Biggest Fear on a Bike

Some of these fears reminds me of when everything begins to go wrong for Goose in Mad Max :p ......

Mine is showing off the plumber's crack :p ! Nah, no real fears, really... I rode a bicycle in Beijing for two years, so that more than prepared me for riding the moto later in life ;) .....
 
Strangely, off the bike I feel the most anxiety about riding.

When on, I have no fears. I just have plans and techniques and psychic predictions, based on decades of driving in a big city, as to what other vehicles are going to do.
To be honest, with all that focus I don't have time to be afraid. Concerns as things develop, yes. And then I start thinking of what to do, where I want to be.


Off the bike I sometimes worry about my passenger.
On the way home Friday night, with her on the back, a SUV thing started to pull out left in front of us, inviting a head on collision...
I saw this coming. I had already started to slow down even though I was moving toward a green light.

3 seconds earlier: Approaching the intersection with us there was a SUV in front of me that I figured was blocking the on-coming left turner's view of the bike. When we get close to the intersection the SUV in front of me moves into our left-turn lane and the oncoming SUV sees an opportunity and starts to turn left, as I predicted it might. No fears. Everything is happening exactly as I have foreseen. I'm already pushing on the right, countermeasures in play...

I have read about something called Motion Camouflage:
http://www.st1300.us.com/showthread.php?t=1266 (one example plus some other good points to keep in mind)

and zig-zagged once or twice while slowing within my lane. I also already had plans should they not stop, if I could not stop.
However as soon as I did that, the SUV literally locked-up the brakes and stayed in the left turn lane as we rode by.

I've done this many times before and it's always worked. I didn't think twice about it. That was already in the programing and I just did it.
Later I did think about it and realized that if I had done something incorrectly, she could have been seriously injured.

I don't know. Maybe it's just the thread subject plus what happened tonight.
Maybe it's nothing.
 
AndyB365 said:
Having the front wheel come from underneath me whilst braking or cornering has to be my biggest fear
Click to expand...

That's like impossible to do, you had to slam on the breaks to loose the front wheel... as for the other part it keep, my front wheel skids/losses grip almost daily, on my way to work I'm going over a roundabout(which is a 1minute or so from my house, <0.4mile, tyres are still cold) and sometimes I lean too far and the front wheel "slides", but that's not enough for me to go all the way around to warm them up...
 
BKarol said:
That's like impossible to do, you had to slam on the breaks to loose the front wheel... as for the other part it keep, my front wheel skids/losses grip almost daily, on my way to work I'm going over a roundabout...
Click to expand...
A roundabout... you mean one of those things that we here in America can never figure out @_@ ???
(don't count me in on the clueless ones, though - I love them :) !.....)
 
RoninK6 said:
A roundabout... you mean one of those things that we here in America can never figure out @_@ ???
(don't count me in on the clueless ones, though - I love them :) !.....)
Click to expand...
here's a Link to my close call and an argument on a double mini roundabout...
Also you don't miss much by not having them... ;)
 
^^
One of them mini-roundabouts, 'eh? Not much different than a traditional 4-way :p ~

Glad to see you made it out of that one safe :) !
 
The Gentleman Biker said:
Being committed to a corner and finding gravel looking at me half way round :'(
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GODDDD That shit happened to me the other day, luckily it wasn't an insane corner and I had room to, well do nothing actually cause I hit it, and my back wheel got a little squirrely on me, came out clean though, but the rain kicked all that shit into the road :( Scared the hell out of me
 
RoBoCox said:
GODDDD That shit happened to me the other day, luckily it wasn't an insane corner and I had room to, well do nothing actually cause I hit it, and my back wheel got a little squirrely on me, came out clean though, but the rain kicked all that shit into the road :( Scared the hell out of me
Click to expand...

Oh the fear! Glad you got away with it!
 
