Monday Morning Riding Tip

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to work with the local dealer running a demo ride day for Indian. Two straight days of riding well over 500 miles on backroads went almost perfectly. This is the second time I have helped this dealer with demo rides but the first time I had a rider go down. Here is what happened.

While riding the back roads of Maryland on a beautiful sunny Sunday one of the riders in my group went wide off the road in a left hand turn. When you lead a ride and someone goes down you not only worry about them and if they are hurt but what you could have done differently.

I looked at every ride we had done that day. The roads were in good shape, visibility was excellent, temperature was a perfect mid 70 degrees. In other words the ideal day for riding on two wheels. So what happened? Lack of experience, rider error, or some other anomaly?

Turns out it was some other anomaly. A tennis ball of all things caused this accident. That and target fixation. No one is sure where the tennis ball came from. Four riders including myself had ridden through the turn and no one saw a tennis ball. The fifth rider through managed to not only see the tennis ball but fixate on it enough to hit it dead center of his tire while leaned over in the turn. The ball lifted the wheel off of the road surface long enough for the bike to run wide and off the pavement. The end result was a low side crash into the grass and a broken wrist.

What can you do? The hardest part of this scenario is not target fixating. The speed we were riding at was slow enough to take evasive action. Had the rider been able to look past the tennis ball he might have either skimmed the ball or missed it entirely.

What’s the take away? Remember when riding anything can happen. Your focus needs to be looking beyond the hazard to a safe point on the road. If you can’t completely avoid the hazard try to plot a path to the safest point beyond the hazard while trying to slow down and control the motorcycle. These tips won’t guarantee you avoid an accident but they can certainly minimize the danger.

Add your tips below or in the forums…