Survival Instincts

[Miriam]

Obvious though they are, I find I need a huge amount of practice to unlearn some of them because they can be deadly when riding a bike.

Like these.

 

| Braking and swerving at the same time, when reacting to an obstacle.

| Target fixation, so we hit the only tree for miles around.

| Braking when you hit gravel, though not applicable to dirt riders I guess.

| Follow the line of the bike in front of you, even almost into a ditch.

 

What are your strategies to cope with these and others?

[AlexB]

Perhaps you could look into rider training courses to help you develop good habits. Clearly, you are trying to take matters into your own hands and that is good. I found David Hough's books (Proficient Motorcycling I and II and Street Survival Strategies) very helpful. His premise is that we do not live long enough to make every mistake (and with some mistakes, we may not live at all).

 

Good luck.

[Ken H.]

Good thoughts, but I'll have to take exception to the first one. Unless I misinterpreted you.

 

Braking and swerving at the same time can be a very necessary thing. In fact it's one of the skills riders should learn and practice. Being able to do so just might save your bacon someday.

[Woodie]

Ken

On the first one: It's considered very hard (or ineffective depending on who you read) to attempt to brake and swerve at the same time. There's only so much traction available, so you have to decide where you want to spend it: sharp, rapid swerve, or maximum braking.

[Wooster]

Miriam,

 

Perhaps your post is better titled "instinctive crashing" as the four items listed are somewhat automatic (instinctive) and likely to lead to woe. I say this with little regard for instinctive responses; rather, conscious manipulation of bike's controls saves the bacon (akin to backside or butt). And I think this is an important to point to consider, i.e., less reliance on automatic/unconscious behavior and more so on intentional rider inputs. Even in survival/instantaneous situations, I'm ridings the bike, not my autonomic responses. In those brief moments with disaster beckoning, I recommend application of intellect vs. reliance on instinct.

 

Wooster w/GS aspirations

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Braking and swerving at the same time, when reacting to an obstacle.

 

IIRC, the MSF advocates separating the two events: brake first to reduce speed (and maximize your ability to swerve), then relax the brakes and perform the swerve. It's not really helpful to brake and swerve simultaneously, since the braking limits your ability to maneuver agressively.

 

Target fixation, so we hit the only tree for miles around.

 

Don't know what to tell you on this one. I haven't had much trouble with it msyelf.

 

Follow the line of the bike in front of you, even almost into a ditch.

 

This one's easy: don't follow so close. If you're right behind another rider, you're going to spend most of your time making sure you don't hit him; since you are necessarily less focused on finding your own line, you end up relying on him to choose your line for you. Unless you're about to execute a pass, put some more distance between you and him, and ride your own ride; that extra space/time cushion will free you up to read the road and find your own line, as well as giving you more room to accelerate through the turns.

 

Sometimes it's possible to practice the habits you want to develop so that they become ingrained in your mind and muscles. The brake-and-swerve thing is an easy one, and so is target fixation; you can do these anytime you're cruising down the road, and in fact you can do them at the same time. Pick a spot on the road (shadow, dark patch, etc.) and practice your brake-and-swerve maneuver. Now try staring at the spot and deliberately steering around it; see if you break the habit of merely going where you are looking and instead go where you want to go. I don't know whether this is possible - as I say, I haven't had much of a problem with target fixation - but practice an experimentation seems like a good way to go.

 

Tar snakes - and the apparent momentary loss of traction one experiences when crossing them while leaned over - used to bother me. They don't anymore. what happened? I practiced. I found curvy roads with tar snakes, and deliberately sought them out, crossing them while leaned farther and farther over. As long as you've got healthy pavement before/after the tar snake, you can be leaned over pretty far before the momentary upset is enough to step the wheels out so bad that you lowside. In the time since then, I've had a couple of incidents where I hit tar snakes while leaned over pretty hard at pretty high speed (60+ mph). In both cases the front wheel wiggled violently for an instant and then things were back to normal; in neither case did I have a moment of panic or a major change of line. I think the practice helped with that.

 

FWIW I still struggle with panic reactions during hard turns. Two things bring it on:

 

• a need to lean farther than I'm comfortable with. My lack of comfort usually comes from a mistrust (not always rational) of the pavement conditions, e.g. gravel in previous turns, or a smooth/shiny appearance (interpreted mentally as reduced traction).
   
