Going thru turns in the mountains - an honest inquiry

[budman]

I started a thread about talking to a lady who was using the center of the lane to drive up to Mt. Hamilton yesterday. IN that thread I admitted honestly that at times I do out ride my sight line in turns in the twisties.

For me it is usually well below 55 when I do that, but I realize I do and have made a choice to enjoy myself while accepting some risk while doing this. Life is not safe as we all know and calculated risks have been part of mine for a long time. Most of it actually.

As I explained in the other thread I am not sure that most sporting moto riders don't do it and some may think they are not doing it, but are not taking into account a solid stopped object in front of them while leaned over. At that point you have few options.

Can't stop
Run into the other lane or wide and off the road or hit it.

Think you can stop
Brake hard and stop before impact.

The reality is these situation do happen and I wanted to expand on that thread by asking the honest question about your take on them and how you ride.

Before you get to the poll consider a few things.
1. A lot of bicycles on roads like Mt. Hamilton are out riding their sight lines.
Traction available (road conditions ) play into it.
2. It can be boring to ride 10 MPH through a very limited vision mountain road and do you really do that?
3. I am asking about roads like Mt Hamilton that are usually 55 mph or less.. often a lot less. I am not asking about fast sweepers like on 84/ Pescadero road etc.. although those count they are much more likely to kill you and I myself tend to back off significantly and besides your are significantly breaking the law when doing that. Unmarked roads like Page Mill or Mt. Hamilton allow for a higher speed. What is considered safe by a Sheriff may not be the same for you, but for the purpose of this argument lets say doing double the suggested speed of 10 on slow corner is easily accomplished and well within the 55 MPH speed limit, yet may exceed the safe sight line speed.
4. Does having a seeing eye dog in front change your philosophy? (another rider you trust)
5. Can you think this through and really answer this honestly?

Please... I am not suggesting you be a hooligan and rip like a mad man, but I know enough people I consider VERY good riders that will ride a spirited fun and mostly safe pace where roads allow that minus the sight line.

I also would add that do such in deserted areas (much less traffic) is safer to do so in my opinion. Mt. Hamilton vs. Page Mill as an example. Hammie has significantly less traffic. If you know that you adjust (I do), however that may still leave you in danger in the strict application of physic involved with a sight line.

I would also add that as a newer rider or one that has not developed a significant skill set yet is going to be more at risk when doing so. However.. it may not matter.

 

[mean dad]

I ride most comfortably on fast, unfamiliar roads with a spotter in front of me. There have been times where I was riding too close for the conditions.

I occasionally outride my sightlines when carrying a brisk pace by myself on familiar roads...ok, maybe a bit more often than occasionally, but not regularly.

 

[rsrider]

I rarely over ride anymore. The older I get, the slower I am. I've noticed more and more people on the roads that use to have no one on them. And all those people suck at driving. I take the Ninjette out more than I do the Ducati because I simply can't over ride that thing, but it's still fun. Lucky me, I'm retired and rarely do I ride on the weekends. I've actually set aside wed. as the ride day, where I will almost certainly take out a bike. I'll ride whenever the mood hits, but I find that there is almost no one, except the locals, out on the roads I ride during the week. And if you hit it just right, like around lunch time, even the service vehicles are off the road.

 

[Kestrel]

Sometimes, but I've toned it down in recent years.

NC (like goat trail parts of CA) has a lot of tight and very twisty roads. For the most part, I'll save the shenanigans and fast pace for places where I can see, and ride at a fraction of the pace on turns where I cannot. There's so much twisty shit here that it doesn't really make much of a difference in the 'fun' level one will experience, but does a lot for keeping things safe.

 

[edzx6]

Wow, that is a lot to take in.

Yes, I ride a "sprited pace" up Mines and probably being honest my speed is past my sight line on a few occassions. I do ride a bit faster when SVJ is leading as he is a bit faster than I am and I trust him. He is a good rider and I never see him out of control.

I always hold a little back though on the street for the totally unknown that can happen. Deer, those fucking suicidal squirells, broken down car, drifter or worse yet the bicycle guy that just stops in the middle of the road after a corner because "hell, why the fuck not". I single out Mines because that is the only road I know well and traffic is usually light when I am there. I get there way before the Junction opens. The ride to Alices is too dangerous and the Sunday morning ride got too dangerous for me too. I saw a lot of carnage in the 80's and 90's on those 2 roads and got tired of it to be honest.

Life is dangerous and I probably wouldn't ride a motorcycle if I was going to ride it at a pace that would be like driving a car. At that point, why not just drive the car.

 

[budman]

Thanks so far.. The reason I said familiar roads is driveways, typical debris areas etc. are known and adjustments are made before getting to them. I think that plays into it. Even on some goats there are DW's and debris beside the big bumps or pot holes to consider.

Hills are a consideration as well. Often you have zero sight line and if the road is straight and the speed limit is 55 MPH to you really slow down to 10 to roll over. I would be most people are out riding their sight line. Or does that not count.??

 

[Smash Allen]

this topic came to mind a few weeks ago while i was at lunch in the middle of a berryessa run.

at speed, there's just no way i could stop within my lane within my line of sight...

if you put up a brick wall from 6ft off the left hand shoulder to 6ft off the right hand shoulder i would be dead many times over every fun ride i take. this scenario could happen with an rv turning around, emergency vehicles, neighbors stopped and chatting, etc.

the more common event is a partial one-lane blockage which is easy to avoid. whether a stalled vehicle on the right, oncoming on the left, or a combination of the two...don't let these events ease you into over confidence!

brodozer breaching your lane is not the worst thing that can happen! his buddy just crashed and rolled his truck trying to follow him, and while you're jerking off about how prepared you were, you come around the next corner and see an upside down truck blocking both lanes. the true line of sight test :|

 

[danate]

There is a lot of luck involved with riding and if you are outriding your vision in the twisties, then you are wholly counting on luck to keep you from crashing. It's not the way I ride and I don't recommend it to anyone.

Just because people have been doing it for years and have been okay, doesn't mean it's a sure thing. It's just like people who toy with drinking and driving for years and years and they begin to think they've gotten away with it because they are "good at it" or "doing it safely." Then comes the one evening when they kill someone or themselves.

Either way though, riding is all about risk management and if you are comfortable with that, you will continue to do it. The bad news is it does increase the risk level for those around you as we all have to share the road.

I find roads like Mt. Hamilton to have enough open line-of-sight turns to entertain me and I take the blind ones slowly and cautiously so I can stop at any point in them if I have to. One technique that helps that is one that we teach in CMSP, which is not turning in towards the apex until you can see the exit of the turn. This can be an excruciatingly long time in some turns riding along the outside edge waiting to fully turn in, but it allows you to still turn in hard and get on the pipe when coming out of the turn now that you can see the exit.

I won't say that I haven't done my fair share of outriding my sight-line in the twisties in the past, but as my experience and knowledge has grown, so has a little voice inside me that is constantly asking if I would be able to stop in time if something were stopped around the bend. Between that and actually practicing stopping while in a turn in a parking lot or class, I feel I do a pretty good job nowadays of not outriding my vision.

 

[budman]

Late apex to see is a big help Nate. Good point and a tip to be repeated often. :thumbup

 

[rodr]

if you put up a brick wall from 6ft off the left hand shoulder to 6ft off the right hand shoulder i would be dead many times over every fun ride i take.

This seems to be the norm on "spirited" group rides. One of the reasons I don't do them any more.

I try to envision the worst case scenario, and when I feel adventurous the question is not so much "can I stop in time" but more "how bad will I be hurt if I can't".

 

[bikewanker]

Glad you can't see how I voted! Or can you?. I also did a 2 mile test ride up 101 with regular pants and steel toe work boots!
Because of BARF I think about that sight line stuff, because of the Quincy Incident I think about stupid drivers and because of the cancer scare I ride to enjoy the beauty of a life well lived!!! Like seeing Jimi in concert is a cool OG memory but pales when I think of what riding has brought me.

 

[ToraTora]

These are major reasons why I've switch from big bikes to little bikes for the spirited rides. Everything slows down, but the fun.

 

[ScottRNelson]

I prefer to ride alone, or when I'm with a group I prefer to lead it. Following another rider that I'm with tends to mess up my corner entrance line and speed unless I continually remind myself to ignore the bike in front of me.

I also prefer to ride roads that I don't know well whenever possible, so I have to judge a proper corner entry speed. There are only a few roads, like Palomares, that I've ridden so many times that I'll occasionally take a corner or two a bit faster than I would otherwise because I know what's on the other side. That is probably the only exception for me that would be close to over riding my sight lines.

