Can you say "Dumbass"?

Guest blog kindly provided by Oilburner.

Check you six...and your three...and your OH CRAP!!  Call me Dumbass, my new nick name.

Well the week started off with perfect riding weather, especially for this time of year in Georgia.  Morning temps are a cool 75 F with afternoon temps reaching 85-95F with low humidity.  I am looking forward to riding every morning even it is means going to work.  Although sometimes it's hard to keep all 1200cc pointed in that direction.

Check your six...  I made it to work Monday and Tuesday, uneventful as usual, and for some reason wasn't really looking forward to the ride home Tuesday evening.  Work has been a little hectic and after a long day I think I just wanted to be home already.  It took a little while to put on all the gear and point her towards the freeway.  I manage through downtown traffic fine, and enter the freeway by way of the carpool entrance.  I have ridden this route home for a couple of years now, so it's become pretty routine, although I still look for the unexpected.  So, seeing all is as expected I turn on some music and start to settle in for the 35 miles home.  I've traveled almost to the I75/i85 connector (a distance of about 1/2 a mile) when, as I frequently do, I check my six and see an emergency vehicle approaching the cage behind me with its lights ablaze.  I decide to exit the carpool lane early and enter the normal traffic congestion for 5pm in hopes of speeding him along.

Check your three...  Both lanes were going approximately the same speed so I check my 3 o'clock and start the merge between two cages, with about a car length in front and behind me.  Well, here's where I think that things start to go wrong...  My peripheral vision is telling me I need to recheck my 3 o'clock again as something appears to have changed.  So I quickly recheck my six and turn my helmet clad head to the right and look  --nope, all is well--

Oh CRAP!!  By the time I look forward again everyone is stopping very fast.   Instincts kick in... this all seems so familiar to me for some strange reason...  I feel the anti-skid kick in as I attempt to swerve to the left, back into the carpool lane.  In slow motion I see the approaching cage and start to prepare for the inevitable impact.  Luck has it that the bike responds flawlessly to my input and instead of impacting head on and possibly launching me over the bars, I feel the right side of the bike ricochet off the left rear bumper.  The impact of the front forks and cylinder head on the bumper kicks the bike to the left.  In an attempt to correct my trajectory I countered steered back to the right.  The bike just caught and dumped us on the right side, sliding back behind the cage I just hit.  My mind still registering this as familiar and lets me watch my luggage eject from the bike and the plastic parts explode and bounce across the freeway.

When all is stopped I am fortunate I only have two small injuries: a swollen ankle and elbow.  My gear worked flawlessly with the only exception being that the sleeves of my jacket were too loose, allowing the armor to roll around out of place.

Oilburners name the past week has been "Dumbass".  He knows this was his fault, though he maintains that he was not speeding or riding recklessly.  It was just one of those accidents.  I asked him to write a guest blog to help us all with a lesson...he just couldn't come up with one other than "don't pull over for emergency vehicles."  See...the vehicle that was coming up wasn't an ambulance or anything.  It was a HERO unit.  In the south, these are response vehicles that come to the aid of stranded motorists whether it is an accident, flat tire, or running out of fuel.  When the HERO stopped for this, Oilburner questioned where the guy was rushing to, and why had he stopped here.  Turns out the HERO unit was headed towards a minor stall up the road...

Take what you will from this.  I will continue riding cautiously, as usual, and leave plenty of gaps around me.  Dumbass' dirt bike riding days were long ago, but I think they helped his reflexes in this instance.  Don't feel sorry for him though.  The bike doesn't appear too damaged, the damage just isn't readily visible.  The bike has been totaled and Dumbass is currently in the process of signing the paperwork for a new 2011 R1200RT (with the new DOHC engine).  I can't figure out if I am kind or stupid.  I considered forbidding him to purchase another bike and make him ride pillion behind me for awhile.  But that is just punishing me.  

Be safe out there friends. 

Watch your Six

The instructors in my Experienced Riders Course gave us a statistical break down from which direction motorbikes are most likely to be hit.  Not surprisingly, the front and front quarters had the highest statistics and most discussions centered around it.  Accidents from behind, or called your "Six" had only garnered about 3% and the instructors glossed over that not much "real" danger comes from that direction.

My jaw hit the floor.  I took great umbrage to the easy dismissal of watching out for your rear.  Three weeks before class I might not have given it much more thought.  But two weeks before class Oilburner had been rear-ended on his motorcycle and I was still reeling.

As motorbike pilots we have all encountered someone turning in front of us.  In your case, hopefully it did not involve and metal or asphalt kissing.  Though I know that some here have.

We are all aware of our front and always try to keep our eyes peeled.  We know we are invisible.  It is easy to keep our eyes peeled for dangers in front of us.  We are looking in that direction anyways.

