I know it's not the most pleasant topic, but I think it's a very important one.
The reason I am asking this question is because I believe that by sharing experiences we can learn from each other's mistakes or plain misfortunes. As we all know benign situations in a car can become life threatening on the moto so I find it helps to try learning from others experiences.
Moreover, I personally like to maintain what I call a 'healthy fear' of the sport so that I keep myself in line (most of the time).
So. What is the worst that has happened or almost happened to you? How did it happen, how did you react, and if it happened again what would you do differently or the same? In other words - what did you learn? I will start.
A few years ago I took my bike to my buddy's cottage in Muskoka, Ontario and went for a ride on a hot sunny day. The roads were in great shape, there was little to no traffic, the roads were twisty, so the adrenaline took hold of me and I was leaning in to every curve. I was having an absolute blast.
I approached a car from behind and passed her quickly and began to accelerate. I got up to at least 140 km/h when suddenly a small black bear ran out from a bush on the side of the road in front of me, directly across the road. I had no time to react. Time slowed down and I can remember it was like an ultra slow video going frame by frame as my mind froze completely. The animal was maybe a foot from my front tire and I miraculously passed it without touching it, it must have been under a foot from hitting the side of me.
I slowed down and came to a stop to the side of the road, in a total panic, hyperventilating. The lady I had just passed pulled up beside me with her window down, and just said "are you OK?" with the most blown away look on her face I have ever seen. I said yes. She drove off, window rolling up while saying "WOOOOOOWWWWWW".
I drove home going the speed limit, realized how close I came not just to wrecking myself or putting myself in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but to the worst nightmare phone call my parents would have had to receive. I considered selling the bike to quit forever.
In this situation there isn't much I could do differently apart from just not putting myself in a position to have situations like that from happening entirely, such as not going that fast, or better yet, quitting riding forever.
Ultimately I decided against it since quitting motorcycles would be having to kill a piece of my soul.
I vowed to stop riding like that and I can honestly say I'm much better with that now. I give myself one maybe two days per season to get the adrenaline pumping through my brain but no more than that. Since then I try to just find the nice balance between chill and fun. I want to start doing track days now that I have the money which is a much safer environment for that.
The reason I am asking this question is because I believe that by sharing experiences we can learn from each other's mistakes or plain misfortunes. As we all know benign situations in a car can become life threatening on the moto so I find it helps to try learning from others experiences.
Moreover, I personally like to maintain what I call a 'healthy fear' of the sport so that I keep myself in line (most of the time).
So. What is the worst that has happened or almost happened to you? How did it happen, how did you react, and if it happened again what would you do differently or the same? In other words - what did you learn? I will start.
A few years ago I took my bike to my buddy's cottage in Muskoka, Ontario and went for a ride on a hot sunny day. The roads were in great shape, there was little to no traffic, the roads were twisty, so the adrenaline took hold of me and I was leaning in to every curve. I was having an absolute blast.
I approached a car from behind and passed her quickly and began to accelerate. I got up to at least 140 km/h when suddenly a small black bear ran out from a bush on the side of the road in front of me, directly across the road. I had no time to react. Time slowed down and I can remember it was like an ultra slow video going frame by frame as my mind froze completely. The animal was maybe a foot from my front tire and I miraculously passed it without touching it, it must have been under a foot from hitting the side of me.
I slowed down and came to a stop to the side of the road, in a total panic, hyperventilating. The lady I had just passed pulled up beside me with her window down, and just said "are you OK?" with the most blown away look on her face I have ever seen. I said yes. She drove off, window rolling up while saying "WOOOOOOWWWWWW".
I drove home going the speed limit, realized how close I came not just to wrecking myself or putting myself in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but to the worst nightmare phone call my parents would have had to receive. I considered selling the bike to quit forever.
In this situation there isn't much I could do differently apart from just not putting myself in a position to have situations like that from happening entirely, such as not going that fast, or better yet, quitting riding forever.
Ultimately I decided against it since quitting motorcycles would be having to kill a piece of my soul.
I vowed to stop riding like that and I can honestly say I'm much better with that now. I give myself one maybe two days per season to get the adrenaline pumping through my brain but no more than that. Since then I try to just find the nice balance between chill and fun. I want to start doing track days now that I have the money which is a much safer environment for that.
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