Take care on familiar roads!

[tucola]

Had a little refresher class this morning on one of the classic biking lessons, that fortunately came free of charge.

On the way to work, along a narrow, twisty national speed limit B-road, that I have ridden twice a day, five days a week, for two years and know like the back of my hand down to every bump, overhanging branch and imperfection in the tarmac.

Pushing along a bit, hitting 60 on the straights, overtaking cars, but comfortably within my limits, not working too hard. Tipped into a hedge-lined bend, knowing exactly which way it went and that I could easily get around it at 40.

Hit the apex - FACK!!! - queue of stationary traffic on the exit, for the first time ever, due to an incident up the road.

On the brakes; I'm going to hit it; is the other side of the road clear?; yes it is; pull out; fly down the queue of traffic on the wrong side of the road; slow down and pull in before the arrival of oncoming.

Phew, and I guess I picked the wrong week to give up smoking!

Total rookie error after 20 years as a biker, and that would have been me in deep shit if the other side of the road hadn't have been clear.

Ride to what you can see, not to what you can remember, kids!

[Lord Danoir the first]

Jesus..... not helping my confidence at all!!

Glad you're ok though

[Dom1]

Glad you avoided that one.

Had a similar experience with a flat pack badger that I wasn't expecting on the apex of a familiar corner.

[Gilby104]

Jesus..... not helping my confidence at all!!

Glad you're ok though

I'm certain these lessons don't apply to a rider of your caliber Dan!

Wise words for the rest of us though Tucola.... well worth reminding ourselves often!

[Lord Danoir the first]

Jesus..... not helping my confidence at all!!

Glad you're ok though

I'm certain these lessons don't apply to a rider of your caliber Dan!

Wise words for the rest of us though Tucola.... well worth reminding ourselves often!

My road riding experience is limited to sunny evenings and weekends riding up and down the Cat & Fiddle as fast as I can..... 25+ years ago..... and the odd ride with Terry and to work over the last few years.

But, it's a great point that Dicko and I were talking about only yesterday when I was recounting a great drive in to work I'd had on roads I'd been driving since I was 17. I genuinely go like a bat out of hell and don't give it a second thought.

I was telling Dicko about a particular corner I love which is a right hander which I cut on to the opposite side of the road and literally drift the car to the kerb on the exit. I must have done it thousands of times so my confidence is supreme.

Dicko asked if I wasn't concerned by the little blind junction on the right half way around the corner..... I told him he must be thinking of the wrong corner because the one I'm talking about doesn't have such a junction....... he assures me he knows which turn I'm on and we argue a bit.

I go that way on my way home, and he's right...... there's a road adjoining right in the middle of this turn....... having done this turn so many times over the last nearly 30 years, had a car been pulling out of, or turning in to this road when i was coming around it, I'd have killed us all.

Scared the shit out of me, cos clearly I'm not half as safe as I think I am.

[Thegodfather]

Happened to a mate last year on his ZX10. He left work and noticed an SV650 in his mirror, the SV kept with him untill they hit a queue of traffic behind a bus that had stopped. Mate reckoned his ABS helped him and went down the outside of traffic. Luckily nothing coming. Poor bloke on the SV locked his front and went into the back of the parked car. Suffered a broken pelvis and knock to the head, wrote the bike off. My mate went back as he noticed the lad wasn't there anymore, shook him up for a while.

[tucola]

Cheers all!

It's so easy to slip without realising it more and more into the danger zone as one becomes more and more comfortable with something.

I've had the same thought from time to time when filtering through fast-moving but heavy traffic on the motorway.

The IaM say no filtering above 30mph.

That's never going to work if you're commuting, but as you become inured to the risks after plying the motorway back and forth, day-in-day-out, you do occasionally need to remind yourself that this is not a computer game.

[Green_Ninja]

Wise words, far too easy to become complacent 

[PJ]

I've done it in the car, I've driven the same country lanes near the house everyday for 10 years on and off, came around a bend to find temporary traffic lights and a line of stationary cars 

[Dom1]

A further cautionary note, some friends of mine were enjoying a spirited group ride down one of our favourite roads and came round a bend to find a Special Constable minding a road closed sign for a fun run.

Fair play to the constable in question who held his post, albeit crouching behind how own outstretched hand in the classic "Stop" position, as half a dozen bikes rolled up to him on their front wheels.

[LewisBeGoog]

Wise words for me too, Id be as guilty as you of this kind of thing!