Motorcycle
Riding Techniques
©
2002 - 2008, Raymond Wood
The Seventh Sense we need when riding bikes on the road
Try the following experiment (there is no point in cheating!). The button below will display a road sign which you should look at as quickly as possible then close the window (no more than a second please). Try it now...
Can you say with certainty what the sign said? Really? If you can then you will have noticed that there is a grammatical error in the message - if you did not spot this then take another look. Keep looking until you are sure that you know what the error is.
A common mistake is to read this message as "A bird in the bush" (which you now know is incorrect). Often we see what we want to see and not what is reality. Why is this? Well, the brain is trying to work at optimum speed by continually comparing the current image with its "memory bank of knowledge" and if what is being seen is already there then it skips the rest of the processing and delivers the established (stored) fact. In the above exercise, the brain assumed the result incorrectly. The brain also "fills in the missing gaps" in images using a similar process.
For example: as you are riding round a bend, you can only see one quarter of the rear end of a car. Your brain has no difficulty in filling in the rest of the missing image and establishing that it is a car (make and model if it is known by you) that is just round the bend. This is the power of the imagery of the brain and, most of the time, it works well for us.
However, during high speed road riding, this is a definite disadvantage because what is not seen is where most of our surprises lie lurking for us. If the brain fills in the missing data incorrectly then the penalty for getting it wrong can be severe if not fatal.
What is ahead of you consists of what is seen and what is not seen.
So, we must develop a Seventh Sense when riding (commonly referred to as "road sense") which makes us imagine the hazards in the unseen parts of the images we see.
For Example: you are following a vehicle coming up to a right hand bend that is partially obscured by trees, hedges, etc. You can see up to the turning point and you can see across the bend and into the distance and all is clear. The natural tendency of the brain is to fill in the missing information and imagines that the section you cannot see is also clear and invites you to do the overtake. Of course if you have done this in the past and got away with it then you rolled another six in the game of destiny. But you cannot keep rolling sixes, you cannot keep taking the gamble that the part of the road you cannot see is clear - one day there will be oncoming traffic in the hidden area which will meet you head on during the overtake.
So, as a general rule, if you cannot see it then expect it to be there! or, as I more commonly refer to as the overriding philosophy of bike riding: expect the unexpected and foresee the unforeseeable. We must also predict the behaviour of other road users and how their actions might affect us.
Examples:
You
are riding down a row of parked cars on the nearside of the road in
a town or village. What should you expect?
You
are coming up to the mouth of a junction. What should you expect?
You are
coming out of the mouth of a junction to get to the opposite side of the
road during a right turn and crossing in front of a large vehicle (bus,
van, lorry, etc.) which is coming towards you (but far enough away to
allow you to complete the maneuver). What should you expect?
You
are filtering on the offside of a row of slow moving vehicles and you
come up to a stationery bus, van, lorry and there is a gap in the line
of traffic in front of it. What should you expect?
You
are traveling fast and near the crown / centre of the road when you
come to a rise that obscures your forward view of the road (a blind
crest). What should you expect?
You
are following a vehicle while coming up to a right hand bend and a possible
overtake is on. You can see across the bend but the mid-bend section
is obscured by trees etc. What should you expect?
Your
side of the road is clear. There is a cyclist (followed by a queue of
traffic) coming towards you in the opposite direction. What should you
expect?
Ok, so the answers are fairly obvious BUT what are you going to do about it??? There is no point in expecting a vehicle to come out of a side road and not adjusting your speed and position to be able to stop before you get to the mouth of the junction in the case of an emergency!!!
Not only do we need to force the brain to expect the hazard to be in the missing part of the picture but we also need to adjust our riding speed and position accordingly. Otherwise you'll be telling relatives and friends (while lying on the hospital bed) that you expected something to happen and carried on to prove that you were right!