6 days with a R1

I've always been a bit fond of the idea of the steering wheel spike, myself.

Moike

 

You do realize the political answer will be ban two wheels..?

 

Hmmm you may have a point, I'm now riding an Italian bike and Zebee is
now riding a 2 smoke ! OMFG, trading places !!



JL

 

Bl00dy hell, your a f*ckwit Nev !

 

Well I can certainly attest that your traffic skills seem pretty good,
however there's two things that you could perhaps take on board for
future reference IMNSHO.

1. On a three lane Sydney road the left lane is the most dangerous
place to be. Particularly given the fact that a lot of the road merge
from 3 to 2 to 3 and etc. Middle lane is generally lower risk, except
watching out for the "dodge into middle because someone is turning
left/right"

2. Following distance from the car in front also includes the car in
the next lane in front. Try to never be in a spot where if someone
changes lanes they'll clobber you.

And yeah I acknowledge that often the above are impossible, there are
times when quite simply the risk is higher.

JL
(oh yeah, and just to prove I'm not Zebee, "loud pipes save lives" I
bet that wouldn't have happened on the 97 dB piped Falco, she'd have
heard you

 

In aus.motorcycles on 11 Aug 2005 19:44:02 -0700

IF you saw it moving and you didn't have time to brake, it is quite
possible you were in the wrong place.

I try to sit so that if they move, they can't hit me.

If you hit the side of the car, then you were either overtaking on the
left - and if you do that, then you do it *fast* to avoid what just
happened - or you werre sitting right where she is unlikely to see you
and where she can hit you if she moves.

So see it as a learning experience. Your job on the road is to reduce
the chance of someone else's stupidity hurting you. If you put yourself
in a position where you need warning of someone's movement, you will one
day not get said warning.

Zebee

 

Always been a given ?

 

Hang on, he said she turned left from the centre lane - into a driveway
or side street by the sound of it. That's a little different to the
above. If you're riding in the left lane and someone from the middle
lane decides to turn left, rather than change lanes and then turn left
is a little different to just a lane change (in terms of the amount of
time they're blocking your lane).

But I agree with that.

JL

 

Oh, all right then, all three sound good to me.

Plus, replacing the steering wheel mounted air bag with a block of rough
concrete. ;-)


regards,
CrazyCam

 

In aus.motorcycles on 11 Aug 2005 22:00:34 -0700

<re-reads> Hmm.. OK, I can see that, I read it as a lane change. Even
so, unless it was done with a squeal of brakes and a hard turn, then
it's still a case of wrong place. And may also be a case of wrong
reaction - it is certainly harder to swerve from someone who is turning
across you, but sometimes a better thing to do than be hard on the
picks.

I tend to think of swerving first because I don't have much in the way
of brakes...

Someone turning left from the centre lane is a twit, but twits are
always on the road.

Pretty well everyone in a car hates being there. They dont want to be
in the car, they want to be where they are going. The time spent in the
car is time wasted, and worse, it is boring. So they don't think about
what they are doing, they just focus on getting there in the smallest
amount of time, and filling up the intervening moments with whatever
they can.

So they do stupid things if those stupid things seem like they will get
the bod in the car to their destination one second earlier.

Bike riders, of course, don't do silly things for that reason. They do
them because they are fun....

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on 11 Aug 2005 21:49:11 -0700

If the bod who tried to change lanes into me *as* 91db of very rattly
tappets[1] was next to his door[2] didn't let the noise alter his decision,
I doubt any "there's a loud bike behind me, but I looked recently[3]
so I know where it is" thought process would have altered her decision.

After all, ask any truckie about whether making a noise like a
semi-trailer seems to work...

Zebee

[1] with 95db of exhaust noise 3 feet behind the tappets.
[2] as I was passing him on the right.
[3] for dopey driver values of recently. Meaning about last week.

 

You can think what you like (or just keep on repeating what other people say
if you can't think of anything original to say), but if your two years
commuting through Sydney traffic have made you too experienced to recognise
constructive criticism I don't know why you're discussing the matter here.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

....but car drivers don't just decide to turn without warning (unless it's
something beyond their control like a blow-out or colliding with something
else). There will always be telltale signs of what they're about to do before
they do it, and if you're a rider sitting to the left and just behind the car
the onus is really on you to keep an eye out for these signs... driver looking
around, driver checking mirrors, car creeping over to the left, car slowing
etc etc.. all the things that contribute to those 'knew you were going to do
that before you did it' moments.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

Nothing. Nothing at all...

Cox's Corollary to Murphy's Law;

'Any vehicle purchased or repainted or both will sustain damage within the
first three months after said purchase or repaint or both.'

It's inevitable.

 

cmon should have powered out of trouble

 

In aus.motorcycles on Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:02:57 +1000

Slowing down is the big one. And it is usually the trigger for the
rider to pass too...

As in "what is that idiot doing, bugger this, I'm going", just as the
driver sees the thing they were looking for and turns.

Nearly got badly hurt by that one once, but near misses can be good
teachers if you are willing to learn.

Zebee

 

Swingarm? Sounding good then.

I had a stack last night in sympathy with you. Following a car down a
street, she pulls over left and slows down, I go around to the right,
and she wheels around into a parking spot in the middle of the road,
indicating as she turns. Baf. "SMIDSY!"

Bugger all damage here though 'xcept a clobbered indicator and grumpy,
wet rider.

 

zachary

speed of said vehicle is the most obvious

had she tried to hang a left at 70 k's you probably would have seen a couple
of impressive barrel rolls

ck

 

Or you did what so, so many motorcyclists do and that's overtake a car
that's slowing without asking yourself "why is it slowing?"

 

Damn; I should've known before I posted that Zebee would cover this!