0:00

John Zierbasse has been riding dirt bikes

0:03

since he was a kid. So, when he discovered

0:05

adventure motorcycles some years back, he

0:07

was elated with this new freedom of

0:09

being able to ride long distances on the road,

0:11

yet still tackle the dirt. And

0:14

with his riding experience, you would think that he's all

0:16

set for adventure riding. But

0:18

that very first day of his very

0:20

first big ADV ride, well

0:23

that showed him that he was lacking an essential

0:25

skill that almost cost him his

0:27

life. A skill that, when understood,

0:30

is good for the mind, but it's of no

0:32

use at all until after your

0:34

body knows it. I'm Jim Martin,

0:36

this is Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us,

0:39

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Thanks

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for watching.

2:16

Hi, my name is John Cervasi.

2:19

I'm actually from two places, Western

2:21

Suburban Chicago and North

2:23

Central Pennsylvania. I'm a

2:26

retired veterinarian and I now

2:28

operate an off-road motorcycle tour

2:30

company called the Mayus Moto Tours. John

2:51

welcome to Adventure Rider Radio. I'm

2:54

really glad to be here Jim, thank you so much for

2:56

having me. Well thanks for coming on. Hey,

2:58

you've been riding dirt bikes I think since

3:00

you were a kid, right? Yeah,

3:02

I started, much as a chagrin

3:05

of my parents, I started, my younger

3:07

brother and I started riding probably

3:10

seventh, eighth grade and then it continued with

3:12

the only break being when I was in college and veterinary

3:15

school and then when the kids were little.

3:17

Once they grew I got back into it. With

3:19

your parents not being into it, how did you manage to

3:21

get a bike to begin with? Oh, you

3:24

never underestimate the ability

3:26

to whine a lot. It's

3:31

amazing the effectiveness of whining. You

3:33

wheeled all of that, right? Exactly,

3:36

yeah. So did you get into

3:38

racing or anything or was it just bombing around and ripping

3:41

up the neighborhood? Mostly just like,

3:43

where I grew up in New Jersey there were gravel

3:46

pits and one of the main gravel

3:48

pits in our area was used by the military

3:51

for doing maneuvers so when they weren't

3:53

using it we'd head over there and ride

3:56

and just

3:58

kick up some dust. I did a couple

4:00

races, but I

4:02

find that, and it was mostly motocross, because

4:05

I didn't have a license to drive around on the

4:07

road. So I'd get my

4:09

father every now and again to trail a bike

4:11

to the races. But

4:14

it just wasn't for me. I didn't have that

4:17

let it all hang out attitude. I

4:19

always say like if I get to the bottom

4:21

of a jump or bottom of a double, and

4:24

when you had to crank the throttle, I

4:26

would always back off. So that

4:28

just wasn't me. But

4:30

that was all I had for a long time. And then

4:33

I discovered the woods and realized

4:35

that's really what I wanted all my life when I

4:38

rode motorcycles. It was just unreal.

4:40

I had a cousin, actually

4:42

you may have known Jack O'Connor. He put

4:44

together part of the MABDR. He

4:47

was one of the architects of that as well as the PA

4:50

Wiles ride. And so he invited

4:52

me to go out ride with him in the woods one

4:54

time several years ago, and I was

4:57

hooked. It was what I had

4:59

been looking for on a motorcycle and

5:01

I didn't know it for all my life. It was just amazing.

5:04

So when you say riding in the woods, is that with a dirt

5:06

bike or is that with an adventure bike? Yeah,

5:08

yeah, I started initially

5:10

with dual sport riding. And

5:13

then after a while I discovered

5:15

adventure bikes and that really sealed the

5:17

deal for me. So I'm assuming when you

5:19

mentioned Jack O'Connor that that's

5:22

sort of your introduction to the BDR? Yeah,

5:26

I don't know. I think primarily I

5:29

was still doing a lot of dual sport and Jack

5:31

put on some rides

5:33

in New Jersey. He also put

5:36

a ride together in West Virginia and then also actually

5:38

right near where I live now in Pennsylvania.

5:40

And so I was involved in

5:42

those types of rides. I did a lot of the AMA

5:44

dual sport series rides

5:46

and I did that for a long time. And

5:49

I actually, I was out in

5:52

on a ride with a local motorcycle dealership

5:54

out in the Mojave Desert. We did a three day ride

5:57

based in Las Vegas and I had a lot

5:59

of fun. I had found a guy who was selling 800GS and

6:03

he actually delivered it from California

6:06

to where we were in Las Vegas. And

6:08

then I had the bike shipped back to Chicago. And

6:11

then once I started riding that, it just

6:14

changed everything. And I had

6:16

a KTM 350, I still do at

6:18

the time, and that got less and less riding time.

