So my son wants to get a motorcycle. He's a grown man, a Marine combat vet as a matter of fact. He can do whatever he wants, and even if he were still a teenager and needed permission, I'd say yes. I love motorcycles.
He's been talking about getting a bike since before he left for his recent deployment to Afghanistan, his second. So this has me thinking about what advice I got before I started riding and what advice I should give him as a new rider. There are a million important things to say, of course, but how much can a person absorb? What are the important things to say? Books have been written about this, but I'm thinking about boiling it down to a few important things that can be passed on in conversation without making his eyes glaze over.
I learned to ride a dirt bike, really an enduro, at about 8 or 9 years old. Maybe younger, I don't really remember. I think it was an 80cc Honda. We also had a 90cc Yamaha, if I recall correctly. Those are some of my best childhood memories. I rode a Kawasaki KZ440 street bike as a teenager.
Unfortunately bikes weren't in the cards for my kids. Being a military family, moving around all the time, living in urban settings most of the time and being broke all of the time precluded dirt bikes. I regret that, but you can't go back and change things. I got back into bikes almost 10 years ago now. And now Aaron has caught it.
So what is the single most important thing I should try to get across to him?
Ride your own ride.
You are invisible to cage drivers.
Wear a helmet.
Don't drink and ride.
Beware of cars turning left.
Speed kills.
How about some of the lesser tips and tricks?
Your shadow points at danger.
Wet pavement paint and manhole covers are slippery.
Stay out of the center of the lane at intersections. (That's where leaked oil is concentrated.)
Never ride in a cage's blind spot.
If you have to slow down suddenly, flash your brake lights at the traffic behind you, if you can.
There are a million things I want to tell him. Basically I just want him to be safe. But I know that's not how it works. Life itself is not safe. And riding a motorcycle can't be made safe. Every time we ride out into traffic we are vulnerable, and it isn't even close to a fair fight.
But it's worth it. I've never done anything that's come close to making me feel as relaxed and peaceful and excited and alive (all at the same time), as riding.
Besides, if you've ever climbed up on a chair to change a light bulb, you've taken your life in your hands. I mean, that task could have killed you, if you had fallen off the ladder. In fact, most head injuries that kill motorcyclists are equivalent to a six-foot fall.
That stat right there, from the Hurt Report (google it), is enough to make me always wear a helmet when I ride. I mean, I can accept that if I crash on the highway at 80 MPH I'm probably going to die. There's really no amount of gear that will save me. If the fall and slide down the road don't kill me, I'll probably get run over by a truck or hit a wall. That's the risk and I accept it.
But if I'm rolling down a side street at 35 and I crash, I am confident that if I'm wearing a proper helmet I can survive that crash. I've seen it and I've known many people who have done it. I also know that I can hit a patch of sand in a parking lot and crash and hit my head pretty hard (I know this from firsthand experience.) I know if I die from a stupid little parking lot crash at 15 mph because I'm not wearing a helmet, I'm going to be PISSED!
That low-speed crash is also a risk, and it's an easy risk to mitigate by wearing a helmet. Not to mention it's also a much more likely scenario than the high-speed highway crash, simply because we spend so much more time at low speeds in parking lots and side streets than we do on the highway.
All the rest of the advice is important. I'd say "ride your own ride," is near the top, especially for a new rider because it's so easy to get caught up in riding with other people and end up going too fast for your experience level.
"Speed kills" is another important one. Most people who crash on bikes are going too fast for conditions. And it's too easy to not notice how fast you are really going. Many of the cases of a car turning in front of a bike or a car changing lanes into a bike, I believe, are due to the driver underestimating how fast the bike was going.
And of course, if you drink and ride you are just an idiot and you're not reading about being safe on a bike anyway.
I'm going to go with "wear a helmet." That's my top, number one piece of advice for my son and anyone riding a motorcycle. Mainly because, even if you follow all the other advice, and you never do anything wrong ever - someone else can still crash into you.
BTW, I'm completely against helmet laws for adults. People should have the right to make up their own minds when it comes to how much risk they find acceptable in their lives. But, if you ask me, I'm going to recommend that you should choose to wear a helmet because it makes sense.
