Jeremy's Handy Hints Mind Games While a twist of the wrist never hurts, riding is mostly in your head.
Words by JEREMY BOWDLER, illustration by ELINOR MCDONALD Forget mind over matter, it’s mind over manner that’s important. Last issue we looked at how a change in attitude can reduce road rage and limit your exposure to potential injury from (stupid) angry motorists. I’d like to expand on the idea this month, and take a look at how your frame of mind can influence how you ride and how well. I used to work as a motorcycle courier in London during the winter. It was the first time I had ridden all day every day for money. It was the first time I had ridden in snow and ice. And it was the first time I really noticed how much of a difference my attitude made to my day’s work on the bike.
If I was looking forward to the ride, I rode well. If I wanted top stay in bed and forget about the snow, black ice and freezing sleet, I rode like crap.
When the beginnings of frostbite had taken their toll and I switched to writing about riding rather than suffering from it, my first published piece was about life as a courier. I interviewed the controller, Barry, and asked him how you could tell a good courier. “If you see him twice,” was his succinct, if abrupt, reply. And it got me thinking. Riding as a courier is possibly the most intense motorcycling experience you can have. Racing? That’s exciting. A track day? Exhilarating. Commuting? It has its moments. But riding as a courier? It’s like racing with traffic, commuting with urgency and doing it all day, every day. Those riders are a hardy breed and they’re bloody good. What makes them good, in many case, is the way they look at their work and how the perform it. From an outsider’s perspective, they may look undisciplined, erratic and, often, dangerous.
From behind the visor, on the other hand, a finely honed and well developed sense for traffic and what is possible from within its confines, allows the rider to ride, work and be seen twice. The ability to read traffic, to get through it and get out the other side – again and again – is a mind thing; as is so much of the art of riding. Anyone can get on a scooter and twist the throttle. It’s not a difficult thing to work out the controls. Getting your mind around when, why and, perhaps most importantly, how much is another question entirely
The Gambler
Kenny Rogers had it neatly summed up with these words: “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,/Know when to walk away and know when to run”. Keep those words in mind and you can’t go too far wrong. The thing is, keeping these words in mind tends only to come with experience, and often painful experience. Nothing I write here will make up for what you learn on a scooter, but I hope it will give you a head start by encouraging you to think about stuff a little more. Being self-aware is a big start. Why do you ride? Economy? Excitement? What do you ride? Commuter? Maxi? What sort of riding do you do? Big miles? Big smiles?
Working out what sort of rider you are is a great springboard for working out what will make you a better rider. You know you are prepared to take risks. That’s a given with riding. What sort of risks are you prepared to take? What sort of risk management do you impose on yourself? Do you think and then act? Or act and then think? One of the key indicators for alcoholism is a sequence of drink-driving convictions. One of the key indicators for poor riding is a sequence of the same sort of traffic incident.
Serial offender
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to make a mistake once may be regarded as a misfortune; to make it twice looks like carelessness. A friend of mine has recently had a spate of drivers changing lanes on him without indicating. He’s been fuming about the drivers, giving them a mouthful and, so far, has almost dislocated a shoulder and has had his foot run over.
My question, grasshopper, is why is this happening. Do car drivers have it in for you? Or are you placing yourself in a vulnerable position? More importantly, are you making the same mistake again and again? And how can you take control and learn from the experience.
Every part of a ride adds to your bank of knowledge. Every good and bad part should be filed somewhere in your mind so you don’t actually repeat rides, but learn from them and make them better the next time. Just as I know where every pothole, bump, manhole cover, expansion strip, corner, intersection, etc, etc, is on my commute and ride accordingly, by taking the best line for the conditions rather than the ideal, theoretical best line, every time you ride, and taking notice of what’s going on, you create a memory for riding that will make you safer.
My friend admitted that when he gets into trouble with lane-changing cars he’s usually in a hurry and feeling impatient. He’s also usually filtering in the left-hand lane next to the gutter. Yes, it’s a classic blind-spot scenario and yes, the car driver has a responsibility to make sure that it is safe to change lanes and I’ll be sure to mention that to my buddy when I visit him in hospital.
It requires a big mental shift to change your mindset around traffic. For far too long too many of us have placed our lives in the hands of the very people we trust least in traffic – car drivers. By looking and thinking ahead, we can begin to take responsibility for their actions, at least inasmuch as their actions affect us. I’d much rather drop back and let the car in ahead of me, than have it run over me. Does that make me weak?
Maybe. I still believe in asserting my rights on the road and I will also ride aggressively when and where I feel it is appropriate to my risk management strategy. But when push comes to shove and I’m pushing a scooter against a 4WD shoving me out of the way, I know what it takes to get home safely. And it’s all in the mind.
published 25/05/2009 |