Too Long to Think About It!



"I see the flag waving waaaay down there. That's my signal to go. Time to snick the bike into first gear. Ease out the clutch, roll on the throttle, and smoothly get underway.  I'm nervous enough as it is, wouldn't want to embarrass myself in front of my fellow instructors by stalling the bike.  Up through the gears.  Accelerate quickly..... I've gotta' get up to 70 mph pretty soon.  So this is what it's like to go charging down the blacktop on a dragstrip!  This is way cool.  Crap!  There comes the pair of cue cones.  How did I get to them so quickly?  I'm nowhere near ready.

 

All right, time for a quick stop using maximum braking.  Eyes up, eyes up!  Don't look at the trainer. Knees against the tank.  Smooth on the front brake.  Remember to ease the pressure on the rear brake pedal as the front end dives.  What's the front tire doing?  Do I hear a squeal?  Is it sliding?  Dang, I wish I had ABS.  Calm down, remember what the instructors told you.  The bars are starting to wriggle side to side.  Light hands, light hands!  Use my knees to take the weight off my upper body.  I glance at the trainer that's coaching my braking.  What's that look on his face? It's not a smile. Is he looking worried?  Should I be worried?  That concrete barrier to my right is looking pretty close. Don't look at the wall!!!! This is way too long to  have to think about things.

 

Whew!  I'm stopped and the bike is still upright.  I don't smell tire smoke. What was my distance?  Did I do better this time?  I look to the trainer.  Finally, he smiles and gives me the thumbs up but tells me I forgot to do something.  With an evil grin Irondad tells me I'll find out soon enough when I try to take off.  I look down at the gear indicator on the instrument cluster.  Still in 5th gear?  I'd slap my forehead if my hands weren't so tightly clenched on the grips.  All FOUR paws!  Front brake, rear brake, clutch, light hands, AND tap dance on the shift lever.  Ok.  On the next run I'm going to get it ALL right!"

 

 One of the things I deeply appreciate about this job is that I have the opportunity to help people to grow in various ways.  That's also the culture of our organization.  As part of that effort we conducted high speed braking and swerving clinics earlier this year for our instructors.  It's the first time we've ever done that.  We felt it would be a chance for the instructors to experience something that most of them probably haven't before.  The feel of braking and swerving at high speeds is a unique dynamic.  The other thing the clinics would do is remind the instructors of the nervousness and fear our students feel. 

 

We arranged to get the use of the dragstrip for a couple of sessions.  We scheduled our police trainers to provide coaching and instruction.  Dean W, who often uses this forum to harass me, is one of those trainers.  Then I sent the invitation out to the instructors.  It was gratifying to see the number who signed up.  And actually showed up.  Not the number I hoped for but more than I expected. Most were quite nervous, but excited to participate.  That nervousness was what we wanted them to feel and remember.  New riders are nervous.  The instructors at the braking clinics were nervous.  Nervouse is nervous no matter what level of new skils we're working on. Remember what it feels like and be suitably empathetic.

 

I'd like to share a few photos from one of the two days.

 

We were supposed to be able to use the cones that the State Police use.  They were locked in the back of a mean looking black Chevy Tahoe.  Somebody was supposed to leave a key out for us.  That link in the chain broke.  So we improvised.  One of our "fast guys" grabbed a golf cart and we all scrounged for cones.  This dude looks fast on anything, doesn't he? 

 

 

 

The rider of this Ducati is good!  There's no ABS on the bike.  His right hand seems to be in perfect communication with what the front tire is doing.  I could literally see his hand flexing on the brake lever as he stopped by me. His stops were comparable to ABS on the dry pavement.  Here's a photo of the bike at nearly full fork compression.  I tried to still show a little bit of motion in the front wheel so the bike isn't quite fully squatted.

 

 

 

 

Have you ever heard of the color "Write me a ticket Red"?  Here's Mark passing by The Director. ST1300, meet ST1100.  