For me?  My closest encounters and near misses have always come from behind.  A direction we can't watch nearly as easily or nearly as frequently.  I would just like to recount two incidents that will hopefully help you with being aware of your surroundings at key times.

I may have mentioned in passing about Oilburners accident before.  It is a story that hadn't yet written itself and therefore hadn't been recounted here.

We were supposed to be on vacation.  We had taken two weeks off and meant to haul the dogs and travel trailer up to Maine.  A week before vacation my dog was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and had started on chemo.  We decided to cancel the vacation travel, but take the time still and just hang around locally.  We weren't sure how she would respond to the chemo and didn't want to stress her.

It was another one of those heat wave summers and was unbearably hot.  We had been camping locally and decided to cut that short when our other dog wasn't responding well to the heat.  Taking her to the vet, she was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia from a vaccine she was recently given.

This vacation isn't going as planned.

So Friday of that first week sees us all back at home.  Oilburner and I decide to jump on the bikes for a leisurely ride across town to a motorbike gear shop.  The time is currently the beginning of Sept 2008 a little after noon.  I had just taken ownership of my BMW two weeks ago.  I hadn't ridden it, except a couple miles around the neighborhood.  We were on vacation remember?  Oilburner was on his purple Harley Davidson 883.  Such a great bike.

We ran our errands and were on our way home.  We pulled up in the queue at a stop light, maybe the fourth position back from the light.  We were sitting there side-by-side, he on the left, me on the right.

I hadn't yet transferred my blinking brake lights from my Suzuki and was feeling a little vulnerable.  Oilburner and I were chatting through our helmet communicators and I "thought" I had seen the guy behind us stop.

I was wrong.

I suddenly am aware of Oilburner yelling "What the FUCK?!?" through the communicators and this black wall sliding along my left side, pushing Oilburner away, like a bug in the bow wave of a boat.  Thinking the guy behind us had stopped, I assumed it was the guy behind him that was causing this accident.  I'm watching Oilburner being pushed forward and this moving black wall sliding past, just waiting for an impact to me.  I'm wondering what it will feel like.  Will I be pushed forward or will it be a glancing blow that will just knock me over to the right?

Oilburner is gone.  Replaced by the sparkling black death star.  He was impacted hard enough to send him into the minivan we were behind (while Oilburner was engaging his brake).  A minivan we had stopped about 6 feet behind.  Hard enough to bend the forks and peel steel back.  The black wall hadn't stopped yet and impacted Oilburner a second time.  It was too much.  Oilburner was a dirt bike rider of old but he couldn't hold onto this anymore.  I remember seeing his helmet rolling off to the left, what little I could see over the hood of the black wall.  In actuality he had "stepped off" the bike and let it lay down.  He stumbled a little but remained on his feet, in the opposing lane of traffic.

I'm sitting astride my bike, untouched, and in complete shock.  The entire time I'm watching this occur, and waiting until I feel that push that makes me a participant of this nightmare and no longer a witness.  I am listening to a litany of incomprehension and outrage as Oilburner experiences all of this.  My eyes are wide, my mouth is hanging open, and I can't figure out what to do next.

I figure I need to get off my bike.  I just can't figure out how.  I can't just put the kickstand down and dismount.  That black wall is that close.  I cannot lean the bike onto its kickstand!  I consider just falling over to the right and tumbling me and the bike over.  But the dirt shoulder is quite a few inches lower than the edge of the asphalt and there is a very large puddle of murky water right where I would be landing.

I finally work out that I should ride the bike forward 10 feet where the shoulder is the height of the road and it is covered in grass.  I don't like riding on grass.  I've only been riding 3 months by this time.  On a very new to me bike that I didn't have any time on, and I felt was extremely tall and top heavy.  I didn't care what happened to the bike, I just couldn't figure out how to get off the damn thing and get to my husband.

By the time those brain synapses finally function and get me dismounted Oilburner has lain down on the pavement to the right of his bike.  And one young ass is running around waving his hands in the air (yes, one was clutching his cell phone) screaming "The brakes failed.  The brakes failed!"

All the time I was forced to listen to Oilburner get hit, Oilburner now has to listen to me screaming at this idiot that his brakes did not fucking fail.  See, that black wall was a BMW X5 only a year or so old.

I slowly realized that my "conscience" was talking to me in a low voice.  My conscience is telling me to call AAA for his bike.  At the time I didn't question.  I was on auto pilot and there wasn't any way I could think for myself.  I didn't call the police.  I didn't call our good friend 5 miles away.  I didn't take off my helmet and talk with Oilburner.  I called AAA.  What a frickin dipshit I am!!

Later...when I realized what I had done I asked Oilburner why he told me to call for towing.  His response was "to give you something to focus on."  He figured it would calm me down and keep me from killing this kid.

Kid he was.  He was all of 19, and he called both of his parents who came rushing to the accident site.

