I've started my last day of owning a motorcycle, and I'm being a huge wuss about it.
In 7 hours, the new owner will arrive and I'll load it into his truck and never see it again. I'm going to go to the garage when I'm done writing this, and spend 15 minutes saying goodbye to it. I'm going to feel the worn front tire and remember every trip I went on. I'll burn every last bit of that beautiful machine into my memory, from the flecks of last summer's insects clinging to the front cylinder head to the soot in the exhaust. I'll sit in the saddle with my eyes closed and feel every moment I had on that bike, and feel the ghost of every moment yet to come that I'm giving up forever.
It's not like I haven't had time to prepare. I've been riding since 2004, and I made an agreement with myself when I started that there would be a time when I would hang up my helmet and let it go. I've owned three bikes, and the one that will forever leave my life today is the greatest and probably the last.
I love my motorcycle. I love riding. I love pulling up at a destination and feeling like the baddest motherfucker around. I love cheap fillups. I love the wave when I pass another rider. I love being different. I love it when I show up at work in a rainstorm and people are amazed that I somehow survived being exposed to water in my commute. I love passing on a double yellow at full throttle and scaring the crap out of the guy in front of me. I love riding in the early spring when the dark patches of pavement hide frost and a greatly elevated chance of a detour to the hospital. I love stretching out that knee in a corner and pretending it's skimming a millimeter above the pavement even though it's a foot away. I love a full commitment corner, leaned as far as I can go with certain death waiting on either side.
I love shedding safety from my life and taking my own mortality in my hands. It's exquisite. This is what makes men go to war, launch into space, get into fights. Strip away all the dumbass protection inherent in modern society, take the guard off the saw, load the gun. On a motorcycle, you are no longer alive because of some numb safety feature designed to keep the masses safe. Your aptitude and judgment are what keep you safe, and if they are lacking then eventually you'll be a physics demonstration.
You survive because you are good enough to survive. It's the purest form of self validation available. Nobody can take it away from you... except for the road. And the road is patient.
I love life more than I love my motorcycle, and that's what this decision is really about.
It may come as a surprise to some, but I'm a morbid person. I grew up with death. Neither of my parents made it to 40. I've imagined and mentally prepared myself for the death of every person I care about. I can see it coming from every direction. This probably makes me sound like Batman, but I'm honestly not a psychopath. Seriously.
Maybe I started riding as a way of thumbing my nose at death, proving that I'll do what makes me happy regardless of the risks. Getting in a dick waving contest with the grim reaper might have been a bad idea, but I seem to have gotten away with it and I'm ready to move on.
I've got plans in life. I want to do great things. I want to have kids, and I want to give them the life that I didn't get to have. I may love riding around like an jerk, but it doesn't mean as much to me as the next 50 years of living I've got coming up.
If death wants me that bad, he's going to have to be a little more creative from now on.
Most of you read that sentence and didn't understand what the hell I was talking about. Those who ride motorcycles and have put some time into learning the theory behind riding well should know exactly what I mean, and probably have a few anecdotes from their riding experience that reinforce it.
The MOST important part of riding a motorcycle is perception control. A lot of it is common sense; be aware of your environment, position yourself in places where other drivers will see you and understand what you are going to do in the next 10 seconds, and watch the body language of other cars for some warning when they make an attempt on your life. The hardest part is controlling your own perception; your own eyes.
A car is a big, steady chunk of metal with 4 fat tires, all of which wants to go straight. To turn a car, there's a measurable movement in the steering wheel, and it's all easy to quantify and control. This is very fortunate, because most people are more concerned with grabbing their dropped fries than watching where their 3000 lb murder missile is going... and for the most part, it all takes care of itself. The car goes straight, the driver gets their fries and everybody is happy.
A motorcycle is a wiggly, sinuous vehicle riding on an inch thick patch of rubber with no horizontal stability. At speeds over 30 km/h, the movements required to turn the motorcycle are imperceptible; adding 1 lb of pressure to your left bar is all it takes to change lanes in seconds. It's a common misconception that leaning is what turns the bike. It's really more like a Ouija board with handlebars.
For all intents and purposes, a motorcycle is steered with your MIND. Your mind is steered by your eyes. This means that your helpful motorcycle will tend to drift wherever you are looking and thinking, which can be cool or terrifying depending on how disciplined you are with your eyes.
Unfortunately for us, our brains are wired to look at scary stuff or things that need our immediate attention. That could be your speedometer, or the lines on the road, the ditch you're trying to avoid, or the truck in the other lane that you feel like you are drifting into. Yes, you ARE drifting into it, because you keep staring at the damn thing.
This is called Target Fixation, and it kills people. Here's a classic example (jump to 0:20 for the LOL):
This guy was riding just fine, until he saw an interesting tree and found himself riding straight at it. He should have made that corner easily, but he focused on that stupid tree and rode off the road for no good reason.
