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Article (3) Riding With "Relaxed Alertness"
by Rod Jones
Do you recall when you first began riding? You
know, your first motorcycle. I still remember the anxious feeling I
had when I headed out into traffic, that combination of apprehension
and excitement, with some fear thrown in for good measure. Back
then, as now, the primary objective was to get out of the city and
into the country as quickly as possible. The big difference then was the fear I had of the
the heavy traffic which seemed determined to turn me and my shiny new
ride into a road pizza. As I became a more experienced rider I
still felt the excitement, but fortunately the apprehension and fear
diminished, and was replaced by confidence and a feeling of having
fun. And that was good, and that’s why I still ride
today—probably why you ride as well. Experience builds
confidence and confidence overcomes the fear and allows us to relax
and have fun on our bikes.
But then as I gained even more experience I
sometimes found myself going from feeling relaxed on the bike to
feeling comfortable. And I got scared again. Why? Because
there is a significant difference between being relaxed and being
comfortable. Relaxed means not being tense, while comfortable
means being completely at ease. But being completely at ease can
cause us to operate on autopilot as the mind kicks back and enjoys the
scenery. We get that "I’m on my bike, it’s a beautiful day and
nothing can go wrong" feeling. And we stop being alert and we
stop thinking about what we are doing and what is going on around us.
As long as nothing unexpected happens, we are OK. But when an
unexpected hazard suddenly confronts us, being comfortable can be our
undoing, delaying not only our reaction to the situation, but even our
recognition of the danger.
Comfortable is a feeling we sometimes get when we
are so used to doing something, like riding our bikes, that it becomes
routine. The problem we have, of course, is that riding a bike is
never routine. Sure, the mechanics of riding, the shifting,
braking, turning, and so on, can become routine, but riding is much
more than that. It usually involves more people than just
ourselves, as well as road conditions, weather, other vehicles,
animals, and even acts of God—all things that we have little or no
control over. Our primary defense against those external factors
is our alertness, which allows us to recognize dangers, and then use
our skills to avoid or at least mitigate them.
So, what are we saying here? We don't want to
be tense when we ride, but we don't want to be so relaxed that we
become comfortable either. Become tense and our muscles tighten,
become fatigued and reaction time is slowed. Become comfortable
and our mental alertness is lost--muscular reaction times can be
slowed as well. Best selling author Richard La Plante hit the
nail on the head in his book, Hog Fever, when he described the
state of mind needed for riding as "relaxed alertness," a combination
of concentration coupled with relaxation.
Stated simply, we need to relax and enjoy the ride,
but always maintain an awareness of our surroundings and riding
situation, as well as the inherent risks of biking. Maybe, every
time we head out to ride, we should remind ourselves of the simple
advice of Seargeant Phil Esterhaus, the shift sergeant on the hit TV
series Hill Street Blues. On each episode, as he
dismissed his police officers to start their patrols, he sent them on
their way with these sage words: "Hey, let’s be careful out
there." |