Emergency response was quick, though there was confusion on their end about who should respond.  East bound traffic belonged to the city and westbound traffic belonged to the county.  :)  Go figure.  The good news is that the hospital was right in front of us.  The bill for the ambulance had one mile transportation charge.  The EMT's mused that this was their new record.

Oilburner was OK, just mild whiplash in his lower back.  Physical therapy helped that.  The bike was totaled, the kid was distraught and his father rode a Hyabusa.  Hopefully this incident and his parents taught him a lesson about cell phones and driving.  I don't know if the kid was texting or talking.  I just know he didn't see us.  If we hadn't been there we are 95% certain he would have rear-ended the minivan anyway.  No one knows how I escaped unscathed.  I wasn't any farther to the right in the lane than normal.  The X5 had a good hole in the bumper from the Harley on the drivers side, so the SUV wasn't too far to the left.  We just don't know.  But we are grateful.

It was extremely difficult for me to get on the bike after that.  But I did.  And I religiously analyzed my "Six" approaching stop lights/signs for many months.  Now can you understand my outrage in my class two weeks later?

The second incident was graciously provided to me on that slow moving, scenic Blue Ridge Parkway trip we just completed.  It occurred on the first day we were on the parkway (so the second day of the trip).  This one a$$hole felt the need to turn this scenic parkway into his own private Daytona 500 race track.

I led  most of the distance and kept any tails on Oilburner in my sight.  While we were clipping along a little over the speed limit (a very little in honesty), I tuned into people who might want to go faster and got out of their way at the first opportunity.  I wish some people would have done that for us.

In this instance we were behind one of those oblivious drivers averaging 35 (in a 45 zone), without any chances of passing.  Someone came up on Oilburners tail and hovered there.

After maybe 10 miles the lead car must have spotted something shiny and finally pulled off.  We surpassed the speed limit again and the SUV stayed on Oilburners rear.

It took a couple miles for the next turnout to come up.  It happened to be on the left and happened to be just over a little rise, and happened to have a fairly straight stretch of road which just happened to be a "no-passing" zone.

I appropriately signed my intent to turn and get out of this guys way.  Just as I was preparing to turn I hear Oilburner in the helmet communicator yelling "Whoa!!" and hear his horn honking.  I can't see the SUV in my mirror and suddenly see a gold wall passing on my left with the sound of a screaming engine wound up as it flew by.  This all occurred in the span of about 2 seconds.  The ONLY reason I was not already committed in the turn was because of some traffic cones and people milling about at the entrance of the overlook.  I shudder to realize that if I hadn't paused for that split second I would have been turning across the left lane as that SUV accelerated to pass.  There wasn't anyplace for that SUV to go, or if he even would have had time to respond.

I'm still going over the situation in my mind when Oilburner expresses his desire to go after that son of a bitch.  I'm not shaking or in shock.  This wasn't really a "near miss" or anything.  But it could have been.  Or it could have been much worse.  Another fraction of a second, and while I know Oilburner wouldn't really "go after" the guy, I decide to.

Yeah, I know.  Not a good idea.  But this guy needs to understand just how close he came to taking my life.

He is already into the next curve when my throttle hand catches up to my thoughts.  I whomped on the throttle and off I shoot.  I am up to 75 mph before I catch the guy.  When I slow to match his speed (and keep a safe distance behind in case he wants to retaliate by slamming on the brakes) we are doing about 70 mph.  I lay on the horn and just flip the guy off.  Oilburner has caught me by this time and is telling me the error of my ways.  He takes the quickly flashed brake lights as a sign that the driver "understands me".  I don't take it that lightly.

I back off and try to find my zen.  That is rather difficult when I am scrutinizing every turnout for that damn vehicle.  We considered calling the park rangers or the cops.  But that probably won't do any good.  I take solace in my daydream of finding this a$$hole in some turnout, taking my helmet off and using it to bash his fucking head in.  However, I would be happy with just denting every panel on that SUV and breaking all the windows.  That guy is lucky I never saw him again.  But his license plate is burned in my memory and I will keep an eye out.  And according to Twitter, I am not the only person that has had a run in with this vehicle and driver.

I'm reliving these instances to impress upon you how important it is to be aware of your surroundings.  I know you are, but sometimes we need a refresher.  In a Stayin' Safe class Oilburner and I took while at the Georgia Mountain Rally (local BMW rally), the instructor pressed us on to look at our six before braking or turns.  If someone isn't paying attention to your actions, you might get in trouble.  As for tailgaters?  Try to keep the emotion and ego in check and just pull over for a break. I was honestly trying to do that.  I wasn't trying to police this guys speed.  I just didn't realize that he wanted to drive 70 in a 45 zone.

Stay Safe out there everyone.  I want you around for a long time to come.