6:21

And I was on the BMW a lot more.

6:24

How did you find it about adventure bikes before

6:26

you bought this 800GS? I

6:28

think we were out, my wife's

6:31

father lived in California, north

6:34

of San Francisco in Marin County. And

6:36

we were up there one year visiting. And

6:39

I just had the thought of going on a motorcycle

6:41

ride. And I proposed, hey, you wanna go do

6:43

a ride? And to my surprise, she

6:45

said, yes. And

6:48

so I think she regrets that now. But

6:51

we ended up, I never,

6:53

I'm never into street bikes. I mean, you know,

6:55

a lot of my friends who had grown up with street

6:58

bikes, they talked about all these different models

7:00

of motorcycles. And it just fell on

7:02

deaf ears to me because I had no

7:05

background in street bikes. So when

7:07

she said, yes, I looked for

7:10

places that rented and this

7:12

one place in the area had a 1200GS, and

7:16

that looked pretty cool. So we rented

7:18

that, and I just really enjoyed the

7:20

heck out of it. And a year or

7:22

so later, I found myself in Detroit, Denver

7:25

for a veterinary convention. So

7:28

I rented an 800GS at that point and

7:31

took it up into Rocky Mountain National

7:33

Park. And I just had a blast.

7:36

And so once I got

7:38

the bug, I started looking for 800

7:40

to buy. And

7:42

I found this guy in California and then things just started

7:45

rolling from there. Obviously you got your license

7:47

to ride on the road somewhere in there. Yeah,

7:50

yeah, yes. Yeah,

7:52

I did the MSF course, I did

7:54

the intermediate one one day course and so I had

7:57

a fair amount of background in riding. And it

7:59

was a great course. So anybody who doesn't

8:01

get lessons either on road,

8:03

if they're gonna ride on road or off road is

8:06

crazy. You don't, especially

8:08

if you're riding on road all your life and

8:10

you decide you wanna give the dirt a

8:13

try, there's so many differences

8:15

between riding pavement, the dirt that, you

8:17

know, if you apply the skills you learned as a

8:19

street rider to dirt, you're

8:22

gonna get in a lot of trouble. So yeah,

8:24

I highly, highly recommend. Yeah, and

8:26

you get so much out of a good trainer, same as any course

8:29

you take. If you have a good trainer, the more

8:31

you can learn before you go in, the better. And

8:33

then you know the right questions to ask and you can really

8:35

dig deeper, but there's just, it's such

8:37

a fast track. And it makes it more

8:40

fun. I mean, if you spend all your time just

8:42

with a death grip on the bar, because you're so afraid

8:45

of what you're getting into, you can't have a

8:47

good time. Whereas the more you learn,

8:50

your comfort level increases and with comfort

8:52

comes enjoyment. And it makes

8:54

a world of difference. So true, yeah. You

8:57

get this 800GS, so you must be very excited

8:59

about this. And then you're planning to do a big

9:01

ADV ride. Did you just get that and

9:04

plan to do the BDR? Is that how it happened? I

9:06

think I got the bike and then, I don't know how

9:09

I discovered BDR. I

9:11

don't know where I came. I must've rented an article

9:13

or something and about the Colorado

9:16

BDR. And I thought, wow, that

9:18

looks really awesome. And so

9:20

I had a few friends in the area and I

9:22

said, what do you think? And I managed to convince

9:25

three of them to go along. And so

9:27

I spent a lot of time planning the ride. And

9:30

actually even now, that's, I

9:32

enjoy riding, but a close second

9:34

is the planning. I just really, really enjoy

9:36

planning a trip and navigation

9:40

is just, for me, it's just so much fun

9:42

to put something together, put it on

9:45

a, look at it on a map, switch it over to

9:47

a GPX file, and then actually

9:49

ride it is just an

9:52

awesome experience for

9:54

me. So the planning is

9:56

a huge part of it. And I spent a lot of time

9:59

researching. the Colorado BDR, looking at a

10:01

bunch of video, checking the maps, and

10:03

it really, it was really

10:07

enjoyable. So when we got to Colorado,

10:09

I pretty much knew what to expect,

10:11

for the most part. Did your

10:14

friends know what to expect? Like talk about them

10:16

and what they're riding and their experience. So

10:18

there were four of us all together. I had

10:21

the 800s. I had another friend in the northern

10:24

Illinois area that I rode with

10:26

a fair amount. He was on a KTM 1090. And then

10:28

I had another friend.