 

 

 

I was fooling around with putting borders around photos.  It can be useful to have a thin black border on a photo presented on a white background. Sort of keeps the eye from wandering off the photo. I caught the "red" bug as you can see by this border. It would be easy for the big red border to overwhelm the subject of the photo.  Not in this case!

 

 



 

To his immense credit, who should show up for the clinic but our very own Troubadour!  Check out that great stopping form.  Eyes up looking well ahead.  Knees firmly against the tank.  Please notice that there is no smoke coming from either tire.

 

 

Our instructors execute a great stop.  What do the trainers tell them?  "Good job, do it again."  Never happy are we? So back to the start point for another nerve wracking run.  It DOES get easier with repetitions.

 

 

Check out that great head turn!  Not to brag, but "That's my boy!"

 

 

Like I mentioned above, the drag strip is in a canyon between two concrete barriers.  It can look pretty darn close ( not to mention scary ) at speed.  Especially when you're SWERVING towards it at 60 mph!

 





 

As I said, the turnout was a bit lower than we'd hoped for.  I think that the instructors who participated this year will spread the word about their experience.  The fear factor holding people back should hopefully be a bit lower for future sessions.  We did maximum braking at 45, 60, and 70 mph.  We did swerving at 45 and 60 mph.  I required full riding gear, just in case.  Fortunately, nobody "splashed".  We were a little bit worried about that.  We did have a couple of close calls.  A couple of riders got reminded that you have to be fully upright and out of the swerve BEFORE you apply the brakes. Some of the instructors riding ABS bikes found out that you can still slide the front tire.  When you're braking that hard and putting extra weight on the bars the front tire will tend to move side to side.  ABS works in a straight line.  Once the tire gets turned a bit, it WILL slide.  That's one of the reasons for using your knees to take the weight off your upper body, especially your hands.  Remember:  LIGHT hands!

 

We're offering the clinics again this year.  Here's looking forward to some more fun!

 

 

 

Miles and smiles,

 

Dan



Step 4 Muscle Memory

This is the step we're aiming for when learning something involving physical movements. Which, coincidentally, we're required to do a lot of when riding a motorcycle. We want these physical actions to take a background role as far as the amount of concentration required to perform them. This is true of any of the physical skills involved. What we're really concentrating on, though, are the skills specific to accident avoidance. These include, but are not limited to, braking and swerving. If we want to be a bit more technical about the matter, we could include proper cornering technique and head turns.

In an interesting contradiction you could call this level of performance unconscious competence. We do the right thing without having to think about it on a conscious level. The movements required become automatic reflexes. Another way to look at it is to say they happen on autopilot. We should just automatically do the right thing. I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm trying to put across by now.

I remember Gramps teasing me at the supper table. He'd watch me eat for a while and then give me a big grin. Gramp would remark on one of my autopilot reflexes.

"You know, it's so interesting watching you. Whenever your elbow bends your mouth flies open!"

What he didn't specifically say was that the reason this happened was because I was getting ready to shove another forkful of food that I'd just liberated from my plate into my mouth.

An example from the world of motorcycling is in properly using head turns. Whenever we're preparing to change the direction of our motorcycle our unconscious reaction should be to automatically point our nose at the new target. Whenever we're faced with the need to apply maximum braking our autopilot response should be to apply both brakes smoothly with the proper modulation of front and rear brake. Believe me, this isn't the normal reaction. We have to work to get there.



So how does this happen? We talk about building the mind-muscle connection. We give it the fancy name of Muscle Memory. How many times have we heard that term? What does it really mean to develop muscle memory? How does it happen? What does it do for us?

Muscles themselves have no actual memory. The concepts of "brain" and "brawn" are always used to convey separate images. We talk about people blessed with one or the other. If we're really lucky we're blessed with both. Once upon a time I was one of those lucky ones. These days I look like a blocky desktop computer. Not much to look at but the processor and memory still work. Either way, you never hear somebody being referred to as having "brainy brawn". Which is a long ways to come back to saying that our muscles themselves have no actual memory.

