Feel the Freedom!

Now and then a new rider, fresh from a motorcycle training course and aglow with enthusiasm, comes to me for advice.

"What would you tell me?" he or she will ask, handing me my pipe, brushing crumbs from my cardigan. "Give me the benefit of your years in the saddle."

I brew a pot of herbal tea and arrange a few Milano cookies on a good china plate. I fill the bowl of my pipe, tamp down the tobacco and light it. Perhaps I clear my throat. I frown. If the new rider is still there, I begin to speak.

I paint (if I may say so) a vivid picture of the Freedom we all Feel, the joy that comes with eventual mastery of the spirited machine, the sun-soaked run to glory that is motoring on two wheels. Here's what I say:

I say: Things are gonna happen that'll scare you and piss you off. They happen because car people are clueless, careless, angry, impaired or all of the above.

Let those things go. Once they're over, they're over.

See, things don't always happen one at a time. While you're fuming, gesturing or shaking your head at the last guy's stupidity, the next guy nails you. The next guy, by the way, is the first guy's kid brother, following him to Wal-Mart in the second (of the family's three) three-quarter-ton Ford pickups.

There are millions of those guys in their Fords. Unless you can afford to live in Carmel, California, and never leave that civilized village by-the-sea, you cannot escape them. And frankly, though it boasts no Wal-Mart, Carmel has hazards all its own.

Fact is, I say, one city's pretty much the same as the others, as spooky, just as demanding of our vigilance, particularly in December. There's nowhere to run.

Because your bike is not a safety capsule, not a Volvo, your survival as a rider depends on luck - oh, and on focusing your attention on what's right there in front of you. Behind and next to you too, 360 degrees. Three-eighty in December.

As Keith Code says, you only have so much attention, so much focus pie to slice, and no focus to waste. No way do you have any mental energy to spend being upset at stupid drivers. Stupid drivers are, as we agreed, a given.

What can you do? If you see one of those guys near you in his pickup, Jeep CJ or faded-paint big ol' American sedan, you can and should get away from him. Switch to a different lane and give other drivers a shot at you. You might be safer. Who can say?

It is helpful to be aware that there are certain cars typically owned by guys who cannot drive (Volvos, Saturns) and others that attract viciously aggressive guys (Cherokees, Camrys, BMWs), but your hard-earned awareness is no shield. It won't work every time like the legendary cross that repels the vampire.

Don't assume that the guy in the lowered Accord with the Kawasaki sticker in the window is your friend. Don't assume anyone in a vehicle with doors is your friend. If you see your minister, rabbi or priest on the road, wave but keep an empty lane between you. You want to go to heaven, but not today.

As wary as you are normally, ride twice as scared at bridge tollbooths, near convenience stores and in school zones. Why?

The road surface next to the tollbooth is treacherous slick. Sometimes it's too slick for your boot sole to find traction. Your foot slips, you're down in an instant, you need help to get back up, and the horns are going in a microsecond.

At the 7-Eleven? No one decides if they're gonna stop at a 7-Eleven until the last second, so no one has time to signal or brake gradually. Gas pumps in front of the store? Worse yet. Who realizes they're low on fuel until the little panic light comes on?

And school zones? Traffic laws do not apply in school zones. Laws of physics do not apply in school zones. Human kindness cannot survive in school zones.

Better to be a gunpoint hostage in a passenger aircraft losing altitude and streaming fuel than to ride absentmindedly, 15mph through a school zone. Guys with bombs or box knives will have more mercy than those soccer moms.

Perhaps (I say, only half serious) we should be bombing the suburbs rather than middle-Eastern targets. More terrorists per square mile in the ‘burbs. Target Land Rovers and mommy vans; Never waste a bomb. But enough fantasy...

Don’t trust eye contact, I say.

Eye contact with a driver who COULD pull out or turn across your path is NOT a guarantee he won't do just that. Probably he'll look right at you and do it. It’s not his fault, really: He's legally blind. He can't see you in your Hi-Viz Lime Yellow Aerostich jacket, your high-beam blazing right in front of him.

Now, because your motorcycle is stuck under his car, he'll be late getting to Wal-Mart - IF the cops let him drive away from the scene with no license or proof of insurance. What a hassle for him. He'll still be there, tapping his cane, long after the EMTs have taken you, lights and siren, to the trauma center.

Here’s what I say about taking care of motorcycles: Keep oil in the crankcase and the right air pressure in the tires. You depend on the machine to keep you upright. You depend on its controllability, especially when you're a green rider yourself, not controlling it any too elegantly.

Do your own work when you feel competent doing so; Let someone else do jobs that scare you. When you're working on your bike, avoid interruptions. You need to concentrate, to keep your mind on the task at hand.

Don't think that after a month of riding, you've mastered this motorcycle thing. Precisely half of us riders are below average in skill. In your first year or so on the bike you almost certainly fit in that category.

That's not an insult, it's a statistical truth. We're not, all of us, good at everything we try. I hope you become a proficient motorcyclist, but if you don’t, I hope you stay healthy until you lose interest, or your insurance company refuses coverage, or your family intervenes.

I wish you years of happy riding, I say, and suggest that each of those years is the result of millions of cool-headed, sober, correct decisions. Now, get out there and Feel the Freedom. Or stay here out of the rain and have another Milano.

END