From: brucer@drutx.ATT.COM (RobinsonB)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Being Good (was Re: Wheelies)
Summary: anecdotal blather
Date: 25 Apr 89 17:43:47 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO

In article <29456@apple.Apple.COM>, billd@Apple.COM (Bill Dorsey) writes:
> Alex Crain and Bill Vogel flame Charles Blair for his, "Incompetent,"
> riding practices [accidental wheelie].  They both go on to point out
> that one shouldn't ride unless one has the, "Proper," skills ...
> 
> I would like to assert that there is no substitute for experience.
> Certainly, the MSF course can help you get off to a good start ...
> 
> I think our words would be much better spent if we talked about safe riding
> practices and how to avoid dangerous situations rather than going on tirades
> about how some idiot pulled a wheelie at a traffic light and is giving all
> motorcylists a bad reputation.  People seem to respond much more favorably
> to positive encouragement rather than an acrimonious assault upon their
> riding ability.
> 
> Bill Dorsey ...

Good points Bill; flaming Charlie was pretty tasteless, but no-one ever
claimed it took good sense to ride a motorcycle.

I would like to know
what *experienced* riders think contributes to staying alive.
Bill, what seminal (germinal?) experiences did you have as a new rider
that instilled in you some riding skill that you're proud of?

How about the rest of you riders, what and where did you learn
how to say upright when you sock into some corner going too damn
fast and find yourself rolling over wet leaves or dry sand?

I suppose the MSF course might define "safe" to include not going too fast,
but I always drive too fast, I'm always at the edge, especially on
the twisties.  Flame away, forces of conservatism, but that's the
way it is.  Some people drive too fast; what I want to know is
what learning experiences have those people had which helps them
stay alive.


Anecdote 1:
When I was real little, my folks put me into tumbling
classes.  For a couple of years I studied tumbling.  Well, 15 years
later, I was running along the edge of a twelve foot cliff in the dark
(not safe, right?), and I caught one foot, then the other, in
a wire clothes hanger.  Hog tied me in 1/2 second flat, and I
pitched head first, feet wire together, right over the edge of
that cliff.  Did I die?  No, those tumbling lessons saved my ass.
I hit the ground in a tuck, and rolled over about five times,
sat up, unwired my feet, and limped off to do something stupid
another day.

Anecdote 2:
Probably the dumbest thing I've ever done on a motorcycle was to
try to climb a steep pile of concrete blocks on a 350 Honda.
Well, the front end kicked back about the same time the back
caught some traction, and I went over backwards, and landed on
my back with the bike on top of me.  I was real lucky, 'cause
I should have broken something.  But I didn't die, just limped
of to do something stupid another day.  I think the tumbling
experience saved me that day too.


As I mentioned to this group before, I spent a couple of years
bashing a road bike off-road in the New Jersey mud and sand;
I fell down a lot, usually under 450 pounds of hot iron.
One day I came home after a few hours thrashing in the mud
and took a picture of my poor body.  I still have that picture;
you can count 37 bruises on my legs.  Those years were dreadfully
painful, a hell of a price to pay for some skills, but as stupid
as I am on a motorcycle, those experiences have saved my cookies
many times.


Anecdote 3:
When I was a young teenager I lived in Lemon Grove (just outside
of San Diego CA).  We had a weeping willow tree in our front yard
which I used to climb, practically lived in that tree.  Well, I
developed a stunt where I would hang from one limb of the tree,
then let go and catch the next limb down as I dropped.  Many years
later I was riding my 350 Honda SL in a sand quarry in NJ; there
was a cliff there that I had never been able to climb, I was real
steep and had a lip, kind of a berm that hung out and kicked the
front wheel back when you hit it.  Well, one day I'd had enough of
failure and decided that what this hill needed was a lot more speed,
enough to cause the front forks to really compress when I hit the
berm at the top.  So I sat at the bottom for a while, scared out of
my wits, building nerve enough for the run, then kicked it.  I guess
I was going a little too fast.  The forks compressed alright, but
me and the bike sailed up over the edge of that cliff and about
10 feet in the air, right at a big damn tree.  At about the apex,
just before I was about to be scraped off the bike by the trunk of
the tree, I jumped and grabbed a limb.  After the smoke and dust
and crashing noises settled down, there I was, hanging from a tree
limb about ten feet in the air, looking down at the ruins of my
bike.  I dropped to the ground, picked of the pieces of the bike
and limped home.

    66
     >
     ^   .................... brucer
***********************************************************

Steve Garnier - 1979 Yamaha XS1100SF Special with 156,000 miles and *climbing*
DoD #00000005 - KotF (The Daemon's Byte and Keeper of the Flame), NC Chapter
Internet:steve@bucolix.ece.ncsu.edu  UUCP:{?,gatech,uunet}!mcnc!bucolix!steve
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles