I'm sure some thing in this life are just like riding a bicycle - you can never forget how to do it. And it's true about motorcycles, or is it?
There are many more implications to safety on a motorcycle than there are riding a bicycle, a minimal instance of hesitation, negligence, distraction, recklessness can end up fatally, or very close to. That's why riding motorcycles requires more than just riding, it requires practice. Anyone who has taken some time off from riding will tell you that there was an smell of intimidation lingering in the air, and it was worse it a person took time off as a consequence of a crash, even if without injury. People like this would be apprehensive, and opposite to many new riders who would chose to start on the biggest, baddest machine, these reconvalescents would usually chose a smaller, lighter, slower motorcycle. The difference is that a returning rider knows there are things he doesn't know, and that's a good thing.
And what are the things so many of us don't know that we don't know? Well, it's the fundamentals. And not just riding fundamentals like swerving, emergency braking, target fixation, but also traffic fundamentals like lane positioning in heavy traffic or blind spot awareness. These are the skills that are not always required, ones we may only need to use once in a blue moon, so how will you make sure you can execute them properly when the time comes? You might have had a really good riding instructor, and you might have practiced these things before, but have you practiced them on your new motorcycle, have you practiced them on that new set of tires you just mounted? Even though the mechanics of a motorcycle are more or less the same, they are also very different from bine to bike, tire to tire.
Practicing fundamentals before you get back in the horse after some time off, or after you've made a change will not only improve your chances of staying alive when things go south, but will allow you to gain confidence in that piece of machinery between your legs as it will allow you to better understand where the limits are and how it behaves.
So next time when you decide to go and explore some new roads, think about some intrinsic exploration and go to a nearby empty parking lot, do some slaloms, figure 8s, swerves and hard brakes. You'll thank me later 🤗