As Seen Through the Lens of a Helmet

Lying on my back with my foot pinned under the seat of my bike, it is surprising how much the view through the small window of the helmet resembles a movie screen.  The fluffy clouds floated along the deep blue backdrop.  The leaves on the trees fluttering in the snippets of breezes passing by.  I could even hear a few happily chirping birds.

That little viewport prevented me from seeing my position in this world.  I couldn't see that my bike was laying on the ground.  A most unnatural position for a "cruiser."  Thankfully I couldn't see my husbands frantic rush to get off his bike and rush towards me.  I could only imagine my knight in matte mesh armor standing up and throwing a leg over his steed.  Unmindful of actually killing the engine, putting it in neutral or putting the kickstand down, it would continue on down the road without him.  Of course, I didn't see or think any of this until later.  I was just watching the clouds roll by and wondering where it went wrong.

My left leg was free.  No troubles there.  A twitch of my right leg told me I hadn't gotten off that easily.  It was under the bike somewhere.  But I wasn't feeling any pain.  That must be a good sign, right?

---

Oilburner did almost forget to put his kickstand down with all of his concentration focused on her.  This is the bad thing of couples riding together sometimes; the unaffected spouse witnessing disastrous events, and not able to do anything about it.  Approaching, he saw her foot was trapped and his stomach was in his throat.  The trapped leg twitched a little and suddenly she is free.  She still isn't moving though.  Is she OK?

Kill the downed bike and he can hear laughter on the air.  He leans over her prone body, looks into the little viewport and sees mirth and merriment in her eyes.  If he could have seen her mouth through the chin bar he would have seen the smile he loves surrounding by laughter.

---

I lay there taking stock.  If the leg doesn't hurt just pull it a little and see if it comes free.  Huzzah!  I remained laying there with my arms flung wide and just started laughing.  A disembodied helmet leaned into my movie screen, with eyes big as saucers and full of worry.  The worry subsided a little and was supplanted with confusion.

For my first "get off" I couldn't have planned it any more perfectly.

I was making a left turn from a stop.  Here in America that means having to go to the far lanes in the road. :)  I dutifully stopped and checked traffic in both directions on my little sub-division road.  I "rolled" on the throttle, did not target fixate on the road edge, and leaned into my turn.

Hmmm...that edge seems to be getting closer, not moving to my right.  Lean further.  I'm executing such a perfect lean, I should be dragging knee.  But that edge still is in my way...

I calculate that I'm still going to be executing my perfect lean at my healthy 3 mph when I reach proper travel direction DIRECTLY in that transition between asphalt road and grass.  No curbs in this neighborhood.  I don't want to still be leaned over when I hit that transition.  I can just imagine the bike slipping out, dumping me on the road.

ABORT!!  ABORT!!

As taught, I right the bike before applying the brakes.  That much I did do correctly.  But I seem to still be aimed at the grass.  I executed my turn perfectly, how could this be? (At this beginning stage in my riding career any lean feels like knee dragging race track leans.)  So obviously something went wrong.

As much as I want to panic stop, just pull in the clutch and grab a death grip on my front brake.  I also don't want to go sliding across the grass that way.

I'm coming in hot at a 45 degree angle to the transition line.  Luckily the grass is green, lush, level, and recently groomed.  Unfortunately, it doesn't remain level very long and the beginning of a man dug drainage ditch that parallels the road is where I am headed.  It's a small ditch here though, maybe a foot wide, lined with grass.

I reach the obstacle just before the ditch starts in earnest, so I only feel a minor bump.  I safely, and successfully, brake to a stop on the top of the berm.  I have a fraction of a second to realize that I AM ALIVE and still upright when my traitorous motorbike slips down into that 6 inch deep canyon and bucks me off to the right.  I have a flicker of time to remember to roll limply like a rag doll.  Most "older" people break things when they react by flinging an arm out trying to catch themselves.  If I just roll with it I might not hurt anything.

This is how I end up laying on my back, taking an unexpected break, watching a moving cloud picture, arms and legs flung to the wind, laughing.  This falling thing wasn't so hard.

Disclaimer: This experience occurred in June 2008.  My pride wasn't wounded as I lived by the motto "Not if, but when."  I knew it would happen, just not when.  I couldn't have hoped for a better induction to motorbiking life.  This occurred on my first bike, a 2005 Suzuki S50 (think Intruder 800).  It broke a turn signal, but those things just begged to be destroyed.

Be Safe

Yesterday was a hard day.  A very hard, difficult day.  I originally didn't have any intention of putting this down in writing.  But other issues cropped up that loosely tied into the first.  So this is going to be more of a piece about safety.  Memorials and safety.