I also practice the delayed apex all the time, except I don't quite do it like most of the books describe it. My goal is to get all of my braking done before the turn starts, lean the bike in as late as possible (where you can see further into the corner), get lightly on the throttle immediately, then hit the inside of my lane right at the end of the turn. I don't hit an apex then drift back out to the outside again at the end of the turn. The big advantage of doing it this way is that it puts me in the perfect position for an S-turn, while doing it the other way leaves you with a bad line if you didn't know you were coming into an S-turn.

I'm not big on extreme lean angles either, behing happy with 30-35 degrees of lean most of the time. You can still get a significant amount of braking in when you're leaned over 30 degrees if you know how to balance the front and rear brakes.

So when I come up on something unexpected around a turn and have to get hard on the brakes or swerve a bit more than I would like, I'm still able to do it, even if it feels like a riding error to have to take evasive action. The important thing is that I'm able to do it and avoid the obstacle.

I can still remember the last time I rode Skaggs coming in from Highway 1 and thinking that I really could up my pace a bit. I was just finishing that thought when a big truck hauling a big trailer showed up on a blind right turn and he was centered in the road. I was able to tighten my line and avoid them, and determined right then that my pace was fast enough.

 

[Aware]

I'm not going to lie and say I never overdo it. Why have fast bikes and ride them slow?

But I work hard to stay conscious of my every move on the bike. I treat it as a cerebral exercise, plotting every corner with a multitude of thoughts in my head, prepared for bubba-Ford and his murderous lines and plotting my escape route, expecting gravel at every turn, looking for shadows and shapes that hint of cyclists and bunnies etc etc.

I am very painfully aware that wildlife is something we can pretty much never be fully prepared against, having had the displeasure of killing a deer once with my CB750. So I know that there are "known unknowns" out there that are hard to prepare for.

Since Mt Hamilton and Mines are the core of this conversation, as far as I am concerned 90%+ of the corners on that whole stretch are blind. That means late apexes are the norm, and I hold back riding at probably 60% most of the time.

I don't always hit the lines that I want, but I always want the lines that give me maximum forward vision whilst balancing safety in other ways too - so I will compromise to avoid Bubba's line, or to avoid gravel, or to give space around a (rare) driveway etc.

Will I take a blind crest at a potentially ambitious speed? Well, yeah because they are fun, but I still hold back.

I think my vote is "Sometimes, but I try not to be an ass about it. And I prefer to avoid spirited group rides because I am naturally competitive, and I suffer from testosterone and adrenalin".

 

[JakesKTM]

In the Bay Area I dont at all. Thankfully I dont live there anymore and I can enjoy the sierra nevada routes, still cautious of the unexpected but not riding completely within my sight distance. Even when I have great sight distance like in feather river canyon on those long sweepers or between downieville and sierra city i dont go more than 70 mph anymore.

 

[ScarySpikes]

Usually never. On a group ride with a bunch of folks that are very experienced with the road, probably a little bit to be honest, though that's not a deliberate thing.

 

[Cyclesuzy]

Rarely. In fact, at the moment I can't really think of a time where I have.

 

[budman]

Rarely. In fact, at the moment I can't really think of a time where I have.

What about over a hill..?

I find that most people do in that instance, even if never for general riding.

 

[ToraTora]

What about over a hill..?

I find that most people do in that instance, even if never for general riding.

When I was a little kid in Michigan we would ride the two tracks. The dirt roads that serviced the power lines. There would be hills that you couldn't see over. I was taught to always slow down when approaching the top because people could becoming from the other direction.

I still follow this behavior even on the street. Coming down HWY1 from Eureka a week ago there were many instances of this scenario. Bikes speed up plenty fast, especially the bigger bikes. So what's a few seconds slowing down just before a crest? If some idiot is trying a pass, or someone needs to avoid a hazard you'll have more time to deal with it, and in the game of F=MA time is your best friend.

 

[Gary856]

I used to do a lot of night rides on goat roads, some unfamiliar, with very poor visibility. On those slower roads I figured I needed just 1 second reaction time to handle unexpected twist and turns, but I probably couldn’t’ handle it if there was an open ditch in the middle of the road, in the dark. During the day I occasionally lose my head and outride the sightline when I try to follow a fast rider, but on my own I tend to back off a bit if I felt that I couldn’t handle an unexpected situation. I enjoy passing cars on narrow roads but it's about picking the right places. Many times I thought, "now would be a bad time for a car to come around the corner", and there came a car.

Los Gatos Creek Rd near Coalinga has a bunch of blind rises, which I find scarier than blind turns. Sometimes I’d stand up to see thru the rise a little earlier.