cv_rider
Junior Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2008
- Messages
- 819
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
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- Location
- Danville, CA Bay Area
Bicycle, that is. Mt Diablo in the Bay Area is an excellent place for road bicycles. At about a 3000 foot climb, it is a good workout but it's spread over 11 miles, so it's not too steep. Coming down, it's just perfect for bikes. The road is smooth, and all the corners are just about the right radius for a bicycle (but too tight for a motorcycles - I've ridden it on the FZ6 before and it's not that much fun). So I was hauling arse down the mountain, and came into a sharp right hand corner. The sun was in my eyes, and the turn was in deep shade, so I couldn't see it well. As I got closer to it, I realized it was quite sharp, so I got on the front brakes, which unweighted the rear. That causes skidding and I had to straighten out to recover. I ended up crossing the center line about two feet before I stopped, with a car coming right into the space I was intruding upon. Fortunately, the driver was on the ball and swerved to his right and I stopped about a foot in front of the driver door.
Later I was thinking how bad that would have been on a motorcycle, as skids are so easy to recover from on a 23 pound bike. But then I realized it never would have happened on the motorcycle. I never would have been so hot into the corner on the FZ6. I've been riding bicycles so long that I tend to treat it like a thrill sport, and hang it out there a lot more. Which is pretty silly because in nearly every dimension of this scenario, a bike is more dangerous than a motorcyle -- you are harder to see, you can't power out of a situation, you have no lights, and you aren't wearing any decent gear.
So I was pretty darn lucky, and now get the opportunity to restrain my enthusiasm on the bicycle before anything bad happened.
Later I was thinking how bad that would have been on a motorcycle, as skids are so easy to recover from on a 23 pound bike. But then I realized it never would have happened on the motorcycle. I never would have been so hot into the corner on the FZ6. I've been riding bicycles so long that I tend to treat it like a thrill sport, and hang it out there a lot more. Which is pretty silly because in nearly every dimension of this scenario, a bike is more dangerous than a motorcyle -- you are harder to see, you can't power out of a situation, you have no lights, and you aren't wearing any decent gear.
So I was pretty darn lucky, and now get the opportunity to restrain my enthusiasm on the bicycle before anything bad happened.