12745d1208308547-wear-your-helmet-warning-graphic-images-motorcycle-truck5.jpg


This . . . . and having my bike stolen again
 
That is real by the way, and I was kinda like ehhhh when I saw the picture, but after reading snopes and some of the stuff from his obituary, and seeing that he has gear on, I feel as though from this point forward I will not be reckless at all, and just enjoy my riding, not that I was crazy before, but that just solidifies it regardless of how comfortable I get on my bike. that is just insane.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/tulsacrash.asp#photo3
 
RoBoCox said:
That is real by the way, and I was kinda like ehhhh when I saw the picture, but after reading snopes and some of the stuff from his obituary, and seeing that he has gear on, I feel as though from this point forward I will not be reckless at all, and just enjoy my riding, not that I was crazy before, but that just solidifies it regardless of how comfortable I get on my bike. that is just insane.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/tulsacrash.asp#photo3
Click to expand...
yeah thats going to sting....
 
RoBoCox said:
That is real by the way, and I was kinda like ehhhh when I saw the picture, but after reading snopes and some of the stuff from his obituary, and seeing that he has gear on, I feel as though from this point forward I will not be reckless at all, and just enjoy my riding, not that I was crazy before, but that just solidifies it regardless of how comfortable I get on my bike. that is just insane.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/tulsacrash.asp#photo3
Click to expand...

Insane indeed. Quite sobering.

When I saw the picture the first time I ... I didn't even understand what I was looking at.
At first I thought the guy was a dummy that was set up on a workbench in a garage or something. Honestly it's so weird and alien to me, I couldn't figure out what was going on and what the point was.

Only after reading that snopes article did I realize what I was seeing and what happened.
I don't know how they calculated his speed at 120+ but looking at the picture of the destroyed bike it's no wonder the poor guy died. If steel, aluminum and plastic are ripped apart what chance does flesh and bone have?

Back on topic, I have to say this does not scare me at all. Sincere condolences of course, but that was just plain ol' fuqing stupid!
I'm not trying to be harsh but, I mean seriously, his head rammed through the back of a truck gate? That's like Hyper-SQUIDing, so far beyond any kind of reasonable or rational... may as well ask if I'm afraid of freezing to death on Pluto. Uh, no, because I'm not going to Pluto.

Now the stories about gravel? Sure, that could happen under sane conditions and grown-up, realistic riding.
That's something I'll watch out for.
 
Probably my biggest fear is dropping one of my bikes and damaging the panels. Personally I try not to dwell on the thought that I could die or have a serious accident. I'm sure many people will disagree with this point of view, but hey, it's served me well so far ;)
 
Safe to say that after the events of last night I've got a fresh respect for the road when on a bike. I know it is a rare occurrence, but one of my mates has had three people he knew die whilst on a bike, one of which in the most gruesome way...... I'll spare you the details, but that made it very real for me and made me realise a little bit more how vulnerable you can be on a bike.

Didn't stop him from getting a bike though, but the bastard may well have just convinced the Bank of Mother to reject this particular due to an uncertainty in conditions :P
 
^
A number of years back my wife and I were traveling across town to the University to do something (kendo, yay!). As were were driving across a busy intersection, a cop car and another (soon to discover it being a detective, neither had lights flashing - we were near a police station) quickly turned in front of us and took up both lanes on a five-laned roadway, stopping a few blocks in front of us. There was a van stopped at an angle, next to the curb facing us on our right. We were the one of the first cars stopped behind the cop & detective car, so we didn't they were doing after they hopped out (more concentrating on the traffic situation). The detective let us by after about a minute later, but apparently there was guy on a cruiser that had been traveling in the opposite direction when a van turned in front of him. The impact caused the van to slide to our side of the road... he was hanging halfway in & out the the left back-side window. Luckily we did not see that. That young university student soon died at the hospital... his estimated speed was 55 in a 35mph zone.

I'm sure if my wife would have seen that, I would not be riding today... feel sorry for the guy or anyone who gets into those situations :/ . There's a very fine line between nothing happening and disaster for all of us...

Ride safe out there.....
 
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