How do you know until you have been tested?

By Dave Dickson

The weather is comfortably warm; the mid-morning sun is at your back, you are wearing all the gear and you are on an old friend, a bike you know and trust. You are on the recently and smoothly repaved U.S. Highway 129, the Tail of the Dragon. You are leaned into a curve. You are feeling good about your riding, the new is just off your tires and traction is great; now the curve tightens up…

Does your mind’s eye see the scenarios of crashing; do you focus on the thing you fear the most, that tree, cliff or gravelly shoulder? Do you throw on the BRAKES, make the bike more upright and slow down as best you can… What are you looking at? Where are you going? Is anyone making a YouTube video of this?

The riding bibles of David Hough have often saved my skin and life. They are a MUST read. My across the street neighbor, (now my trusted and experienced riding buddy and friend), Dennis, walked across the street when in February of 2002 when I first purchased the intimidating Honda VTX 1800, (at the time it was the largest displacement motorcycle sold in the United States!), with David Hough’s Proficient Motorcycling book. “Read this”!, he commanded.

I was headed offshore. The book was riveting. I had ridden unlicensed in Iran when I was 15 and 16 and none since then. Now 35 years later, I went and bought “the” motorcycle. “Read this”!. And read this, I did. I read the book cover to cover. Then I read it three more times, cover to cover in those two weeks offshore. I learned counter steering. I got Styrofoam coffee cups from the galley and rolled them around on their sides like David illustrates; I visualized the reduced diameter of the circumference of the tire as it was leaned over. I studied the theories, the physics and memorized the do’s and don’ts.

now the curve tightens up… Do you have the knowledge and confidence that more lean and throttle is the solution 99+% of the time? Do you have the guts and instinctive reactions to make it so? Do you have the confidence that the tires will actually stick? (They will). How do you know until you have been tested?

Gradually and progressively pushing the limits of my riding skill made me change bikes. The Honda VTX will not lean very far (my standards) without grinding metal. And grinding was a sound I heard often on my second trip to the Tail. The peg feelers were ground off turn by turn, the cylindrical pegs were next; peg ends, on both sides, ending up with a 45* bevel. Now I am on a bike that will lean over adequately, although I have ground the feelers on this one too.

When I am riding on the Interstate, I look between the “Bott dots” and try to achieve that no bump lane change. You can hit them every time if you look at them, whether you are going 60 or 100, even if you just think about them. Thinking and looking between them will insure a miss. It is a form of discipline I use to reinforce the “you will go where you look” mantra.

There is a Tail of the Dragon video of the two cruiser riders passing an RV, and then one just rides off the road which illustrates this: you go where you look. He is frozen. His head doesn’t move. Fear overwhelms him. He was going a little faster than normal because of the pass and now the curve tightened up. Rider number two watches as he disappears off a cliff and nearly follows, as he too goes where he is looking. Two big lessons are in that video. Rider number one could have easily leaned over and made the turn, even on that cruiser. He wasn’t looking through the turn. He froze with fear and doubt.

Dennis tells me, “When the curve tightens up, it is better to possibly low-side while trying more lean and more throttle than to just run off the road in a fixated panic”. Well, it takes guts, and it works. I know, I have been tested. The success of doing it time after time builds confidence and pleasure in riding. Thanks David and Dennis.