It all started a couple weeks ago when we learned that a friend had been killed.  I would like to say we were close friends.  But we weren't.  We were both in the BMW of Georgia club.  We had all been motorcycle marshals together at both of last year's Multiple Sclerosis rides.  We got along with him and his wife and could have made good friends since we had so much in common if only given the time to get to know each other.  We had tried meeting in the Sept/Oct time frame to spend some time together and see if we could get his wife out on her bike and feeling more comfortable.  Unfortunately health, family and holidays intruded and it didn't come to pass.  With all of this running through my head I didn't feel his tale was mine to tell.  Hopefully I can get my thoughts across and honor him and his values well.

He was killed in a senseless, useless accident by a senseless, useless man.  Our friend was a motorcycle rider of old, but had picked up the sport of bicycling recently.  When he embraced something, he really embraced it.  He had started off on a cross-country bicycle trip in the middle of January.  He made it two weeks down the road when someone hit him on some back country two lane road with very good visibility while wearing a hi-viz reflective vest and sporting a red flag on his trailer...at 1 pm on a sunny day.  The story of the driver is that he went to pass and the bicyclist swerved into him.  The story from the bicyclists perspective cannot be told...

I used to be a bicyclist.  Before four-wheeled transportation was an option I purchased a second-hand 18-speed racing bike and rode it everywhere.  I look back now and wonder how much my mother may have worried about me when I was off on my adventures.  One of the big differences between southern California streets and streets in the South?  Width.  Southern California was laid out in a grid, allowing for planning and nicely sized roads.  Especially in the sleepy bedroom community that I grew up in.  The South is known for laying out streets on Indian walking paths and cow trails.  They wend and wind around, over and through hills.  They are barely wide enough to paint a white stripe on the edge.  And sometimes they aren't even that wide.

So bicyclists get very little respect in this day and age of cell phones, fast life, fast cars and people that are no longer capable of walking to the corner market for a stroll in the evenings.  Their longest uninterrupted walk is probably from their car to the front door of the grocery market.  If they even go to one of those and don't just dine out on fast food for every meal.

Like that popular song of the 80's people don't walk in Georgia.  It is a dangerous adventure when blind curves are at the tops of hills.  But back to our friend.  He was on a narrow, straight, slightly uphill road in a no-passing zone.  The [expletive] that hit him has not been charged yet.  But his history of 3 DUI's and documented spousal abuse has me pissed that he was even on the road.  His version of events does not sit well with me as an ex-bicyclist.  But I am not going into that.  Much has been said and much more will be done...let that one lay.

His memorial was yesterday.  The BMW club had a little go-round with riding vs driving to the memorial, two hours away from Atlanta.  Some people felt it would be a sign of disrespect to ride. While others thought the opposite.  His wife expressed happiness if club members would ride, so it was planned.  Ten bikes showed up at the meeting location and off we went.  I was a little leery about riding, but since I knew him best through riding, wanted to pay my respects.

The memorial was very moving and he will be greatly missed.

This is where my personal struggles to tell this come in, and ultimately why I am writing.  After services, some of us were going to the house with the family, two were continuing on to Savannah for the day and the remaining four were headed off for lunch.  Those of us going to the house were among the last to leave the funeral home.  We head up the street and crest a rise and see police cars, blue lights and ambulances.  We appropriately move over and merge into the remaining lane.  Our leader took a cursory glance and thought it was a traffic stop.  My look revealed bikes.  Motorbikes that I recognized.  Motorbikes that I had ridden down here with only one hour ago.



The leader continued on down the road, but I pulled over and sat in confusion trying to take in what I was seeing.  The bikes following me pulled over.  The story came out in bits and pieces and I am not going to rehash anything here.  But it comes down to two bikes had collided.  Who was at fault shall not be known to me as I wasn't a witness to the accident and am not going to speculate.  But it is a nasty business when bikes and friends collide.  One was carted off to the hospital and diagnosed with broken bones later.  The other rode home...

RODE  HOME?!?!

He had complained of an extremely sore-thumb and the ambulance EMT's diagnosed it as not broken.  The adrenaline was still coursing through his veins and he wasn't feeling any other ill-effects of his high-side get off.  (In very layman terms for those not into the lingo, a highside accident is when someone is thrown over and beyond the motorcycle.  Opposed to a lowside when the bike and rider come down together and the bike precedes the rider in the slide.)  Highsides can be very dangerous due to landing on head, shoulders or hips.  So this guy wasn't feeling the pain.  Yet...  He was devastated that he had hit is friend and wasn't through the shock yet.  He was now just focused on getting home.

What a day and time for this to happen.  And the new widow gets to drive by this and see friends in various states of disrepair.

What point am I trying to get to?  Safety.  Safety for you as a solo rider.  Safety for you and others while riding in a group.  It all comes down to safety.  I mean, as bicyclists and motorcycles we bitch enough about cagers not seeing us.  But what is this shit that we aren't seeing and looking after our own??