  
• touching down in mid-turn (centerstand or footpeg). The first time it happened scared the crap out of me, but I started getting more and more comfortable with it to the point that I actually dragged holes in the fairings. That was a combination of poor form (not leaning off) and a collapsed rear-shock preload adjuster. Now with a healthy bike, good form, and already-worn-down footpeg feelers, a touchdown is once again a relatively rare (and once again harrowing) event.

In both those cases, panic overrides sound judgment. My id jumps up and screams "STAY AWAY FROM THE PAVEMENT!", and my ego obliges: my body refuses to lean off, and my hands refuse to make the bike turn harder. My only saving grace is that I'm able to avoid getting on the brakes.

 

I haven't figured out how to practice that one...

[Whip]

I think my most important survival instinct is....when in doubt.....Slow Down .

 

If I see or feel anything that isn't quite right I slow down......

 

Whip

[Francois_Dumas]

 

If I see or feel anything that isn't quite right I slow down......

 

Whip

 

Heck yeah... you even fall over to slow down more quickly !!! Talk about extremes !!!

[AZKomet]

I think my most important survival instinct is....when in doubt.....Slow Down .

 

If I see or feel anything that isn't quite right I slow down......

 

Whip

 

Good call...like I have said 60 mph = 88 fps. That is a lot of road rash!!!

[steve.foote]

Mirim, I agree with what Mitch wrote. Practice is the best way to overcome these instincts.

 

But keep in mind, practice can be accomplished on and off the bike. When you have a free moment, imagine your way through various situations as if you were actually riding. Think about your posture, line, controls, environment and obstacles as you negotiate an imaginary roadway. Examine where and why survival instincts would occur and how best to deal with them.

 

Obviously, "simulation" doesn't replace actual practice, but it can help build a mental foundation upon which to develop your skills BEFORE you actually need them.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

My responses, in no particular order.

 

Brake and swerve. They actually can be combined. It is really an extension of the racer's technique of trail braking into a turn. You have to keep your traction budget in mind. Brake hard, of course, right to the threshold if that seems appropriate, then, as the time comes to swerve, instead of releasing the brakes all at once, reduce pressure on the brake lever as you increase lean. Note: This does require practice, and a good deal of it, so that you both gain proficiency and groove the pattern so it becomes automatic.

 

Gravel scares the beejesus out of me. I'm always on the alert for it. Actually, down here in Fla, it is sand on the road. I brake first and go later. I have done a bunch of riding on the mountains in California where it seems the side of the mountain is always fallind down onto the road. Lane position is quite important here. The 4 wheeled traffic will have swept it into some unlikely positions, mostly where a late apexing biker will have to cross two or even three piles. Only advise is to have your speed well in hand and plan on taking a different line.

 

Target fixation. You must TEACH yourself to look where you want to go. As already mentioned, it can be practiced during normal riding. I'm forever dodging shadows or manhole covers and the like, just to keep my hand in. Works on the brake and swerve thing as well.

 

I don't do group rides, and even when I am forced to, I just make it a point to back way off from the rider in front of me once curves show up. Makes slow in fast out a whole bunch more fun.

[Alan D]

I wish everyone had the opportunity to ride a dirt bike in the woods for awhile.

You are tossed around as your bike hits holes, rocks etc and you quickly learn to let the bike work beneath you. You begin to trust it will stay upright. You learn quickly to look past trees and other obstacles and look where you want to go. 20 or 30 miles in the woods on a dirt bike probably equates to 200 or 300 on the highway. Yep, you will crash a few times, but with the proper gear those 10 or 20 mph crashes are usually not harmful. I have never done a track day but I think either a dirt bike or a track day can help you get comfortable with the bike quickly. Then you'll have more time and brain power when driving on the road to observe the people that are driving that don't observe you.

[Francois_Dumas]

I too think that dirt bike riding (AND mountainbike cross) helps developing reflexes than can save the day on a 'normal' motorbike.

 

So far on the RT I have had 3 unexpected 'break-outs' of my rear wheel (once on wet leaves, once on gravel, and once on I-don't-know-what), and I saved it all three times without thinking.

 

I haven't experienced any of the other problems Miriam mentioned, but I would indeed caution for riding too close up a bike or car ahead of you, or watching it too closely. Ideally you would look past it.

