DETOURS
Offensive Riding Strategies By Bill Shaw #70903 I LEARNED A LONG TIME AGO THAT NO
matter how hard I work at something, there will always be someone better. I know that I will never write like Charles Dickens, play chess like Garry Kasparov or ride a bicycle like Peter Sagan. But this hasn’t stopped me from trying to be the best I can be at whatever endeavor I choose to pursue. Sounds like that old Army commercial, doesn’t it? However, when it comes to my favorite avocation, I admittedly work even harder because the stakes are higher. Of the dozen or so classes I’ve taken over the years, I noticed that most focused on defensive riding strategies. That term is, on its own, a confusing misnomer since it implies motorcyclists wait for something to happen before reacting to it. Fortunately,
there are courses that take a progressive approach and teach riders how to prepare, recognize, and react to potentially dangerous situations. Among those that I believe deserve special recognition are MotoMark1, Stayin’ Safe Motorcycle Training and Total Control. I also want to mention another on my short list: Rider’s Workshop. While I have not taken the course yet, it teaches these same skills. Going from a defensive to a proactive riding strategy can be a seismic shift, especially for newer riders. As with many activities, the surest way to grasp a new technique is in a collaborative setting with a trained professional. In this respect, I found the most effective classes I’ve taken are those that covered the following principles:
Conditioning
Riding is both a mental and physical exercise. Some motorcyclists hone their skills by periodically taking a safety course where instructors reinforce good skills and point out bad habits. Other motorcyclists workout regularly to condition their mind and body to the rigors of spending hours or days in the saddle. The best riders incorporate both. Since fatigue slows reaction times and compromises a rider’s ability to make sound judgments when confronted with challenging situations, training helps offset these effects while improving performance on the bike.
Awareness
Task awareness is an active, not passive, process. Maintaining 360-degree situational awareness by continuously trying to predict what other vehicles are going to do, as well as anticipating what’s around the next corner, is key to implementing accident avoidance maneuvers. Riders encounter all sorts of hazards on the road in the form of wild and domesticated animals, man-made and natural obstacles, weather and, of course, pedestrians, cars and trucks. To avoid what could turn into a dangerous situation, it’s necessary to continuously scan the road for these and other potential hazards and identify them before they become a threat.
Developed by the late Larry Grodsky, MotoMark1 and Stayin’ Safe Motorcycle Training provide on-road instruction by having a trained professional coach riders in real-time through a headset or radio. Photo by Andrew Kohn.
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BMW OWNERS NEWS | June 2021
