Category: Motorcycling

Saturday morning found me running low on supplies, I was low on strong flour for bread making, so with the weather being cold but fine, it was a great excuse for a ride out on the motorcycle.

First job to check out the bike, tyre pressures, fluids etc, a fairly easy job on the big BMW R1200GS.

Then it was time to equip myself.  Once the weather drops below 12˚C you need to dress well.  Cruising at speeds over 50 mph the windchill can soon make you cold and once cold you loose concentration, not a good idea on a motorcycle.

The temperate over the next few days is forecast to drop considerably and snow is also forecast, this could be my last fun ride for a couple of weeks.

The temperate was 4.5˚C but with wind chill that would feel like -4˚C.  Thermal base layer with a light fleece on top, then I cheated and put on my electric heated waist coat, this plugs into the accessory socket on the GS.

With the full BMW Rallye 2 suit with all its liners in, that would keep me nice and cosy.  I added silk under gloves under my waterproof gloves which together with my heated grips on the bike would keep my hands warm.

With the risk of getting cold minimised I could head out and enjoy the ride to the full.

The first part of the ride was very minor B roads, lots of tight twisty turns, slow going but fun and challenging, I took the opportunity to visit a few local villages and churches that I had not visited before to look out for future photographic opportunities.

For the second part of the trip, I rode a section of what is rated one of the top ten most dangerous roads in Europe.  Personally I think of it as just a fun road.  The problem is that it is too easy to go too fast and some of the corners while they can be taken quickly, its too easy to get sucked in and end up going in to fast at the beginning.  You then end up in the middle of road.  The problem often is there are car drivers coming in the opposite making the same mistake.  So you have a bike straddling the middle of the road and a car doing the same.  Two objects in the same space do not go!

Its better to go in slower then you think then as the corner opens up and you see its clear accelerate hard.  If there is something coming the other way then just tighten your line to keep yourself safe, easy to do if you go in slow.

Once at the Windmill I treated myself to a hot chocolate and bought the large sack of white flour which just fitted into the GS’s top box.

The trip home was just a straight run for home, by this time I was starting to get hungry and looking forward to lunch at home.

A fun, enjoyable and educational bit of riding practice, plus I also found a couple of villages worth going back to with the camera gear.

Dress warm and ride safe, remember:

Keep it sticky side down

Lean Hard into the first corner

Spotted this on MCN recently, some interesting Points:

www.motorcyclenews.com

You are blind
That’s the bad news. For small but significant periods of time you are completely incapable of seeing anything at all. Most of the time this is not a problem. But it’s a big problem if another vehicle is about to occupy the same point in space as you.

The good news is that understanding why we sometimes do not see things allows us to adopt defensive strategies that tip the odds in our favour.

Peripheral vision sucks
Only a small part of the retina, in the centre and called the fovea, can see detail. The rest of the retina contributes peripheral vision but cannot resolve detail. Just 20 degrees away from your sightline your visual acuity is reduced by 80%.

To test this, stand 10 metres from a car, look one car’s width to the side and try to read the number plate. Try again from 5m. Technically, you are blind to detail in your peripheral vision. But it is very good at detecting movement.

Focus
Unfortunately, if you are going to collide with another moving object, and you are both travelling on a straight path, there is no apparent movement to the occupant of either vehicle. That is, to each the other will remain in exactly the same position until impact.

There is no relative movement – so our peripheral vision is not suited to detecting it. To have a good chance of seeing an object on a collision course, we need to move our eyes, and probably head, to bring it into the centre of our vision.

You cannot scan
Our eyes are incapable of moving smoothly across a scene and seeing everything. They move in a series of fast jumps, called saccades, with very short pauses, and it is only during the pauses that an image is processed.

Our brains fill the gaps with peripheral vision and assumption. Test this by looking repeatedly from your right to left eye in a mirror. You will not be able to see your eyes moving. Now have a friend do the same. You will see their eyes moving quite markedly.