He's been talking about getting a bike since before he left for his recent deployment to Afghanistan, his second. So this has me thinking about what advice I got before I started riding and what advice I should give him as a new rider. There are a million important things to say, of course, but how much can a person absorb? What are the important things to say? Books have been written about this, but I'm thinking about boiling it down to a few important things that can be passed on in conversation without making his eyes glaze over.
I learned to ride a dirt bike, really an enduro, at about 8 or 9 years old. Maybe younger, I don't really remember. I think it was an 80cc Honda. We also had a 90cc Yamaha, if I recall correctly. Those are some of my best childhood memories. I rode a Kawasaki KZ440 street bike as a teenager.
Unfortunately bikes weren't in the cards for my kids. Being a military family, moving around all the time, living in urban settings most of the time and being broke all of the time precluded dirt bikes. I regret that, but you can't go back and change things. I got back into bikes almost 10 years ago now. And now Aaron has caught it.
So what is the single most important thing I should try to get across to him?
Ride your own ride.
You are invisible to cage drivers.
Wear a helmet.
Don't drink and ride.
Beware of cars turning left.
Speed kills.
How about some of the lesser tips and tricks?
Your shadow points at danger.
Wet pavement paint and manhole covers are slippery.
Stay out of the center of the lane at intersections. (That's where leaked oil is concentrated.)
Never ride in a cage's blind spot.
If you have to slow down suddenly, flash your brake lights at the traffic behind you, if you can.
There are a million things I want to tell him. Basically I just want him to be safe. But I know that's not how it works. Life itself is not safe. And riding a motorcycle can't be made safe. Every time we ride out into traffic we are vulnerable, and it isn't even close to a fair fight.
But it's worth it. I've never done anything that's come close to making me feel as relaxed and peaceful and excited and alive (all at the same time), as riding.
Besides, if you've ever climbed up on a chair to change a light bulb, you've taken your life in your hands. I mean, that task could have killed you, if you had fallen off the ladder. In fact, most head injuries that kill motorcyclists are equivalent to a six-foot fall.
That stat right there, from the Hurt Report (google it), is enough to make me always wear a helmet when I ride. I mean, I can accept that if I crash on the highway at 80 MPH I'm probably going to die. There's really no amount of gear that will save me. If the fall and slide down the road don't kill me, I'll probably get run over by a truck or hit a wall. That's the risk and I accept it.
But if I'm rolling down a side street at 35 and I crash, I am confident that if I'm wearing a proper helmet I can survive that crash. I've seen it and I've known many people who have done it. I also know that I can hit a patch of sand in a parking lot and crash and hit my head pretty hard (I know this from firsthand experience.) I know if I die from a stupid little parking lot crash at 15 mph because I'm not wearing a helmet, I'm going to be PISSED!
That low-speed crash is also a risk, and it's an easy risk to mitigate by wearing a helmet. Not to mention it's also a much more likely scenario than the high-speed highway crash, simply because we spend so much more time at low speeds in parking lots and side streets than we do on the highway.
All the rest of the advice is important. I'd say "ride your own ride," is near the top, especially for a new rider because it's so easy to get caught up in riding with other people and end up going too fast for your experience level.
"Speed kills" is another important one. Most people who crash on bikes are going too fast for conditions. And it's too easy to not notice how fast you are really going. Many of the cases of a car turning in front of a bike or a car changing lanes into a bike, I believe, are due to the driver underestimating how fast the bike was going.
And of course, if you drink and ride you are just an idiot and you're not reading about being safe on a bike anyway.
I'm going to go with "wear a helmet." That's my top, number one piece of advice for my son and anyone riding a motorcycle. Mainly because, even if you follow all the other advice, and you never do anything wrong ever - someone else can still crash into you.
BTW, I'm completely against helmet laws for adults. People should have the right to make up their own minds when it comes to how much risk they find acceptable in their lives. But, if you ask me, I'm going to recommend that you should choose to wear a helmet because it makes sense.
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