As you may already know I crashed my 05 blue and silver into a mailbox and soft shoulder on Sat.
While obsessing about why and trying to remember what the He!! happened I finally figured out where I went wrong.
I've been riding for a long time now and have NEVER wrecked a street bike of any kind. ( Well that's not entirely true. I was hit by a goldwing as a young lad and they went down but that doesn't really qualify as ME going down on a street bike I was in control of) This has really been making me ask myself a few questions about my own abilities. I have decided to share my thoughts so maybe someone reading this can gain some knowledge from it and avoid a similar situation.
I've always ridden in the back of the pack no matter what style of bike I'm on. Usually we get 15 to 30 bikes on our group rides and I was always either the leader or the last. Being the leader you set the pace to what is comfortable for you and what you observe the people behind you doing. If they lag behind, you slow down if they are always up your tailpipe you kick it up a notch until everybody is comfortably spaced. Being the last of the pack you get to play catch up to satisfy the speed rush requirements and you can fall behind a little and take a few corners with little risk and you get to make sure the cagers don't screw up the procession.
Last weekend I rode 6th of 21 and ended up with my first unintentional dismount in 20 years. I have been thinking about why all week and have come up with this conclusion... I was in the wrong place in the pack for my group riding skill level. I can take corners as well as many better than some and not as good as others. I have never had to take a corner while watching the guy in front of me go down while simotaneously making sure the bike behind me isn't going to slam into him or I or both and deal with the corner at the rate of speed we were traveling as well. To put it simply my brain locked up my body did nothing and off I went. had i been in the rear of the pack where I usually am, there would have been no problem. I would have seen the situation developing moved to the middle of the road to stop the cagers behind me and that would have been the end of it. I've done it dozens of times. What threw me off was having to deal with the front situation AND trying to insure there was nothing to worry about from the bike/s behind me. At first i thought I was fixated on the rider ahead of me losing it. To a certain extent I was but not enough for me to lose it. What my little brain couldn't deal with was insuring the person behind me was stopping or saw it or if there was even anyone there and if they were there where exactly were they and what were they doing?!?
SO, now I know that my place is in the rear. If you ever see a large group going by from Central Fl and You know i'm with 'em you can find me in the back of the pack. Smiling playing catch up and enjoying the ride.
Moose
While obsessing about why and trying to remember what the He!! happened I finally figured out where I went wrong.
I've been riding for a long time now and have NEVER wrecked a street bike of any kind. ( Well that's not entirely true. I was hit by a goldwing as a young lad and they went down but that doesn't really qualify as ME going down on a street bike I was in control of) This has really been making me ask myself a few questions about my own abilities. I have decided to share my thoughts so maybe someone reading this can gain some knowledge from it and avoid a similar situation.
I've always ridden in the back of the pack no matter what style of bike I'm on. Usually we get 15 to 30 bikes on our group rides and I was always either the leader or the last. Being the leader you set the pace to what is comfortable for you and what you observe the people behind you doing. If they lag behind, you slow down if they are always up your tailpipe you kick it up a notch until everybody is comfortably spaced. Being the last of the pack you get to play catch up to satisfy the speed rush requirements and you can fall behind a little and take a few corners with little risk and you get to make sure the cagers don't screw up the procession.
Last weekend I rode 6th of 21 and ended up with my first unintentional dismount in 20 years. I have been thinking about why all week and have come up with this conclusion... I was in the wrong place in the pack for my group riding skill level. I can take corners as well as many better than some and not as good as others. I have never had to take a corner while watching the guy in front of me go down while simotaneously making sure the bike behind me isn't going to slam into him or I or both and deal with the corner at the rate of speed we were traveling as well. To put it simply my brain locked up my body did nothing and off I went. had i been in the rear of the pack where I usually am, there would have been no problem. I would have seen the situation developing moved to the middle of the road to stop the cagers behind me and that would have been the end of it. I've done it dozens of times. What threw me off was having to deal with the front situation AND trying to insure there was nothing to worry about from the bike/s behind me. At first i thought I was fixated on the rider ahead of me losing it. To a certain extent I was but not enough for me to lose it. What my little brain couldn't deal with was insuring the person behind me was stopping or saw it or if there was even anyone there and if they were there where exactly were they and what were they doing?!?
SO, now I know that my place is in the rear. If you ever see a large group going by from Central Fl and You know i'm with 'em you can find me in the back of the pack. Smiling playing catch up and enjoying the ride.
Moose
