The mellow spring day could have easily turned into a nightmare for this rider, as he learned a very important lesson the rather easy way. Basically, as fun as motorcycling is with all the speed, wind in your face and the freedom, getting on a bike and riding through the turns with insufficient skills is dangerous business.
Now, truth be told, skills come with riding, and nothing can compensate for the mile-after-mile experience. Books will only help to an early point, discussions with more seasoned riders could help new ones get better acquainted to the various situations on the road, but nothing will ever be able to substitute for the actual riding.
Now, one thing all motorcycling safety courses and manuals seem to agree upon is taking things gradually. Namely, it’s about not riding beyond one’s skills until routines become instincts and allow pushing the limits a tad further. Many tragedies happen exactly because riders ignore this warning, and they believe their new skills simply couldn’t fail them.
And as tricky as things are on two wheels, it usually doesn’t take too long until a new difficult situation occurs and takes the unaware rider by surprise. The lucky ones are able to ride or walk back home, but not everyone is so fortunate. And this fellow seems like he was also caught on the wrong foot, as he obviously approached the turn too fast.
From this point, things look like a combination of target fixation, too little experience and sheer luck. The target fixation may have prevented him from seeing that the road ahead was clear, so maybe not braking so hard and leaning harder could have saved the day, maybe. In the end, it’s good to see the guy lucky enough to walk from the crash, dead leaves breaking his fall a bit and learning that he rode home makes things even better.
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