Talks ensued between a few of us moto-cyclists and some opinions are that the club doesn't do enough to focus on safety.  Other riding groups are constantly having discussions on rider safety for group rides: how to ride in a staggered formation, hand signal knowledge, group approaches to curves, gravel in mountain roads, etc.  These discussions take place during regular meet ups and before the first helmet is put on in a group ride.  It is drilled into your head to "watch out".  I am not completely convinced that safety discussions would have helped in the instance.  Others felt that it would have helped with the constant discussion being drilled into heads.

This club has some leaders that are not overly concerned with safety.  Why?  The reason is not known by me as I haven't participated in too many club events.  And this is actually one of the reasons why.  Stories that I have heard of past rides did not incline me to ride with these people "in" a group.  I will meet you for lunch, but don't particularly want you around me in the mountains.

I wonder if this encounter will set a few people to thinking.  I don't believe there will be any legal battles and finger pointing with the people involved.  They were good friends and I believe ride together regularly.  But that is not the case with a group ride that went sour last year with another group we ride with on occasion.  Again, I ride with them only when I know the groups are going to be small.  I avoid their larger rides as I don't know most of the people surrounding me.  And if I don't know you, I don't know your riding abilities.  If I don't know your abilities, I am not going to trust you.

That was an horrible instance when conditions and/or abilities were exceeded and bad things happened.  People mostly walked away from that and handshakes followed.  But as the insurance companies started getting involved (and they had the same insurance company) ill-will set in and clouded memories.  A year later and enemies have been made and lawsuits are starting to be filed.

Again...where am I going with this...

Safety.  I am a girl.  I am a girl riding in a male dominated sport.  I am a tom-boy at heart, but could put on the frilly dress and ribbons if I have to.  My parents can attest to my tree climbing abilities and mechanical skills at a young age.  And there are a couple motorcycle "studies" that I have made in my relatively short riding time: boys and girls are different.   Beyond the obvious anatomical differences, girls and boys approach risk taking in a different manner 99% of the time.  Most (not all by any means, but most) of the boys see it as a challenge to be overcome at all costs, riding willy-nilly into the sunset with their hair on fire.  Girls (again, not ALL) will generally find out as much information about it as they can and approach it cautiously with intent to chip away at it and win.  Guys don't need to "learn" about it, they will learn in the doing.  Girls will learn, practice, learn some more, practice and watch others and learn some more.

What are the pros and cons?  Boys will generally learn something by brute force.  They will learn faster, but with a higher cost if they don't learn in time.  Girls will learn slower but more thoroughly.  The cost can be just as high if they don't learn fast enough.  But there could also be a high quit rate as they learn more and don't like what they see.  And there is also the danger of never pushing herself closer to her limits, stalling her learning.

I don't have many girls to ride with.  The ones I do know fall into two basic categories: have no confidence in their ability and won't push themselves to gain that confidence, or want to beat the boys at their own game.  I have difficulty with both.  I would like to think that I fall into a middle ground.  I want to learn and continue improving, so I sometimes force myself outside of my comfort zone to increase my experiences.  But I try to do that cautiously and in as controlled a manner as I can achieve.

Again...safety.

In these larger group rides of mostly men that don't ride together often (or in some cases men that don't even ride often), ego comes in and they believe they are expert riders.  They think it is a given that they will keep up with the guy in front of them.  And even creep up his ass to show he is the better rider.  While I sit there and roll my eyes at them puffing up their chest feathers.  I let them lie boast and just make it clear that I will be riding at the back.  I don't want you hugging my tail pipe and I don't want you running over me if I make a mistake. I will not be giving in to peer pressure to ride beyond my abilities in the twisties just to show that I can keep up with "the guys".  I am here to ride my own ride and enjoy the view.

All of these safety concerns can be mitigated:

1. Ride in small groups (2 or 3) with people that you know well and ride with often.  That you know exactly how they ride, how they think, and how they will respond in an emergency situation.
2. IF you ride with larger groups, surround yourself with people you trust or keep a distance between you and the guy in front of you
3. On any larger group ride, have safety discussions and know that it isn't speed to the destination that is important.  If people intend to ride faster, let them go first.  (Although, with some of the guys that I know, they will repeat the mantra well, but as soon as they hit the twisties all thought, reason and logic are gone.)
4. Ride solo.  Which will introduce an entirely new set of safety concerns.

Many bike to bike accidents that I have heard about can be attributed to speed and riding faster than your line of sight.  I take away: don't follow too close in the twisties and don't ride faster than you can stop, and this especially applies to twisties and night riding. I know many men that would scoff and say they know what they are doing.  But accident rates are increasing as more unskilled people get on bikes and more unskilled drivers take to the roads.  Each is racing his own race and can have a devastating affect on the other.

I know it might be difficult to reign in the little voice urging you on to show up the next person, proving that you are the queen, or king, of the road.  But think of the consequences.  Not just to your bike, but to your person, your job, your ability to take care of your family, your house, your finances, your loved ones if you weren't merely hurt.  Actually think of some consequences.

