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September 2007
Back in June at Doc’s Birthday Party, several of us Road Captains volunteered to guide groups going out for demo rides on the bikes that the factory sent down just for Patty. With the bikes came two reps from HD. Jerry, who has been taking demo bikes to various events for over 10 years, walked us through some of the silly things he has seen and wanted to make sure we avoided them at all costs. As he went through the items, some of them were very familiar – riding in staggered formation, using lead and drag bikes to keep the group together, and making sure the members of the group knew what to expect. Jerry also mentioned that he was in favor of passing hand signals to the group, but not to let that interfere with riding the bike. He told us a story of another Chapter’s Safety Officer leading a group. During the ride, the Safety Officer pointed out some roadkill to the other members of the group. While paying attention to the roadkill and trying to make sure the group knew about the obstacle, the Safety Officer crossed over the double yellow line and ran right into the front of a truck. It killed him instantly.
Jerry said that he thought the best way to ride was with both hands on the handlebar and eyes focused on the road in front of you. It seemed strange to me that the simple act of pointing out roadkill could lead to such disastrous results. So, I started paying closer attention to other riders to see if I could spot any similarities to Jerry’s story. It didn’t take long. The next day, I was on a small group ride with some Chapter members. As we passed some riders going the other way, most of our group stuck out a low hand to wave. All three bikes in the right half of the lane in front of me weaved to the left as they stuck their arms out. They didn’t weave to the left enough to even come close to the riders in the left half of the lane, but they did weave. Jerry’s story was starting to sound more plausible.
On a different ride, I saw a rider spot some road kill. He looked down at it while he went to point it out. As he did so, he clipped the edge of the possum carcass. Thankfully it didn’t upset the bike or send the poor, dead possum to spinning into the path of the other riders. But I am sure it wasn’t the path he wanted to take around it. (I am going to skip the stories about the sight see-er that ran off the side of the road and the rider who didn’t look through the turn and went wide.)
Add on to all of this, the training in both the Basic and Experienced Rider Courses about looking 12 seconds down the road and using SEE (Scan, Evaluate, Execute), the tip to look through to or past the end of a turn, and the reminder to look where you want to go and not at what you want to avoid and it all starts making sense.
Keep your head up. Keep scanning the road and what is going on all around you. And remember -RIDE THE BIKE.
Ride Safe! Rich
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