[Miriam]

Thanks all for the responses!

 

I was not so much posting about a personal problem, but rather putting a little focus on an interesting phenomenon. Where survival instinct was originally developed to keep us from harm, it adds yet another bit of magic to motorcycling by actually working against us in some instances. As Steve said I think practice may help secure a good outcome should any of those situations occur, otherwise having some awareness helps too I think, so I brought it up to get ya’ll thoughts about it.

[DiggerJim]

I was not so much posting about a personal problem, but rather putting a little focus on an interesting phenomenon. Where survival instinct was originally developed to keep us from harm, it adds yet another bit of magic to motorcycling by actually working against us in some instances.

That's actually a very interesting observation. In the arena of efficient engineering that suggests motorcycles are badly designed. Machinery should work with our natural instincts and not against them. Working against our instincts guarantees failures to perform at some point in time.

 

For instance, how many times have you tried to enter a store where the door had a long bar for a handle and discovered it was a "push" and not a "pull"? The bar suggests "pull" and that's what you do. A flat plate suggests "push" and would be better in that situation. Very small & simple design change would radically alter our interaction with the door.

 

Before anyone yells "it's physics stupid" I'd like to point out that there is some work being done now that is changing the underlying concept of "motorcycle" and addressing some of these issues - like the new 3 wheel scooter that has 2 small front wheels, leans like a bike but won't fall over. It could be that we are simply hamstrung by our sense of what a motorcycle is - a design that goes back 100 years.

 

Jim

[MattS]

What are your strategies to cope with these and others?

 

These need to be grouped a little different. We have two:

 

| Braking and swerving at the same time, when reacting to an obstacle.

| Braking when you hit gravel, though not applicable to dirt riders I guess.

 

These both fall into panic or oh sh!t braking, especially when reacting to gravel, where braking gives the panicked rider the illusion of control at the expense of real control. The best way to learn to deal with a little gravel ... is to ride on a lot of it. Spend a day riding on loose roads, getting smooth and staying off the brakes except when absolutely needed.

 

| Target fixation, so we hit the only tree for miles around.

| Follow the line of the bike in front of you, even almost into a ditch.

 

These are both target-fixation problems, the first one is obvious, the second less so. An inexperienced rider following another rider may be tempted to not only follow the line of the bike in front ... but the lean as well. What that means is that as the bike in front leans into the corner, the inexperienced follower might assume the lean as his or her own, forgetting to lean into the corner (on account of the lean already observed) and as a result fighting centripetal force all the way through the corner.

 

The technique to be improved here is between the ears, practice Looking. If there is an obstacle, don't look no matter how tempting. When following another rider, be extra diligent to watch the road and not the rider, no matter how fluid and graceful he or she is ahead of you, you still need to ride your own ride.

[Miriam]

Working against our instincts guarantees failures to perform at some point in time.

Isn’t that why people go down on gravel (obviously not all accidents here come from the instinctive response to brake when losing footing), lose grip trying to brake and swerve, hit objects because they’re target fixated?

 

Obviously there weren’t any motorcycles around at the time when our instinctive responses were honed. I think bike manufacturers, like BMW, are responding to the bad design that you mention by adding ‘safety features’ such as ABS and now ASC to close that gap a bit.

 

Hence David’s warning not to rely on features like that, but rather step up your riding and learn the correct responses given certain situations. And as Alan said, get some dirt time in!

[Misti]

This is an interesting thread that has a lot of great observations about Survival Instincts or Reactions. As the term implies, a survival reaction is something we do instinctively in order to help us "survive" but in many cases, or reactions do more harm than good. Like a deer paralized in the headlights of a car, we often do things that hinder our chances of survival.

 

On a motorcycle we tense up when we go into a corner too hot or see gravel, we target fix on the things we don't want to hit and we panic and either don't react properly (we ride straight off the road instead of trying to turn) or over react (brake too hard and lock up the rear etc)

 

I'm a coach with the California Suprbike School and these are the things that we deal with daily. These are also the things that as a rider and a racer, I have personally struggled with overcoming as well. This is a good thread because it gets people thinking about specific riding skills and how to essentially "learn" them.