I know most of my blogging buddies are solo or small group riders and I am happy.  As far as I can tell from their writings and experiences they are safety minded.  So I am probably preaching to the choir.  But keep this in the back of your mind as you encounter new riding buddies and begin to assess their abilities.  Hopefully we can bring up safety concerns in a non-critical manner and help each other become safer riders.  Who knows, some day it may be our own life that we are saving.

It Was an Ordinary January Morning

One wakes up either feeling refreshed or as if one has been kicked in the head all night.  Which category you fall into depends on if you are sleeping alone in your king sized feather bed with angels fanning perfumed breezes over you.  Or if you are sharing that double bed you have had for 15 years with your significant other spooning your back and snoring directly into your ear.  A snore so rancorous that you could feel your brain jiggling within your skull.  And the only thing you could think that would ever end this droning chainsaw was to clamp his nose shut and twist it off.

I think I woke up in that second category.  Since Mr. Oilburner was still breathing I will assume that I hadn't hurt him terribly.  But my 2.5 hours on the sofa left me a little groggy.

We were late getting up due to the night time shenanigans.  Which meant I was going to have to rush to finish the homemade cinnamon rolls.  We were able to share one before darting to the bath to shower and don our riding gear.  But one whiff of the 49F degree, clean air made up for it all.  Bring a full breath into the lungs and wish that it were Spring and perpetually smelling of that crispness with a hint of warmth.

I debated about zipping into the Gerbings.  I actually had it on and zipped...squiggling around in my armored jacket before shrugging it all off and daring to go without.  I stuffed the heated gear into a saddle bad in case 20 miles to the meeting point proved that I needed it.

We had a pretty good idea of the intersection we were meeting Fearless.  But not exactly where at that intersection.  So we crawled through, looking 720 degrees around us to no avail.  We couldn't see him.  We pulled into a parking lot and I pulled my phone out.  I remembered that I hadn't turned by Bluetooth on, about 3 miles down the road.  Oh well.  But I now see that I have three missed calls and a voicemail or two.  It isn't like Fearless to be late.  And listening to the voicemail made my heart sink...

Our only questions, did we want to wait for him to catch up with us, or should we go a couple miles back down the road and meet him.  We opted to go find him, and this is the sight that greeted our eyes.

Don't fret!  Despite his bad-ass biker looks and his dirty 'Wing, he wasn't being hauled off.  Someone apparently had decided not to pull their head out of their tush and watch where they are actually driving and rear-ended Fearless.  No major damage, bike never went down, all's well.  The cops were there to keep the peace.  But what an illustrious start to our journey!

And where was our journey taking us?

Anyone watch My Cousin Vinny recently?  :)

We had been to Monticello and seen the courthouse before.  And we had tried to reach the Sac-O-Suds on two or three occasions.  But today we finally made it!  So it was only fitting that our day started out with Police, going to a location noted for a [movie] murder, and ended with a cop-filled checkpoint.

The Sac-O-Suds isn't quite in Hollywood shape anymore.  It is vacant, run down, vandalized, sliding from its foundation and for sale.  Well, I guess some Hollywood movie or another wouldn't mind using it in some explosives scene...but not today!

The trailer next door, cannot quite been seen through those trees, with leaves, and bushes.  But we didn't have to worry about dirty windows and crusty screens.  We weren't going to attempt to look inside.  This was one desolate little intersection where nothing was going on.  It was now just some down and out buildings, forgotten on some highway.  Only kept alive by those wanting to relive movie locations.

Fearless tempting the Guillotine

My curiosity allowed me to stick my camera toting arm into that, but nothing more.

Beyond the interior coming down, this building won't be long for the world as it ss slipping off its foundation in multiple directions.

After a few minutes re-enacting some of the most memorable scenes from the movie, dead on balls accurate and biological clock ticking, we headed towards Monticello for some sustenance.

The food is very good.  Made to order.  But the service is exceptionally slow.  Go there only if you plan on spending a good hour or more.  Still highly recommended.

We stopped for our obligatory courthouse shots.  You might recognize this from the movie as well.

Oh yeah.  Did I mention that I never did need that heated gear??  Forecasts pulled a mid-60's number out of their magic hat today.  But we basked in the perfection of this 74F degree weather with very low humidity.  I wasn't able to catch the 70+, but this proves it was a perfect day:


Read that 69.8F and weep!

AAAAHHHH!!!  It was gorgeous!

We started meandering home and found some forgotten byways that even we hadn't been on before.  We were the only thing moving on these sun coated lanes, riding next to fields of hay, sparkling lakes, forest plots, split rail fences and the occasional horseback rider.

