Sharpen up for summer
The first few rides after a winter lay-off can be unsettling and clumsy affairs. Here’s how to regain your summer mastery…
Expect to be rusty
At the end of last summer we were floating beautifully in and out of bends at a fair lick using well-honed acceleration sense and judging cute little overtakes to perfection. Our memory of this is strong so when the first dry road of spring arrives there’s a real risk we’ll arrive too fast for all manner of hazards. When I worked as a traffic cop I went to a lot of bike crashes at the beginning of the riding season – most of them were bend assessment accidents, where riders simply went in too fast for their ability, target fixated and binned it. If you’ve had a winter lay-off, how you approach your first few rides is critical. You must accept you’ll be rusty and not the rider you were last September. The skills will gradually come back, but until then you’ll need your sensible head on. Oh and make sure you’ve done all your kit up properly – if you’re rusty and also fiddling about trying to zip your wallet pocket up, the chances of you making a mistake are magnified. GL
Bend zee arms
I often see riders with straight arms, and in that position it’s almost impossible to steer properly. I’ve spoken to a lot of riders who’ve said ‘it seems to run wide,’ or ‘I can’t make the apex,’ and when I ask what they’re doing when they enter the corner, they don’t know. That’s the problem – they’re not proactively steering. Once you know what you’re doing and what you need to do more of, it all becomes much, much easier. And it’s not difficult – you push the right bar to go right, push the left bar to go left. There’s a lot of great information about counter-steering out there these days, but a lot of people have problems putting that into action. CDA
Go on your own
When I arrive at a bike crash scene, about half of the time there are other motorcyclists waiting. Group riding is involved in a significant number of crashes so it’s worth avoiding until you’ve shaken off the winter rust. If you insist on going in a group, tip number one is don’t ride with loads of people you don’t know. People often meet other riders off the internet from a forum, but just because they’ve got the same bike doesn’t mean they have any idea how each other will ride. So they all shoot off and hope they have a good time because they’ve got the same bike. It generally doesn’t work well. GB