Skyline Survival

SKYLINE SURVIVAL

Real-World Lessons from the Backroads of Northern California

Like Doc Wong, Gary Jaehne knows and rides "Alice’s," the generic name given to the seemingly endless series of winding roads around the iconic eatery in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

“Some of the best venues for enjoying the freedoms of motorcycle riding can be found on narrow, less-traveled, nocenterline backroads. Our local riding area contains a number of these lesser-known gems that we frequently make a part of our group rides. Based on lessons learned (some the hard way), we’ve identified a special set of riding skills that are paramount to safely capitalizing on the awesome riding experiences that these roads can provide, ” says Jaehne, a 30-year rider and a track day instructor.

“The steps outlined below form a recipe for success that we’ve found to be extremely effective in maximizing the chances of avoiding the number-one cause of ‘bad days’ while riding on this flavor of roads: oncoming traffic collisions as a result of poor decision-making. ”

The “80 Percent Rule”Right-hand vs. left-hand turns

In a nutshell, the mantra of this technique is to limit yourself to taking right-hand corners at a maximum of 80 percent of the speed that you’d take a similar corner if it was a left.

Please don’t misinterpret this to mean 80 percent of the ultimate speed potential of you and/or your bike; it’s intended to be viewed as a further 20 percent reduction from an already prudent-and-safe speed consciously adhered to while riding on backroads.

What’s the logic in the 80 Percent Rule for right-hand turns?

Blow a left-hand corner running, say, 12 inches wide and in most scenarios you’ll find yourself drifting out to the edge of the road, or worst case, perhaps off into the dirt. Though admittedly far from an acceptable level of bike control and riding behavior, the result is a scare, maybe some scratched plastic, but most often that’s the extent of the punishment for your error.

Now let’s flip things. Blow a right-hand corner on the same road, run wide by the same 12-inch margin, and you can find yourself a foot over the centerline. This time the same unit of error potentially places you into the oncoming path of a 5000-pound SUV that’s approaching at 50 mph. The moment you cross over that lifeline in the center of the road, your fate is no longer in your hands. It’s a roll of the dice.

Taking this 80 Percent Rule along with you on your next weekend ride will be greatly appreciated by everyone who cares about

you. In addition, it’ll likely be even more appreciated by the rider coming in the other direction on the same road, maybe one of us!

Staying Right - Safe riding on no-centerline roads

Developing the ability for visualizing an imaginary centerline on narrow, twisty, unpainted asphalt, and having the discipline to treat that line as a wall, is the key. It becomes a matter of adopting a mindset that only 50 percent of the total pavement on all roads (even those without an “official” centerline) is yours to use. Think of it as a challenge to your riding skills, to navigate these roads efficiently while keeping within this narrower window.

Religiously resist the temptation to use the whole road. As entry point for right-hand corners, consciously limit your leftmost road position to a location just to right of the imaginary centerline. In left-hand corners, here’s the recommended technique:

• During the last 50 feet of your approach, consciously steer your bike along a path at the rightmost 1 -2 feet of pavement.

• Reaching the entrance to the corner, delay your steering input, continuing straight into the turn longer and deeper than would seem normal for a track-oriented, go-fast line for the corner.

• Maintain this godeep, stay-right path, until you can completely see through the turn, the objective being to visually identify if there is any vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle or even bicycle) approaching in the oncoming direction, before committing to the turn.

• If it’s totally clear (then and only then), “square off” the turn, while not apexing any farther left than the imaginary centerline of the road.

• If approaching traffic is infringing on your space, stay right and maintain a wide outside-perimeter line through the entire turn.

The techniques discussed in this article are only the tip of the iceberg in the quest for developing fun-but-safe riding skills. Hopefully, the application of these concepts will provide a good balance between enjoyment and safety in your own local riding areas, just as they have proven to do for us on the backroads of Northern California. -Gary Jaehne