Until we take a curve and discover 5 patrol cars strewn along the edge of the road.  On this forgotten little road, that probably saw 5 cars in an hour, 5 state patrol cars lolled on the verve, officers standing around and soaking up the perfect weather.  Perfect location for a checkpoint that wouldn't have them working too hard.  :)  I can dig that.  Our licenses in order, no interest to keep us around interrupting their tranquility, they booted us down the road.  (Darn it!  Didn't think to take a picture until a mile down the road.)


Anyone interested in renting the Bank of Jersey?

I sincerely hope some of you were able to experience some wonderful weather on a late January day.  Our rain is moving in, and the temperatures are dropping again.  I'm just so thankful for this great day seeded in between!

Oh yeah, more pictures on Flickr.

Please Be Careful

Dear Friends, in-person, cyber, real or virtual,

As we enter into the [Northern Hemisphere's] winter season, we also enter the deer rutting season.  The statistics read that West and Northwestern states have a lower chance of deer-auto accidents, but it is still  there. 

One of my personal fears is hitting, or being hit by, a deer on the motorcycle.  I afear for myself and those around me.  Always have and always will. Reading "Face Plants" on one of my favoritists forums doesn't help when people post up pictures and discussions of deer encounters. 

However, it is a fact of life and one I hope we all take seriously.

On a recent ride (that I haven't written up yet) it was an extremely long day and we were exiting the mountains after sundown.  It was actually full dark by the time we crested the mountain and started down, still one and a half hours from home.  We were three bikes, with Mr. Oilburner leading.  I didn't mind the pace through the twisties as we had a slow moving behemoth SUV in front of us.  But he soon turned right where we headed straight.  Mr. Oilburner set a rapid, speed limit pace that I didn't care for as I envisioned him splattering through a deer.  I mentally went through my escape routes, then wondered if I had faith in the guy riding behind me to avoid either me or Mr. Oilburner.  (And the guy in the car following him as he was also part of our group.)

At first I entreated with Mr. Oilburner to slow down for darkness and deer.  He kindly scoffed and said deer weren't anything to worry about.  I remonstrated that if he hit a deer I was just going to run right over him and not care.  He slowed down...

We've had this discussion quite a few times over the years and he just feels that the chances of hitting a deer are very small.  I tend to disagree with that logic and retort with why take the risk.  Yes, deer are completely unpredictable, but you can avoid riding at night during rutting season.  And you can slow down if you have to ride at night.  I don't see how slowing down is going to break the trip.  This may be an area where he thinks I am being overly cautious, but he does allow it to me and will follow my lead/rule/commandment.

All is well and happy in the household.

On Thursday a [cyber] call comes through our local motorcycle group.  A man riding his motorcycle died on Tuesday.  Police believe it was a deer encounter based upon the skid marks.  It was a lone accident without witnesses.  This was a man who enjoyed riding, even riding two up with his wife and friends quite a bit.  They weren't involved in any specific group and the family was asking if any riders would come out to escort him from the funeral home to the cemetery.

This man was Mr. Oilburner's age.  Married about as long as we have been with two teenage boys.  We felt it would be a good thing to go and pay respects, fulfilling the family's wishes.  When we arrived, we learned that his oldest son was planning on riding his motorcycle to lead his father.  That he was going to ride even if no one showed up and he was alone.  I am glad we went.

My deepest sympathies to the family.  They seemed like a very loving group of people with a great sense of humor.  Many of us that did show up on motorbikes didn't know the family, yet we were urged to join in the ceremony and partake of the good food afterwards.  I felt like an interloper, wanting to pay my respects but not knowing how.  I hope we were able to offer some comfort and that we respectfully fulfilled a role they wanted.  (I felt like more of an interloper, knowing this was a Harley man.  Surrounded by quite a few loud and rumbling Harley's, which I do enjoy most of the time, and I buzzing away on my little sewing machine engine.)

There is nothing quite like honoring a Harley man with a twist of the throttle on a machine that has straight pipes and deafening half the crowd around it.  Half the crowd only because the people on the side opposite the pipes will be OK.  Mr. Oilburner and I joked a little if it weren't for the final drive on the BMW's we could put dual exhaust on our bikes.  Might even be able to get a muffler that will give a little rumble.  (In case you weren't aware, dual exhaust is a right of passage here in the South.  Even cars that would never benefit from dual exhaust, nor have any right to be dual exhaust, are outfitted with dual exhaust out here.  Like a Chevy Chevette. Yes, I used "dual exhaust" three times in one sentence.)

In any case, it soberly brings me back to the fact that we are all mortal.  We can't always choose where, when or how.  I will be sending this family good vibes and heartfelt wishes as they recover from this tragedy.  And I will keep in mind that we are entering the worst months for deer accidents and try to rein me and mine in a little if riding at night.  I will hope that all of you, friends well-met and friends well-met-to-be, will take this message and assess your surroundings.  I would like you to remain safe so that we can meet, share big hugs, good plates of food, imbibe on some beverages, tell tales and take that wonderful ride together.

Be Safe, My Friends.