So what's involved in this muscle memory thing? Think of it as taking a series of still life photographs and turning them into a movie. Individual actions are blended into one smooth movement. The actions are actually stored in our brains. Specifically in the cerebellum. I never even knew I had one of those things in my head before! I may have to explore getting a bigger helmet.

Here's an example from our basic classes. It's the process for upshifting. First we have the students sit on a non-running motorcycle. We break the process down into individual steps. We first practice each step by itself. As we move through the practice we have the students start blending the steps into one smooth series of motions called "upshift".

Here's how it goes. Roll off the throttle. Squeeze the clutch lever. Lift up on the shift lever. Ease out the clutch lever. Roll on the throttle.

Of course, that takes forever. We need to speed it up a little. So now we condense the process into buzz words. Roll. Squeeze. Lift. Ease. Roll. A bit faster but still not the automatic smooth response we're after.

Thus the time spent on the exercise where students actually practice upshifting while riding. For a while it can take nearly the whole length of the range to get into second gear. Pretty soon we start to see the individual steps merge into one smooth and fluid process. That's muscle memory being formed in the cerebellum. It's forming the individual memory of each step into a movie. Each memory is still stored as its own photo but the cerebellum creates the pathways that link the steps into one process.

Thus we get a couple of valuable clues on how to properly form these movies. Firstly, each individual step needs to be firmly and correctly imprinted into its storage space. Secondly, the making of the movie requires a lot of repetitions. The more we correctly repeat the drill the stronger the pathways linking the individual steps become. The goal is to create a near automatic playback of the stored memory of the required movements.

I've written this before but it's really appropriate for this discussion.

Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.

Did you get the idea that a LOT of practice is required? There's another saying that practice makes perfect. What should really be expressed is that PERFECT practice makes perfect. This is another value of professional training. Most training sessions don't allow enough time to perfect each skill. What the sessions do accomplish, however, is to show the student what each skill SHOULD look like. This provides the mental picture of the finished product. It's our target, if you will.

I think one of the reasons riders hold back from more intense skill practice is that it can be slightly intimidating. Thinking of the whole process involved in maximum braking, for example, can be overwhelming. When there's a number of different movements involved it can also be hard to self evaluate where the process is good and where it can use some help.



Knowing that the longest journey begins with the first step ( don't know why I'm spouting sayings today but there it is ) why not just take a step? We also now know that our brains still store the individual steps and links these together. Our brain doesn't store "upshift". It stores ROLL-SQUEEZE-LIFT-EASE-ROLL. Why not take advantage of that process and separate our practice into individual steps?

Here's how it can work. Pick a day that we're riding. To work, for work, for recreation, whatever. For that day focus on smooth braking. Just that step. It's simple and effective. It's easy to get feedback on how our brake application is because that's all we're working on. Smooth or not? Simple. Work on cementing the single photo of smooth braking. One correct memory stored.

Pick another ride and concentrate on putting your knees against the gas tank ( or fake plastic thingy up there ). Take the next ride and concentrate on the fine feel possible on the rear brake lever by using the smaller muscles of the lower leg and foot. The next ride can be dedicated to keeping our eyes up and looking well ahead while braking. After that concentrate on a progressive squeeze of the front brake lever.



This may all sound over simplified but it's exactly what our brains need. Remember that the overall movement is a movie made up of individual photos. The key is to make sure that each photo is correct for the movie theme. Once that's accomplished we then work on the whole. Ultimately it's going to require practicing the whole sequence together many times to establish the pathways. You'll find it much more effective and less intimidating having practiced each step individually.

Our goal is actually two-fold. Yes, we want the right movements to automatically be there, as it were, when needed. That's a very valuable component, to be sure. There's an even more compelling reason to get to this point. It's something we've probably thought about but never really delved into. That's the subject for an upcoming post.

Here's a hint: Action is always better than reaction.

Miles and smiles,

Dan

Suddenly, there it was!