Here's another one:
Bike number one does something that angers God and gets smote. Every other rider avoids him except our friend in Blue, who smacks into him like a pain seeking missile. It's pretty clear that he fixated on the accident, and wasn't able to look away and swerve around it.
Finally, my personal favorite is "dude who crashes and dude following him goes right off the road after him like an idiot." Dig around on YouTube, there's a ton of these videos out there and if you forget that crashing hurts, it's hilarious.
That's what happens if you watch the guy in front of you instead of the road. You wreck your bike, and get made fun of in blogs.
Your eyes are now open to the dangers (and funny YouTube videos) of target fixation. Now replace the tree in the first video with an oncoming truck, and it's a lot less funny. The truck is much easier to fixate on too, since it's moving, right in front of you if you are cornering, and is scarier than a big tree.
Avoiding target fixation and controlling your eyes is easy, but it takes practice and discipline. The correct actions depend on your circumstances.
1. Riding straight ahead.
This one's easy; keep your eyes moving. Try not to look at ANYTHING for more than 2 seconds. This'll keep you from fixating on any one thing, and also helps you to see important stuff on the edges of your vision like people on cell phones. Target fixation can creep up on you, especially if you are following another rider. See third video for a great example.
2. Cornering.
Here's where it really matters. When you are cornering, your bike is inherently unstable. You've pushed it off balance, and it's swerving away from a straight line course. It's very easy to deviate from the correct line, and hard to tell when when you do. To stay on course (and improve your cornering ability dramatically), look through the curve where you want to go. Keep your eyes up and away from the road surface itself.
Your subconscious will make the necessary adjustments to give you a beautiful line through the corner, and you'll make it look easy. It makes sense; this is the part of your brain that has been keeping you from smacking into things since you were 2 years old. The last thing you want to do is get in its way.
Take a look at this dude. Note that he's looking deep, deep into the corner:
Here's what a corner looks like, with where you should be looking. Naturally, this is different for everybody and varies a lot depending on how fast you are going.
It takes practice, but is hands down the best thing you can do to improve your riding.
3. I took a corner too fast and I'm going off course oh god what do I do.
This happens to everybody, and it's real fucking scary when it does. The usual cause is coming into a corner too hot, and finding out that your planned amount of lean just ain't cutting it. Sometimes it'll happen if you get distracted by something on the other side of the curve and pay too much attention to it; target fixation strikes again! Either way, you're running out of space and time, and your brain has shifted from "this is kinda fun" to "oh god I'm so sorry." You have about 1 second to save your skin and possibly your life.
This is how you save it:
1. Forget that you screwed up. Worrying about the oncoming traffic/ditch/llamas will make you more likely to hit them. Reset your brain, and leave them out of it. Your entire world is this corner from now on. Saving your bacon relies on you pretending that you planned on doing this. Stay relaxed and focused on your outcome: pulling a smooth line through this corner.
2. Look where you want to go. Your eyes are the most important part of your body right now. I don't care how far off course you are, you look at the right part of that curve and get your head straight.
3. Lean as far as it takes. One of the fundamental rules of motorcycling is that your bike can ALWAYS lean further than you think it can. Unless you're a professional racer (or ride a cruiser - sorry), you don't come anywhere near the limits of your bike. Ever. That bike is a lot better at this than you are, so just lean that fucker as far as it takes... which will probably be past your comfort zone. Congratulations on reducing the size of your chicken strips.
4. Do a little dance. Depending on your little dance, you might want to pull over, but I'll leave that to your discretion.
5. Remember that you screwed up. Over and over again. Analyze exactly what went wrong, and pound it into your brain so you don't do it again. You got lucky this time, so make yourself even luckier for next time by learning something.
Congratulations, now you know about Target Fixation and how it relates to motorcycling! Just look where you want to go, and the rest will fall into place.
Hey, look at that. I finally went ahead and made a blog.
Kinda surprising that it took this long, as I've developed a reputation as somebody who enjoys writing, and also enjoys inflicting that writing on those who have better things to do. Thanks to the Internet, now I can do that to people I don't even know!
Now that I've lost your interest, I'll see if I can earn it back.
This blog will serve two purposes: professional and personal.
I work as a Flex/Flash/Java developer, and have the privilege of helping manage a department full of talented people. I'm hoping that I can post some information and lessons learned that will help others dealing with similar situations. I know how invaluable it can be to find a blog post dissecting a particular problem and sharing the solution, so here's a chance to refill the karma bank. Most of you will arrive via Google-fu, and will disappear within minutes. I'm happy to have been of service.
Personal posts will be me screaming at the Internet. My time is passing, and I'd like to have a more permanent record than my own weak memory. If I lack the discipline to write a personal journal, then maybe the vanity of throwing it on the Internet will make me want to record who I am at these moments in time. Future me will probably be grateful, and the rest of you will probably think I'm a bit of an asshole.
I hope what I post here makes your life easier, better informed or more entertained in some small way.
