I was reading blog posts about crashing and accidents and a lot of riders said that they were “feeling good” just before crashing. They were “in the groove” or “in the zone” and just after that, they end up in a ditch or kissing the front grill of a dump truck. I’ve had that feeling a few times and it can make you do some crazy and stupid things for sure.

Anything can trigger it too. Could be a favorite stretch of asphalt that makes you happy and causes an uncontrollable acceleration frenzy or it could be the warm Sunshine and hearty breakfast you had earlier.

Every once in a while I like to remind myself of the inherent dangers of motorcycling. I have developed a ritual of watching motorcycle accidents on YouTube. It gives me that little bit of humility and reminds me that I’m just a 150 lb sack of meat on top of an exploding machine.

I don’t want to post a bunch of accident videos here. I’ll let you find your own. But I did find this nifty little clip of a biker in Greece who either has some really large testicals or no brains at all…. or both! This is not an accident video either.

Another thing I do is to re-read Keith Code’s – Twist of the Wrist. This book has explained so many important things to me and even though it’s more of a racing manual, this book is a must read for all bikers. It explains, not only the technical aspects of cornering, but also, how to control your brain and stay on top of all inputs of your riding.

For anyone looking to improve their riding technique or even if you’re just starting to ride, this book has so much valuable information in it that will undoubtedly teach you some great things about the most important part of biking – cornering. Don’t be fooled by the “race” theme of the book. These principals are relevant for street riding as well. Some of the topics covered are braking, counter steering, vision control. I highly recommend this book and I know there are many others as well. I haven’t read any other books that contain such a condensed amount of knowledge in one book.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm and is filed under perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.