Speed+public roads=disaster
Skill can't save you on public roads because there are just too many variables out of the rider's control. Even taking every precaution there is a significant risk of injury involved with riding. Applying skills learned at the track to riding on the street is fine. Trying apply the speeds of the track to road riding will eventually result in a wreck.
That's not to say that I sit in judgment of anyone. As long as a person knows the risk, if he/she chooses to push the envelope that's his/her choice.
When a couple of sport bikes came up on me on Redwood Rd. today I waved them by. I'm sure I could have held their pace (or pretty close to it) on my non-supersport. They weren't going that fast, but they were going too fast for me, given the number of cyclist and the cars on the road.
My "skill" was up to the task of keeping pace, but my judgment overruled. That's one of the things that keeps me riding. Riding is life in a microcosm. Riding requires you to make split second decisions that have immediate impact on your life. Unlike making financial, parenting or relationship decisions that may take years to find out if they were correct, you know immediately when you f-up on a ride.
In my mind, judgment trumps skill any day...
...besides, I'm a big wuss!
It's never about speed alone, is it? It's about the totality of the situation. You can ride fast and have fun if you understand where and when you're vulnerable. Call it holistic speeding .I relied on other people doing the correct thing. I had no margin, no leeway.
I continuously put myself into a position where if something went wrong - I had basically no options.
I was, actually, pretty skilled, pretty quickly, and happily ground pegs and sliders every single day of the year, even playing with backing it in (on a GPZ900 no less) - but I kept crashing.
Until I stopped doing stupid shit that gave me no room for an exit or 'what if this asshat does X, Y, Z'.
Then the accidents stopped.
I actually rode faster than before where it was safe to do so, but totally slowed it down everywhere else, took far fewer chances with traffic, never allowed myself to be put into a positition where there was no contingency plan.
I never *allowed* myself to be tailgated, sat next to, assumed they would not take the turn coming up that would cut me off while overtaking, etc. etc.
THAT is the difference, and importance of judgement vs. skill.
all three of the people sited had problems with riding safely...were is skill for them?
skill means NO accidents and NO dui's.
yes we are at the mercy of the stupidity out there but true skill keeps us alive.
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skill means NO accidents and NO dui's.
yes we are at the mercy of the stupidity out there but true skill keeps us alive.
A friend of mine drives a four-wheeled car, and I've gotten rides from him a few times over the last couple of months while my bike has been in the shop. One of his favorite topics is how skilled a driver he is, and how no one else on the road is actually able to properly control their vehicles. He accelerates hard, executes razor-sharp lane changes, missing other vehicles by a foot or less, weaves in and out of lanes, ignores any law he deems "stupid", all while fiddling with the stereo and txting to his girlfriend. I have literally seen him make multiple lane changes on the freeway steering with his knee because his hands were busy doing something "important" like bringing up an app he downloaded and wanted to show me.
He claims to never have been in an accident of any kind. For the sake of argument, lets believe that is true.
I, by contrast, get behind the wheel of an automobile and do nothing but pilot the vehicle. Information gladly given, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation. I'm like the BMW engineers of yore who wouldn't add cupholders to their cars because they could not comprehend that anyone would ever willingly have their hands anywhere other than 10 and 2 o'clock, or sometimes on the shifter.
I have no doubt that if you set up an obstacle course with cones and send each of us through it, my friend will get through it faster than I will, he'll knock over fewer cones than I will (or we'll both hit zero of them) and he'll do it without even looking where he's going.
And I'm not going to hold myself up as a "better driver." But I don't believe my friend is correct when he says he's a better driver than 99.999% of the people on the road. Even with his spotless record, he is one of the worst drivers on the road. I won't get in a car he drives.
There's a camp that says he is skilled but has poor judgment, and it seems there's another camp that says that judgment is part of skill and therefore he is not a skilled driver. There seems to be a camp that says that his flawless accident record trumps all other considerations (though as a side issue, the fact that he's never been in an accident doen't mean he hasn't caused accidents.)
But no matter how you slice it semantically, there are real and important differences between the way my friend drives and the way that I do. He has strengths I lack (what DataDan called skill) and lacks a virtue that almost everyone has at least some of (what DataDan called judgment).
(Now I'm going to use DataDan's terminology) A rider with good judgment and poor skills will be almost impossible to tell from a rider with good judgment and excellent skills. In a small number of circumstances, the one with raw skill will fare better, but in almost all other circumstances they will do pretty much the same thing.
The same cannot be said of riders with equal skill but unequal judgment.
Therefore, judgment makes an imperfect but pretty good substitute for skill. Skill is no substitute at all for good judgment.
TL;dr: pretty much what everyone else has been saying.
:rolleyes
I fell squarely into the category DataDan is describing. While I'm no riding god, I believe I have an above the average level of experience compared to the typical California motorcyclist (as do many many other riders here on BARF.)
As a result of my over-confidence, I used to regularly do 120 down large sections of skyline on my GSX-R 600. I've since slowed down, but it's very easy to see how confidence can greatly increase the risk of a fatality when it's not tempered by self control.
As a matter of fact, I recall reading that the risk of a fatal accident peaks twice based on experience. The first peak is for new riders with less than a year of experience. The second peak is for riders with three to five years of experience. This is mainly attributed to over-confidence.
Congrats Datadan. You just made the STUPIDEST POST SEEN ON BARF.
EVER.
Skill keeps you from getting killed.
Skill is experience put to use.
Skill means you have been to track days. had instructors.....been riding twenty years or more....learned to slow down the road...at any particular speed your sense of awareness and lack of nervousness gives you the ability to take the correct line.....lean appropriately...not use your brakes in panic......
SKILL basically saves your life if you ride.
great FANTASTIC troll topic.
please continue....
next up....data dan tells us how helmets impede peripheral vision and should be outlawed..........
(Now I'm going to use DataDan's terminology) A rider with good judgment and poor skills will be almost impossible to tell from a rider with good judgment and excellent skills. In a small number of circumstances, the one with raw skill will fare better, but in almost all other circumstances they will do pretty much the same thing.
And fwiw, there are no accidents - only crashes. At least that's the way we should ride.
PS - I don't agree with Joebar's comment about good skill and Russian roulette. It's not like playing with more empty chambers. Good skill is like playing a different game. As a Blue Angels flight leader said, "Precision flying isn't dangerous. It's just very unforgiving." Same with riding, I reckon.