You're riding along enjoying the morning. Oregon's High Desert just east of the Cascade Mountains offers awesome and engaging scenery. Suddenly, an unexpected piece of scenery presents itself. Looking through your windscreen you see a bucket that has blown out of the back of the pickup ahead.

Maybe it's empty, maybe it's not. You certainly don't want to hit it and find out. You need to decide pretty darn quick what avoidance action to take. The preferred choice is to stop. That isn't going to happen. Stopping, even at maximum braking, takes room. Room you don't have. Choice number two is to swerve around it. This option takes less space. It also opens up other hazards if done incorrectly. Unfortunately, a lot of riders get it wrong.

Are you thinking the bucket thing is a bit corny or stretching it? Let me tell you about a recent motorcycle accident. It happened on the last day of the BMW rally in Redmond. The day after the first annual International Moto-Bloggers Convention ( copyright T-Bolt ). As part of the gang was heading west toward the Pacific Ocean they saw the accident scene. Here's the reference. Look at the sixth paragraph.

Briefly, here's what happened. Two BMW's being ridden two up. Both on the same road traveling in the same direction, but not actually together. A bucket bounced out of a pickup ahead of the bike in front. Yep, a bucket flew out of the truck onto the road. The first rider successfully swerved around the bucket. The second rider got around the bucket but ran into the back of the first bike in the process. Both bikes went down. All four people on two wheels went to the hospital. Those on the first bike with minor injuries. Those on the second bike with serious to critical injuries. Would you like to reconsider your opinion of my bucket photo and illustration, now?

I'm not going to dissect this particular accident. I wasn't there although I have talked to an officer that was on scene. Judging by the number of swerve attempts that end up in crashes, a lot of riders don't have a full understanding of the maneuver. Many riders in my classes who claim to have a lot of experience don't fully understand it, either. So I figured it might be a good idea to take a look at swerving correctly.

It's often easier to break a process down into parts. In the case of swerving we can break it into these parts: The presses, where we look, and traction management.

There's confusion about the presses in two different areas. The first is about actually realizing that a rider needs to press on the handgrip in the direction they need the bike to move. Some riders actually try to STEER around the hazard. In their "every bodily orifice tensed up" state they fall back on driving a car. Ironically, attempting to steer around a hazard actually countersteers a bike right into the very thing they were trying to avoid. Interestingly, Youg Dai made a similar comment on my post about Visualizing Success. Here are some excerpts.

Now dial in an :'Oh my god I am going to die!',bend that is tighter than you first thought. The if that is what is swamping your concious thought, as you have said before, the rest of the body is running on learnt muscle memory and reaction, so you try to steer towards the bend, as you would in a car. ..... where in fact you are applying counter steering input to the bike and in entirely the wrong direction.

This happened to me 12 years ago at less than 20 mph, so I healed and the bike was repaired. Now for many years I thought the cause of the bike running wide was me braking in mid corner.

We then had a presentation from an accident investigator at my riding group, about the number of single vehicle accidents on corners involving middle-aged men on summer Sundays, where he put up that theory. I thought back over my own accident and I now firmly believe it was me introducing the wrong steering inputs that actually put me across the kerb and into the wall.

Young Dai was talking about finding oneself too hot into a corner but the same principle applies. Tense situations often cause people to revert to ingrained habits. Good or bad.

Having established that we actually need to countersteer the bike in the direction of our escape route, let's talk about the actual presses. A swerve is two consecutive countersteers. A press in one direction followed by a press in the other direction. So what does each of the presses do?

There seems to pretty much be general agreement about what the first press does. The first press moves the bike into the new path of travel. Obviously, we want that new path to be one that is clear of the obstacle and that doesn't put us into worse danger once we get there. Hold that first press long enough to totally clear the obstacle. It doesn't do us much good to have the front tire clear the back end of a truck, for instance, only to find that our saddlebag hits the bumper. Or to catch a mirror in the visor.

