Cycle World Up Front

CYCLE WORLD UP FRONT

One down, one to go.

ALLAN GIRDLER

One fine day many years ago I was trapped in traffic. It was a hot day. I sat in the stink and fumes, moving a few feet, stopping, holding the clutch and getting neutral just in time to bang into gear and roll another few feet while I worried about the engine overheating. I was in the righthand side of the left

lane. There before me, a foot or so over, was a nice, long empty path, between the lanes. Why not? I asked myself. It’s legal, it’s quick, it’s cooler and anyway,

I will be careful.

Away I went, embarked on a career of splitting lanes and getting home in time for dinner. I have dealt with this topic here before, in a fairly responsible way, I hope.

This time is a bit different.

But first, the normal, as in uninvolved, view: The legality of splitting lanes is a matter for the various sovereign states. I don’t have the 'figures, as in how many allow it and how many don’t, but while I was on jury duty once I spent my waiting time in the legal library, reading all the traffic codes and statutes. Later, in a rider course, the instructor discussed this practice from his background as a 'highway patrolman. The law describes splitting lanes as sharing lanes, and while there’s no California law against it, neither is there a law explicitly allowing it. The instructor said there are some guidelines, as in no more than 10 mph faster than the traffic between which you’re riding, no faster than 30 mph in any case, and if something happens you, the motorcyclist, are going to be found at fault.

Fair enough.

Dr. Harry Hurt, of the ever-useful USC safety study, has reported that .splitting lanes isn’t nearly as dangerous as it looks, mostly because the people whose sudden swerves are predicted by critics, seldom do. Further, when they do, the speeds are low and the injuries minor.

All right. Let the record show I split lanes. Every day. To and from work, the daily rush hours being the bane of everybody who helps create them.

I think of myself as a prudent practitioner of this scary skill. I always use the space between the fourth, as in fastest, lane and the third, on grounds they are least likely to be interfered with by cars entering or leaving the main highway, and because there are fewer directions for the swervers to go, and as a rule your bike is easily seen by the people ahead to your right.

I watch my mirrors because other riders aren’t as careful as I. When a faster bike comes up from behind, I move into the leftmost lane and wave him past. No quarrel with those who go faster than I, no case against the bikers I pass as they sit in the middle of their lane. To each his own pace and anyway, I’ve always figured we cyclists are more likely to be remembered immediately after the driver has, been passed by a bike, that is, I will be moving in a trail already broken and thus less likely to be violated.

On this frightful occasion, hours ago as I write this, there were some special circumstances.

I was riding the Kawasaki Voyager, biggest motorcycle sold in the U.S. at least and probably the biggest production bike ever made. A good machine for its intended purpose (test further along this month’s collection) but big. BIG. This was my first time on the Biggest K. I was being careful, not to say timid.

On the other hand, I was doing the mileage loops and the rules require constancy; same time, same route, same average speed.

Traffic seemed a bit lighter than usual, thank goodness. I had been thinking about riding the white line, as in, could I, should I? I figured caution was the byword.

I kept moving. Whichever of the two adjacent lanes were rolling, I rode with. When they both moved, I rode the same speed.

I never saw the other guy.

There was no headlight behind me, and I was watching. Instead, I heard the smooth roar of an inline Four. Up between lanes three and two came a Kawasaki, which exact model I couldn’t tell. The guy was dressed to what I consider the proper standard, as in helmet and leather jacket. He wasn’t going much faster than I was, or than the traffic was, and I remember

thinking gosh, did he see me in the space he wanted and pull over there into the middle of the mess rather than have me block him? Should I move over and wave him through?

No time.

This location is a bitch. Two four-lane interstates merge into one, with six lanes, then five, then four. It’s always jammed on the way home. The left lanes slow first, then pack even tighter as the people in the right lanes suddenly discover they’d better move over or be pushed down the exit.

He had pulled a length or so ahead of me, one lane over. In the lane to the right of him, a truck had come to a stop. Full stop. Damn fool. The truck feinted to the left, trying to bluff his way over. The car to the left, being attacked, jinked left and braked.

Fear takes time. I used to notice this racing, and still do off road. When things go terribly wrong, the mind goes calm. I once messed up on a hill and began running backwards, downhill, with the bike in my lap. “This is going to hurt,” I reflected. And so it did, but it was over before I was afraid.

Same here. I sat there, rolling with the traffic in the left lane, and watched the car swerve left and to a near stop. The bike was a few feet behind the car’s bumper when he saw what was happening. He snapped to the right.

There wasn’t much noise. Thud, grate, grind. The rider went right and down, landing on hands and knees.

He looked around, I couldn’t tell in fear or embarassment, and grabbed the bars as if to lift the bike up. Thank God the car behind him was alert, and stopped.

My two lanes kept moving and I was swept downstream.

You know the bit about the two halves of the brain? That’s how I felt.

By now I’d had time to get scared, and I was scared. One side saying Could have been you, the other saying Naw, not me, I’m always alert. That guy was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

That’s a crock. Pure bull. The usual double standard we have about risk.

Sure motorcycles are more dangerous than cars. Sure it can happen to' anybody. We say it and we mean it... except deep down we don’t believe it. If I thought I was going to crash, I heard a man say once, I wouldn’t go.

I was there. It can happen.

By good luck the traffic thinned and' I rode the rest of the way home in peace, no stops or slow places, running with the pack, glad it wasn’t me, ashamed I was glad it wasn’t me, and deep down relieved that I didn’t have to decide right then, if the traffic jammed, would I or wouldn’t I?

Tomorrow I’ll be back in business, splitting lanes. E3