The Deckers Route~Experienced Riders Discussion

[UglyDogRacing]

I believe the word of the day (for this thread at least), is complacency.

And that is the problem: you can't become complacent when riding. Once you stop anticipating unexpected situations, you open the door for unfortunate consequences.

[Bueller]

As far as the road in question, this has not alway been the case. 10 years ago everyone i came upon was in full leathers and seemed to be fairly competent with their riding. Nowadays there are more riders frequenting it wearing less gear and trying to ride above their ability.

Way more new riders every year, and it keeps growing with the popularity of motorcycles. Just look at the influx of nOObs every year on this board. They show up with new and new to them bikes, eventually crashing them or loosing interest and disappearing back into the wood work.
The one thing to remember though, is that at times fully geared experienced riders will also make a mistake that can be very costly, so dismissing all the crashes to inexperience and lack of appropriate protective gear would be a mistake.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Except for HP Hill and the sweepers there that encourage big speed, I can't see that road being any more dangerous and is certainly less technical than others here.

IS this road truly more dangerous as measured by a higher accident rate per motorcycle miles traveled, or is it just perception? Or is it just more popular and closer to 2 major metro areas, and since there's more riders on it there's more chances for error? For instance, I consider Stove Prarie far more technical between the Poudre and Rist Canyon, but there's not much traffic on it (due to it's remoteness) and so I'm sure a lot fewer accidents.

I've heard rumors of sadistic assholes dumping sand and oil etc. on certain roads (like Stove Prarie etc.), and I would hate to think that that's more than an extremely rare occurrance. And those caught doing that should be shown absolutely no mercy.

[~Barn~]

What'up Frank... I always get a chuckle how most all of your posts (regardless of topic, discussion, issue, theme, or purpose)... always seem to end with a party or person, being "shown no mercy" in some fashion.

Happy Friday Buddy. Sweep the leg!

[UglyDogRacing]

Way more new riders every year, and it keeps growing with the popularity of motorcycles. Just look at the influx of nOObs every year on this board. They show up with new and new to them bikes, eventually crashing them or loosing interest and disappearing back into the wood work.
The one thing to remember though, is that at times fully geared experienced riders will also make a mistake that can be very costly, so dismissing all the crashes to inexperience and lack of appropriate protective gear would be a mistake.

We all make errors in judgement. I've had my close calls out there and I'm sure you have too. And there are plenty of inexperienced noobs without appropriate gear that come home in one piece every week. Just stating that the numbers are greater now which is increasing the frequency for accidents.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

What'up Frank... I always get a chuckle how most all of your posts (regardless of topic, discussion, issue, theme, or purpose)... always seem to end with a party or person, being "shown no mercy" in some fashion.

Happy Friday Buddy. Sweep the leg!

Hah! No quarter asked, no quarter given! Happy 4th of July weekend to you too bro! Yeah, I just would hate to think that some dickhead with a grudge against bikers would be directly, methodically, and maliciously responsible for hurting or killing anyone that rides just because they're "annoyed" with riders.

[Snowman]

We are riding vehicles that are easily twice the horsepower to weight ratio with half the contact points the size of half dollars to keep us on the road. To control this rolling mass requires a much higher level of physical ability compared to a normal car.

The equipment we ride has also advanced ten fold over the bikes I started out on the 80’s, both in power and performance. So I agree it is getting easier to become comfortable with the bike. The line we ride has always been a very fine one. But the problem I see with the higher end sport bikes is as the performance aspect increases this line becomes finer.

Complacency is a big factor. Get too comfortable with what you are doing and sure enough you will cross that line. I think allot of the newer riders are stepping on to machines that we old timers could only dream about back in the day, not understanding the level we have reached and the respect for these machines you must have.

I think it is up to us who have ridden for a while to try and get that across to the newer riders just what they are getting into.

[Bueller]

We all make errors in judgement. I've had my close calls out there and I'm sure you have too.

This is the truth, luckily I have ridden away from mine.

[Devaclis]

lol I got injured on HPH at a relatively low speed (67 mph) on a dual sport with off road tires.

My suggestion - Check your gear, check your bike, make sure everything is up to par for the kind of riding you are going to be doing. Mechanical failure is normally tougher to think through than a mental error is. Maintain yo shit son!!

Oh, you may also want to slow down a bit and enjoy the beautiful scenery up there. You are not being scouted for a MotoGP alternate spot.

[MetaLord 9]

Complacency is a big factor. Get too comfortable with what you are doing and sure enough you will cross that line. I think allot of the newer riders are stepping on to machines that we old timers could only dream about back in the day, not understanding the level we have reached and the respect for these machines you must have.

I feel like these are two of the main points: Complacency for older/experienced riders, and respect for the machine your own abilities for younger/newer ones.

Younger/newer riders see more experienced riders (like almost everyone in this thread, myself excluded) make it look easy and get the "I can do that" syndrome, especially when newer machines offer straight line speeds that make catching up easier.

There's also the ego factor for a lot of riders both experienced & green. the green riders think "how hard can this be, I've got this" and don't properly grasp their own capabilities, the capabilities of the bike, and the constantly changing conditions of the road.

Experienced riders have to fight the "I've done this road a million times before and could ride it in my sleep" problem. Or the riders that are used to pushing it on the track get back on the street and lower their guard because they're not pushing as hard as they are on the track

[UglyDogRacing]

I think it is up to us who have ridden for a while to try and get that across to the newer riders just what they are getting into.

I don't see that happening with the current generation. They already know everything.

[Nick_Ninja]

Deckers sucks.

