Up Front

UP FRONT

THE INVISIBLE MAN

Allan Girdler

My paranoia picked the worst possible time to come crashing out of the

closet.

Dick Bartkus is our new publisher. He and I were returning from a business lunch. Dick was driving. We were crossing a busy street, with the light. Coming toward us was a large car, making a signal for a left turn. Just as we passed in front of the car, it moved forward a couple inches . . .

And I twitched away from the impact, stomped on an imaginary brake pedal and shouted a warning.

Now then. First and most obvious, we were in no danger. The other guy wasn't going to crash into us.

Next, there are more powerful ways to insult a man than to give involuntary proof that you have no faith in his ability to control a motor vehicle, but none of the other methods should be described in this magazine.

To make matters worse, under normal circumstances I do have faith in Dick. Although he has just joined the CYCLE WORLD staff, he and I began working together 10 years and two magazines ago. Like many men of our age, he got involved with bikes when his sons did. He's a good rider, not fast, but steady and consistent. I expect he's the only magazine publisher on earth to have earned his Barstow-to-Vegas finisher pin.

He's a better driver. Shortly after Dick became publisher of our companion publication Road & Track, he was at the wheel of a Ferrari at the test track when it broke. (Note I do not say he broke it.) He was embarrassed. 1 told him that a magazine like R&T needs to have a publisher who drives Ferraris and gets involved with the testing, even if things like that happen.

At the same time, Dick knows I am not given to nervçus attacks. When I was racing he was not one of the company executives who said things like "Of course we can't tell you what to do with your own time" in such a way as to make it clear that if they could tell me. they'd tell me to stop racing. Dick knows that when I destroyed my little racer I spent my recuperative period building another, but with a bigger engine. On the record, I am not the sort of person who comes unglued at the approach of danger, real or imagined.

So. What happened? Against my iron nerve and Dick's practiced skill, one factor:

I ride motorcycles.

All the time. I ride to and from work. I ride to lunch, to the bank, to the store. When one of the kids misses the school bus, I give him a ride to school. When a kid and guitar come home from practice, they do it on the back of a motorcycle. My wife's Christmas poinsettia plant was smuggled into the garage between me and a kid. on the Honda CBX.

Happens I do own a motorcar and like it a lot. It doesn't get driven much. One day, though, I was driving down the road, headed for the hardware store, just ambling down Main Street with the radio on and there was a car coming toward me and suddenly I jerked to attention. He was gonna make a turn! For a terrifying millisecond I thought he was going to turn into me, then I relaxed because I was in a car and not on a motorcycle.

The fog begins to clear. Research tells us that most of the car-bike accidents are the fault of the car, or rather of the driver of the car. The biker is riding along, alert as always, perhaps even with his lights on and before he knows it the oncoming car has turned smack in front of him and crash, another rider bites the asphalt. If you've been riding on the road long, you don't need research to tell you that. A few days riding in public will give you more firsthand experience than you really want.

We're also told that the first few months are the most dangerous. Good training— which most new riders don't get—can improve the odds, but even so, the first few months are the most dangerous. Those of us who survive the break-in period, so to speak, become less and less likely to get tagged.

I knew this deep in my subconscious before the safety people knew about motorcycles. That first incident of flinching while behind the wheel was another step in the process.

Reflecting on that, I realized that what I do all day every day, along with riding bikes, I mean, is prepare for the, well, can't say worst. I prepare for the normal. Any time I see an oncoming car that could under any circumstances turn left or begin to turn or intend to turn, I get the brakes ready and look for an escape route and watch the oncoming driver and signals and wheels.

All because I have good reason to expect that the driver doesn't see me.

I ride motorcycles.

I am the invisible man.

Why this should be so, I don't know. Every motor vehicle operator takes some manner of vision test. Sure, some drivers may not actually be licensed, but the figures show too many crashes for that to be much of an influence.

Philosopher Eric Hoffer says we see what we look for and sometimes we look so hard we see what isn't there. By extension, we don't see what is there if we don't expect it.

Drivers don't expect us. They don't see us, although how anybody who can find the eye chart on the wall can fail to notice a full-dress Harley or Gold Wing is beyond me.

So. Back on the subject at hand, years of considering myself invisible, of assuming that oncoming traffic would treat me as if I wasn't there, and years of riding under all possible conditions, have shaped my thought patterns. One day 1 am driving down the street and I forget I am not riding down the street. Few days after that and I don't even have to be at the controls to have become, in my own mind, the man who isn't there.

Dick was naturally baffled by my rude behavior. I explained it as best I could, as soon as it came clear in my mind. He's an intelligent chap and if he hasn't yet had this happen to him, he does have enough road experience to know that people don't see us.

My apology was accepted.

That doesn't mean I won't do it again. Somebody has a joke with a punch line of, Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Although superstitious (blue machines are dangerous, never shave on race day, carry a lucky coin and don't let anybody wish you good luck) I don't believe the fates will stomp me if I mention their kindness:

I have never had a road crash.

I have never dropped a road bike, not through all these years.

It may be plain luck, the kind that always provides a good parking space and never lets me get into a short line at the supermarket.

And it may be that I haven't been tagged because I believe the other guy doesn't see me.

If the invisible man gets home safe, the role of panicked passenger is a role I'm willing to play. [5]