Page 86 - Australian Motorcycle News (January 2020)

howto

Do stuff

ROAD

READER

Reading the road

If there’s one thing that will make you a better road rider, it’s by

becoming a road reader. Here’s a few quick tips

WORDS KELLIE BUCKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY SHUTTERSTOCK

I f you listen to your mother, then riding a motorcycle good advice, there’s actually a whole lot of information to

be garnered from your surroundings which can – and will –
is more like a ghost train at a theme park; you never
make you safer on the road. You may think you have no idea
know when things are going to jump out of nowhere
and scare the living daylights out of you.
what’s around the next corner, but there’s a good chance you
And, while in some respects that may be true and

Surprise! do. You just need to know what you’re looking for.
1 A surprise makes us do silly 2
things. We react immediately
according to our instincts without
sufficient time to think and assess.

And depending on our skill and
experience, those immediate
reactions while travelling at
speed on a motorcycle, could
either be extremely helpful or land
us on our bums. It’s pretty easy
to then blame whatever it was
that surprised you, be it another
vehicle, an animal or changing
road conditions, but if your brain
can identify a potential hazard
early enough to give you both the
space and the time to, at best,
make a quick plan and execute it
or, at worst, roll off the throttle and

reduce your speed, then you’re
going to greatly reduce the risk of
coming unstuck.

The little things what dangers may or may not cars all waiting to exit that sports The big things

2 In a car we have climate lay ahead. Garbage bins along ground almost definitely means 3 As well as a heap of small
control and music to create the side of the road, for example, there’s some fed-up and frustrated clues which can indicate what’s
a familiar and comfortable indicates that there just may drivers willing to make a silly ahead, there’s a lot of really large
environment in which we can be a garbage truck stopped on decision and pull out in front of things that can give us a heads
be relatively relaxed in, but on your side of the road just over you and into a gap that isn’t there. up as to what lies ahead, too.
a motorcycle your senses are that blind crest which is rapidly If you can read the signs and be Learning to read the natural
instinctively heightened – you approaching. Or the fresh-looking prepared, the element of surprise landscape, for example, can
notice more, hear more and even horse poo that you negotiated will be reduced, and with more make an otherwise blind crest
smell more – so we’d be mad safely just back there probably information and more time, you’re or corner more visible. Imagine
not to put that to good use. Little means there’s a horse or two being going to make a smarter, more you’re approaching a crest; you
things dotted around the place ridden at the other side of that considered choice if presented can’t see what the road does on
can give us valuable clues to blind corner. Or that long line of with a think-quick situation. the other side of it, but directly

86 amcn.com.au