[UglyDogRacing]

Or the riders that are used to pushing it on the track get back on the street and lower their guard because they're not pushing as hard as they are on the track

I disagree with this statement. Racers and/or track riders who continue to ride street generally scale it back and are more aware of the hazards that they would not normally encounter while riding their limit on a track.

[UglyDogRacing]

Deckers sucks.

That's an encouraging response.

[Nick_Ninja]

That's an encouraging response.

Any place that has a geographic 'feature' called Horsepower Hill wreaks of being a squid magnet --- there appears to be not much difference between the label Horsepower Hill and The Corkscrew in those feeble minds.

[MetaLord 9]

Any place that has a geographic 'feature' called Horsepower Hill wreaks of being a squid magnet --- there appears to be not much difference between the label Horsepower Hill and The Corkscrew in those feeble minds.

I dunno, I haven't heard of a single gas station downtown with either of those features, but they sure are hip deep in squids...

[Matrix]

I disagree with this statement. Racers and/or track riders who continue to ride street generally scale it back and are more aware of the hazards that they would not normally encounter while riding their limit on a track.

+1. Once I started riding on the track I reeeeally slowed down on the street.

[dirkterrell]

Some very good advice posted above. In case anyone cares, here are my thoughts on street riding in general not just this particular road. Riders need to ask themselves why they are riding. If it's to see how fast you can go, to see if you can get a knee down, impress others, etc. then you unequivocally need to be doing that on the track. There are simply too many unknowns on the street to be pushing that hard. No ride is so good that it's worth being your last.

If your goal is to enjoy riding for yourself, improve your skills and reduce the dangers as much as you can, then you have the right mentality for street riding. I have been riding on the street since 1983 and I am still learning. (e.g. a couple of days ago I got some practice dealing with 40-50 mph gusting crosswinds in rain at interstate highway speeds and learned to scan the grass along the side of the road to see where the gusts were happening.)

It is insufficient to tell someone to ride within their limits when they probably do not know what their limits are. Again, the track is the safest place to explore those limits and extend them. I see people spend all sorts of money on farkles for their bikes and nothing on educating themselves. Today's street machines can do pretty amazing things if you know how to ride them. You can learn from experience and you can also learn from people who are higher up the performance curve than you. Solicit input from experienced riders and learn from them. Take classes like the Jason Pridmore Star School. They will be at HPR on Aug 15-16. It is not a racing school. It is a riding school and I guarantee that you will learn a lot from them no matter what level you are at. The difference between a situation being a pucker moment or a dead rider is very often the rider's skill in making the bike do what is necessary to escape the danger. Forget the aftermarket exhaust. Spend your money on improving your skills.

Since we're talking about a road where people are tempted to hit high speeds, it's good to understand how things change with increasing speed. The main one is that your ability to stop scales as the square of your speed. Your stopping distance at 100 mph is at least four times what it is at 50 mph. But you also have to consider what I call "thinking time" and reaction time. Thinking time is the time it takes you to see a situation and understand that you need to do something about. Then you have the reaction time to make the necessary inputs to the bike. The more experienced you are, the shorter the thinking time will probably be, maybe a second or better. For a beginner, it might be two seconds or more. An average reaction time is about 0.7 seconds. 50 mph is about 73 feet per second. If the reaction plus thinking time is 2.7 seconds, you travel nearly 200 feet before the bike can even do anything. At 100 mph, it's nearly 400 feet. For the experienced rider, it would be 124 feet at 50 mph and 250 feet at 100 mph. Add onto these, the breaking distances. The NHTSA did some braking tests and a VFR like mine took about 232 feet to come to a stop from 80 mph on dry pavement. Scale that up to 100 mph and it would be about 362 feet. Scaling down to 50 mph, it would be 91 feet. So if I took 1.7 secs to see and react to a situation at 50 mph, it would take 124 feet (think&react) + 91 feet (brake) = 215 feet or about 3/4 the length of a football field. At 100 mph it would be 250 feet + 362 feet = 612 feet, or over two football fields. Visualize that. That's the minimum distance for an experienced rider. Can you see that far around the triple digit sweeper you are in, realizing that leaned over, your braking distance will have to be even further? These are the kinds of things you need to understand if you are going to be doing triple digit speeds.

We can't make the risk of riding a motorcycle zero. But we can greatly the reduce the risks. Knowledge, experience, and the right frame of mind can make riding much safer and much more enjoyable. Riding is a great thing, and something I can't imagine not being able to do, but it is not worth dying. Do everything you can to reduce the risks and the odds are that you will enjoy many years of one of the great pleasures in life.

Dirk

[Nick_Ninja]

[bornwildnfree]

Sometimes it's just your time. We can't outrun the Reaper. No matter how good you are, there is always more to learn and even the tiniest bit of inattention or gravel or squirrel or whatever can cost us our lives. Even those masters like the MotoGP guys still make mistakes although the consequences aren't usually as severe. We ride machines that have improved vastly over the years, but rider skill hasn't necessarily kept up. All you can do is be prepared. All roads can be deadly given the right kind of conditions.

@dirkterrell that's really good info and really something to think about.

[MetaLord 9]

Sometimes it's just your time. We can't outrun the Reaper.

Thanks for lightening the mood...

[salsashark]

Thanks for lightening the mood...

Anybody else have Blue Oyster Cult stuck in their heads now?

[UglyDogRacing]

Sometimes it's just your time. We can't outrun the Reaper.

Sorry I don't accept statements like that. I would prefer to do everything possible to extend my time in this world.

[Nick_Ninja]

Anybody else have Blue Oyster Cult stuck in their heads now?

TOMORROW!

Saturday, July 2at 8:30pm
Cheap Trick with Blue Oyster Cult







http://www.greeleystampede.org/events/main-concerts