The ART of Motorcycle Road Riding

It was completely predictable, but ART is enjoying touring so much that we've decided to retire, and not do the ART courses anymore. So, here is one final road-riding Tip - 'If you think you've seen everything on our public roads, that's a sure sign that you haven't (we've just seen someone reverse through a roundabout on the wrong side of the road!!) - and if you want a free copy of our ART of Motorcycle Road Riding book, email us at [email protected]. All the best to you all!

These days, it's very rare to find sweepers without any speed advisory signs, and this reminds ART of a saying from a guy in our first touring group 40 years ago: 'If there's no speed signs, then we'll have to do it twice: once to find out the surprises, the second time to enjoy it, like a fine wine'. ART couldn't agree more!

Carpets of tiny green monsters! They sprout in Winter anywhere there isnt much sun (particularly in some of ART’s favourite twisties), and of course they make the road very slippery. Thankfully (again), Anticipation and Action (throttling off and buffering) will get us out of trouble.

It doesn't look like anything is about to happen to the rider. But, it does. The clue is the headlights of the approaching car are on and it's not dark: in fact, it's around 7am this morning. Any guesses? (Of all things, it's a newspaper delivery guy, in a BMW SUV, and the rider narrowly missed copping a flying paper. We are sure it wasn't intentional but imagine what would have happened to the rider). Anticipation and Avoidance, All the Time!

The start of winter in June is one of ART's favourite months for touring (more enjoyable roads - less crowded) but it does bring a challenging road surface issue: we don't know what they are called, but they are like a carpet of ball-bearings! Thankfully, Observation and Anticipation again gets us all out of trouble: their tree is distinctive. Nice retro Enfield 500 warming up for a ride.

We forget who said it but there's a famous quote that goes something like 'Reality is stranger than fiction'. This photo is from our ride this morning: can you image a three way intersection with a truck door open effectively making in one way? In a car, no problem, but buffering on a bike was tricky and needed time to make the adjustments. The skill of Anticipation saved the day: the workers were visible - but you had to look hard for them.

'Expect the unexpected' Part 100!!! This delivery van pulled out from the curb (on the wrong side of the road) without indicating, and drove up the wrong side of the road over the crest. And it was wet. This was in the first kilometre of our ride that day: a good reminder that we need a 'get-our-heads-ready' routine before getting on our bikes. We repeat 'Observation, Anticipation, Slow-Down and Buffer' to ourselves as we gear up.

Ah, fog! The winter months are here, reminding us that morning fogs are more common. What are our tips? First, research some visor water treatments (in the photo, there's actually a 10 tonne truck in front of us) and keep our visors cracked open slightly so our breath doesn't create an additional internal fog. Second, fog drenches the road, the same as rain, so ensure our tyres are in the best condition and we ride in 'rain mode'. Lastly, rain gear: fog also drenches riding gear. But the good news is that as soon as the sun has had some time to warm up the air, it usually lifts.

This week's post is about 'When is a Stop Sign not a Stop Sign?' The photo below is a picture that tells a story of a thousand words: when you think about how a road-user could have done that to the Stop sign, it highlights that not only do people often not stop, but they can be travelling at high speed at Stop Signs. We have a rule: if the wheels are moving on a vehicle that is approaching a Stop Sign, they aren't going to stop! Anticipate, Act, and Avoid.

'We are in the the Age of Anticipation'. This was a road-riding tip from a rider at one of our Courses recently. The riding group was talking about the biggest changes to roadriding in the last 30 years, things like much better tyres, very useful electronics (switchable ABS, TC, Cruise Control, Riding Modes), great suspension. But this rider went a different way in their thinking: the number and types of problems we have with other road users is getting quite concerning. This rider's view was that we all need to get really good at anticipating 'bad/poor/dangerous' driving by other road users. This rider said that our bikes are much more capable than required, but we need to ride 'anticipating the unexpected every second of a ride'. Great tip we think! (What do you think happened next to us as we rode towards this early polling place this morning?)

Our post this week is dedicated to our scootering friends! Scooters have many advantages for road-riding, particularly in heavy traffic (commuting and weekends), cafe/lunch runs, social riding. And at the other end of the spectrum, like any bike, they can definitely do iconic roads (see photo!). Here's some key pointers:
1. Because of our scooter's smaller wheel sizes, we need to be good at anticipating problems on the road surface in plenty of time to take action, like buffering and slowing down (to better pick our line through the problem). In addition to potholes, we need to completely avoid cracks running in line with the road, tar snakes, painted lines, metal covers, grates. A useful technique is for us to look ahead 5 seconds then bring our eyes back to the front wheel to check the road surface, then push our eyes ahead 5 seconds etc
2. Quick stops: because of the smaller tyre sizes, we need to practice the technique of set-up and squeeze, so that we don't accidentally lock the brakes (most likely the front brake on our scooter). If our scooter has ABS, we need to know what ABS feels like when it cuts in so we know how to react to that. The best way to practice this is to a group coaching session ('track day') that includes braking practice sessions on one of the smaller, tighter race tracks like the carting track at Eastern Creek and Marulan in NSW. There are a lot of companies that offer this (we don't, we ride public roads)
3. (fyi some scooters aren't built to allow this) We need to sit forward with our knees against the knee-board. There's two benefits for us: the bike is more balanced front-to-rear (remember that scooters have their engine and transmission towards the rear wheel) which means they will handle better on the road; and also the scooter will be more stable because you're also 'holding' it with your knees (like riders of manual motorbikes also 'hold' their bikes with their knees-in to the fuel tank).
4. Highway scootering can be a problem on the smaller-engined scooters, because other road users coming up behind us typically can't judge the distance to us very well, and they are speeding. If our scooters can't hold the speed limit, the best option for us is to ride back roads which are more fun anyway (again, see photo!)
5. Touring backroads on scooters is great fun. But we need to think carefully about how we pack our scooters: there's luggage options that attach to the knee-boards. And there's some very effective backpacks that rest on the seat behind us so there's only a light weight on our shoulders, even when they are fully loaded.

Otherwise, everything else that is in our eBook applies when we are scootering! One last thing we'd like to emphasise (we have the same message for manual road-riders) is check your tyre pressures every time you ride: wrong pressures can cause a scooter to handle poorly.