The Last Guy was Dead in a Week
I walked into a motorcycle dealership with my kids who were 3, 5, and 7 at the time. I was looking to buy what Bruce Springsteen may have called a suicide machine. A liter bike. Specifically, a Honda CBR1000RR. That “RR” designation indicated it was the Repsol replica that looked like the one Valentino Rossi (the Doctor) rode in Moto GP. When I announced my intentions to the salesman, he looked at my kids, then he looked at me and said, “I’m not going to sell one to you.” A bit shocked, I replied, “What? Why?” He said, “The last guy I sold one to was dead in a week.” I assured him that I actively raced open-wheeled cars wheel-to-wheel with a vintage racing club and with the SCCA, etc. I did end up getting the bike a couple weeks later. The delay was because Repsol replicas with the fancy paint jobs were in limited production and in high demand. I enjoyed that bike a lot on the twisty mountain roads of Colorado but I enjoyed it much more on race tracks during open track days. I never did “ride it in anger” AKA race wheel-to-wheel on bikes, but open track days were fantastic. You sit in such an aggressive position, they are meant to be ridden on the race track.
It’s Not If, It’s When
Although I have been through a couple racing schools in the cars, I still took the motorcycle salesman’s comment to heart and learned everything I could about riding that thing. I studied books about riding and racing. I eventually went to a racing school for the bike too, with no intention of racing wheel-to-wheel. Of the many things I learned was that you dress primarily to crash. You get leathers for your body and especially gloves for your hands. The first thing you are going to brace yourself with in a crash is your hands and at those speeds and with those forces you will easily destroy your hands. Do not spare money on gloves. Similarly with the helmet, that is a one-time-use crash helmet. It’s not like a football helmet that can take repeated hits, a motorcycle helmet is meant to be used in one impact dissipate impact and sacrifice itself in the process. I knew that from other stuff I did. After I had the bike for a while and I was going to racing school, I called a friend of mine who had been riding for years to ask for his input on something. He almost immediately asked me if I had laid it down yet,…yet! He went on to reassure me that that was a not a matter of if it was a matter of when I would low side it. (You certainly don’t want to high side it.) I did low-side it on a race track in a turn doing about 50MPH. The helmet, gloves, and the leathers worked as designed. The helmet and the gloves had to be replaced. I broke a clavicle and did quite a bit of cosmetic damage to the bike. I healed and I repaired the bike. My hands still work perfectly, as for my head,…who am I to say?
Grace Under Pressure
One of the most notable things I learned about riding is that the vast majority of the time that a rider has an incident, accident, etc. the bike was well capable of avoiding the incident. The rider, however wasn’t capable primarily because he panics. His brain essentially locks up and he fails to do what he should do to save himself. Although he and his machine should have been fully capable. On a machine like that, the penalties for failure to keep you wits about you are severe. First, don’t unnecessarily put yourself in jeopardy and know your limits. If you are going into a situation that has a nearly 100% chance of crashing, dress accordingly.
Call the Ball Maverick
Another thing I have learned about being one and or being close to racing drivers and fighter pilots (more about that later in another article) is that they are much different than you may think. They aren’t Pete Mitchell AKA Maverick from Top Gun. They are courageous and highly skilled but they aren’t cavalier at all with their safety. They are highly intelligent, of calm mind, they understand their limits and the limits of their machines.
There are broader lessons in there somewhere. Let’s see, the more you know something and the better you understand it, the more you will enjoy it. Train yourself to be calm under pressure especially when the stakes are high. Understand your machine, listen to your machine, get in the zone, and take it to new limits.
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