 

I would suggest reading books about riding technqiues (there are some listed in this thread), taking some riding classes and practicing the skills that help break these survival reactions....but I do caution the idea of practicing certain things on the street like panic braking/swerving at the same time etc....a closed environment (like a track) with instructors or coaches would be a better bet.

 

I practice overcoming my own survival reactions every time I ride or race, or even coach other riders. From the Superbike School I have learned a lot in regards to where to look (so that you are not just following blindly the rider in front of you), how to maintain being relaxed when you are freaked out, and why it is important to be relaxed, how to turn the bike more quickly in a panic or emergency situation, how to brake efficiently etc. It's a cool feeling to be armed with enough infomation and experience to be able to avoid bad situations and then to KNOW that you just saved yourself.

 

Wow, that was long winded but I hope it was interesting

 

Misti

[Bruno Valeri]

Good thoughts, but I'll have to take exception to the first one. Unless I misinterpreted you.

 

Braking and swerving at the same time can be a very necessary thing. In fact it's one of the skills riders should learn and practice.

 

This is one of the listed benefits of ABS, that it allows to continue braking in slippery conditions withtout losing directional control. In a car this means that you can stomp on the brakes and, with ABS activated, swerve around an obstacle. With normal brakes, you would just plow straight ahead even with wheels turned.

 

But bikes respond differently. when doing track days, I've sometimes experienced difficulty of turning-in if braking too late and too hard for a corner. This result is very different from trail braking and I do it as little as possible as it normally means that I've blown the entry.

But sometimes you get carried away when playing with someone.

 

The forks do compress, steepening rake. This quickens steering and is a benefit of trail braking. But the hard application of brakes also squats the tire, deforming the profile. So it turns more reluctantly.

 

If the tire is squatted sufficiently, I find that I need to release the brakes before turn-in. Which is probably a good thing because at that point, I would probably be over my traction limit of braking/cornering.

 

So I'd guess that the need to brake and swerve would occur in a panic/emergency situation. That would mean hard application of brakes, resulting in more difficult swerving.

 

Based on that, I seperate the two. I brake as hard as possible. Then if needed, release and swerve.

 

It happened to me in this example where things happened to work out well.

http://pages.videotron.com/mcrides/riding/close_call.htm

 

 

Bruno

Montreal, Canada

http://pages.videotron.com/mcrides

 

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[pmdave]

I'm of the opinion that the human brain is "wired" so that in a sudden emergency situation, we react without thinking, and think about it later when we have more time.

 

We seem to react based on habits. That is, when faced with a crisis, we revert to whatever we've been doing in the past.

 

If the above is true, then there is no point in learning special "survival" tactics, because when the time comes, we'll revert to habits, and then wonder why we didn't pull the "survival tactic" out of the hat.

 

It seems to me that what's important is to practice the "right" skills, and not worry about what to do in a pinch. We'll either do the "right" thing, or not.

 

For instance, what's the "survival tactic" when you encounter a tank truck on its side two thirds of the way around a blind right-hander? IMHO, if you've over-ridden your sight distance entering the corner, you're toast. So, the appropriate tactic--the good skill--would be to brake hard when your sight distance closes up.

 

And, if braking while leaned over might be useful to avoid a crash--or at least reduce the impact--then perhaps braking while leaned over should be a regular part of cornering.

 

I'm thinking of public road sitations here, not racetrack.

 

pmdave

[MotorinLA]

DiggerJim wrote:

That's actually a very interesting observation. In the arena of efficient engineering that suggests motorcycles are badly designed. Machinery should work with our natural instincts and not against them. Working against our instincts guarantees failures to perform at some point in time.

 

Of course, for humans there is nothing "instinctive" about traveling at speeds greater than about 12-15 mph. We are not constructed to react fast enough to efficiently deal with speeds of 30+ mph. I guess that's where practice and mental preparation comes into play. If you don't "know" what to do ahead of time, chances are you'll find yourself up a certain creek without a paddle, when the you-know-what hits the fan (yes, this is the PG rated version).

 

IMO there is nothing like pratice (and perhaps a little bit of restraint) to keep the rubber side down. You don't want to know how many times I dropped my trainer bike before I learned to trust it enough to let it do what it does best.

 

Personally I found that learning to trust the bike at slow speeds also greatly improved my riding skills and confidence at higher speeds.