighthawk_lovers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to nighthawk_lovers@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