This is because your brain actually blocks images received within a saccade. Experiments have shown that it is impossible to see even a flash of light. I am convinced this is the phenomenon behind drivers pulling out on motorcyclists at junctions. If a driver at a junction isn’t looking directly at you… worry!

Slow down
By changing your speed as you approach a junction, even when the road seems clear, you can help to create relative movement between you and another vehicle approaching the same junction at a constant speed.

If a driver has failed to see you directly, he’s then more likely to spot you in his peripheral vision.

Beware windscreen pillars
Research has shown that we tend not to look near to the edges of a framed scene. In a car the frame is the windscreen. So not only do the pillars represent a physical blind spot, but the driver will also tend not to fixate near to them, leading to an even bigger jump, or saccade, around them.

This is called windscreen zoning. Remember this when a windscreen pillar is between you and a driver’s face.

Assume something is there
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, your brain is also less likely to register something you are not expecting to see.

Here we’re entering a scary territory referred to as ‘aviation psychology’. Suffice to say that if you think the road is empty, you are less likely to see a vehicle actually present.

Look methodically
When you look left and right at a junction, always deliberately focus on at least three different spots along the road in each direction – close, middle-distance and far.

With practice, this can still be accomplished quickly, and each pause is only for a fraction of a second. It means you are overriding the natural limitations of the eye and brain. Fighter pilots call this a ‘lookout scan’ and it is vital to their survival.

Look twice
Always look right and left at least twice. If you repeat the same lookout scan, which you will with practice, any vehicle masked by a saccade on the first look is less likely to be missed on the second.

This does not apply if you charge into a junction at a constant speed. Then a vehicle on a collision course will stay in the same relative position in your vision – if you miss it the first time, you will probably miss it the second time too.

Think: where is 
the sun?
It’s generally understood that low sun can make it difficult to see, but not why: driving into sun reduces contrast, especially when vehicles with a small profile fall into the shadow of larger objects. Even large vehicles, but especially smaller ones like motorbikes, can become hidden.

Hybrid and electric cars have gained in popularity over the last few years. Whether the environmental manufacturing costs outweigh usage benefits is not an argument I feel I know enough about but petrol cars will one day be a thing of the past.

The big problem with electrical vehicles is weight and current battery technology.

Well now bikers now have the option of an electric motorcycle with the new range of Zero Motorcycles.

The big problem I have with Electric Vehicles is how quiet they are. Current petrol motorcycles if fitted with legal exhausts are very quiet and more then once a pedestrian has stepped out in front of me, having not looked and not heard me. With electric vehicles getting more common its going to be a growing problem.

Just last week I posted about motorcycling in the warm weather, well only the next day the rain and drizzle returned.

Oh well, never mind, its still better on a bike then any other form of commuting transport.

The warm weather here in Lincolnshire is still with us.  Most people would be surprised to find out that the Summer is not my favourite time for motorcycling.  I find the Spring and Autumn is better, not too hot, and not too cold; the Goldilocks seasons.

With modern clothes cold is now quite easy to deal with, and if like me you ride all year round, then indulge in heated grips and a heated waist coat.  An expensive luxury, but feeling cosy and warm in the middle of Winter can really make your Winter rides fun.

Anyway, I am starting to ramble, back to the point of the post.  Hot weather is harder to deal with, I see far to many people wearing tee-shirts, and shorts.  Some people compromise and wear the full bike gear but leave the gloves at home.  Well your all MAD never compromise on what your wear.  I have the BMW Rallye 2 Suite, its major downside is when its hot and wet, its just too hot, the waterproof layer zips inside and is fleece lined, on a warm day in the rain you melt, but on days like we have had in the last week, its been brilliant.  With just the outer layer, with all its vents and the armour layer its perfect for hot dry days.

But always remember its better to be hot and uncomfortable then badly injured, waiting for skin grafts.