Notice the term "hold the press". The amount the bike moves doesn't depend on how hard you hit the handgrip. It's the length of time we hold the press that determines how far the bike moves. Think of the press as standing in the doorway of your house. Then think of putting your palm flat against the storm door. ( of course, on the bike your hand will be curved around the grip ). Now push the door straight away from you to open it and let the cat or dog outside. It's that simple, because all you're doing is moving the front wheel slightly to one side. The faster the bike is traveling the more resistance you will feel to the press. Higher speeds require a firmer press.

Don't worry about a lot of upper body movement. There isn't time for that, anyway. Only the hands move. Let the bike move independently underneath you. In my classes I call it the "Elvis Presley School of Swerving; just let your hips swivel, Baby!"

Then my joke is "Notice I just said it, I didn't do it!" In my last Advanced Rider Training classroom I had a couple of Harley gals pull out some dollar bills and offer them to me if I did it. I might have blushed. Where's Jack R. when you need him?

Back to the presses. The first press moves the bike into the new path of travel. What does the second press do?

I've had a lot of riders tell me that the second press puts you back onto the original pathway. What if you can't go back? What if it's a fifty foot fuel slick? How about a quarter mile of nails spilling out of a truck? Or a line of stopped traffic? How do you go back?

The second press simply cancels the first press. In other words, it straightens the bike back up until we decide what to do next. That's it. A long press to move to the new path of travel followed by a short press to straighten the bike. Press and hold. Press to cancel. Long press, short press. Whichever way is easier to remember.

Where do we look? The answer to that should be thundering across cyberspace right now. WHERE YOU WANT THE BIKE TO GO!!! Keep your eyes up. Many riders who were unsuccessful in their swerves ran right into the hazard because they stared at it. It's called Target Fixation. A thing to be vigorously avoided, to be sure.

Ok, we've covered the presses and the look part. Let's take care of the last part. Traction management.

A swerve at any speed eats up traction. Higher speed swerves eat up more. Simple logic. Braking eats up traction. Look at the compressed forks and the squished front tire on the BMW above. Now we have two actions, each with its own large appetite for traction. Those two things should never be allowed to eat at the same table. There's a greater than average chance that there won't be enough food, or traction to go around. Never brake while swerving. Never attempt to swerve while braking. A lot of riders have tried and a lot of riders have crashed in the attempt.

You may need to swerve and then come to a quick stop. You may need to slow to see which way the object in front of you will roll ( such as a rolling bucket ). Do one, then the other. Brake, then swerve. Swerve, then brake. Never together. Separate, separate, separate.

Pop quiz. How many brakes does a bike have? Right away most people say two. Do I hear three? Yes, engine braking is the third one. So what do we need to do with the throttle through the entire swerve? A lot of riders start to roll off the throttle as soon as they start their swerve. It's a natural reaction. Danger = Slow down.

Isn't rolling off of the throttle braking during a swerve, though? Even if engine braking isn't enough to put us over the edge traction-wise, here's something else to think about.

What holds a bike up when it's moving? Speed, momentum, all that good stuff. So we're asking the bike to quickly lean over to one side and then pick itself up again. That's hard enough. To make it even harder, though, we're going to roll off the throttle as soon as we start to swerve, thus taking away the bike's power, speed, and momentum. In other words, all the means the bike uses to hold itself up. Somehow that just doesn't make much sense to me.

Hold the throttle steady all the way through the swerve. Don't roll off and don't roll on. You may need to refresh your roll-on afterwards, but in this case I'm talking throttle, not anti-perspirant!

Put it all together. Visually lock onto your escape route. That's the most interesting thing in your world right now. ( obviously, don't fixate and miss something critical around you ) Press the handgrip in the direction you need the bike to move. Hold that press long enough to totally clear the hazard. Once clear, execute a short press in the opposite direction to straighten the bike back up in the new path of travel. Hold a steady throttle until the bike is back upright. If braking is involved, do it before or after the swerve, never at the same time.

Swerving is like a fire extinguisher in your house. You pray you never need it. If the time does come, though, it's much better to have figured out how to use it correctly ahead of time. Therefore, go Thee, and practice in a safe place!

Miles and smiles,

Dan