10:31

He was on a KTM 990. And then

10:33

another guy was on a KTM 350. And

10:36

they were all fairly busy with

10:38

work. And I, you know,

10:40

even before I retired, I was in a position

10:43

where I could schedule time off to

10:45

do stuff like this. So I was

10:48

one who had the time to really put things together

10:50

and they just sort of followed along. And

10:54

so they just kind of plugged in. And I

10:57

had the responsibility of getting the lodging and

10:59

the, you know, getting the route figured

11:01

out and all of that. Now this

11:03

800gs that you have for this ride that we're

11:05

about to talk about, did you ride it much

11:07

off road before this? Not

11:11

a lot. No, I got it in, let's see, 2016,

11:13

2015 or 2016. And then actually the first

11:19

ride we did on it, my wife and I rode from

11:21

Chicago to Cape

11:24

Breton Island, the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia.

11:27

And then back

11:29

through New Brunswick across to St. Lawrence

11:31

through Quebec City, Montreal,

11:34

back down through Michigan and back to Chicago.

11:36

So 4,000 miles in three weeks.

11:40

Yeah, she learned that she has one

11:42

hour and 12 minutes of saddle time

11:44

before she needs a break. That

11:48

was pretty much so. In the end, did

11:50

your wife come out of it saying that was a lot of fun? I'd love

11:52

to do that again. She,

11:55

I think the big complaint she had is I tend

11:59

to be somewhat type A. So when I plan

12:02

initially, and I'm learning this lesson, and

12:04

you guys talk about it on raw a lot,

12:06

is when you plan a ride, keep

12:09

the mileage down so you can kind

12:11

of enjoy it. And I just tried to stuff

12:13

as much as I could into three weeks.

12:16

And that was not something she wanted. I

12:19

think the other thing you guys talk about is

12:22

knowing what each person wants out

12:24

of a ride. And I forgot

12:27

to really ask her that question. Just

12:31

as soon as we do. Yeah, she's going to want

12:33

what I want, isn't she? I mean, and if she

12:37

doesn't, well, it's too bad. It's my ride. But

12:41

yeah, that's, she's not going to hear this, is she?

12:44

No, I'm sure she won't hear this. The thing

12:46

is though, does she want a ride afterwards

12:48

though? Because I can turn somebody right off. She

12:53

actually got her motorcycle license. I

12:55

was away on a ride for a weekend.

12:57

And unbeknownst to me, she took an MSF

13:00

course. And I come back from the ride,

13:02

she said, I got a surprise for you. And she sits me down

13:04

in front of her computer. And she put a PowerPoint

13:06

presentation about the course, pictures

13:09

and everything about the course she took. So

13:11

she really doesn't want a ride, but I

13:13

think she just wanted to prove to me that

13:16

she could. And so, and so we

13:20

rode two up somewhat

13:23

for the last few years. But as

13:25

I think we'll probably get into later, I hit

13:28

a deer last fall and

13:30

that pretty much sealed the deal for her, at least

13:32

for this past year. And

13:35

so she made me a promise at the beginning of the season

13:37

this year that if I didn't crash, she

13:40

would ride with me again. And

13:43

I succeeded in that. So. Ride

13:45

with you again, like on the back or on her own bike? Oh,

13:48

no, no, on the back. She has no interest

13:50

of riding on her own. I'm trying to get her to get a

13:53

spider, a can-am spider. And I think she'd

13:55

be more comfortable on that. But this

13:57

big adventure ride. So this is a big. you're

14:00

heading out on your first real big adventure. Did

14:02

you think about that? I mean, it had

14:04

to be on your mind as the

14:06

first big adventure for this. So do you

14:09

feel well prepared with the 800 and your skill

14:11

riding the 800? Yeah, I mean,

14:13

I had ridden a little bit of dirt and

14:16

so, and on the big bike, but

14:18

I had a long background

14:21

in off-road riding before that. So

14:23

I felt pretty comfortable with my

14:25

skill level, but on the same token, I

14:28

really didn't know what to expect. I

14:30

didn't know how

14:33

much rock riding and how much elevation

14:35

we were dealing with and what

14:37

about, we were planning on camping and

14:39

I hadn't really done much of that. So there

14:42

were a lot of unknowns. And so,

14:44

I think that led

14:46

to a fair amount of uncertainty. And

14:49

I think uncertainty can

14:52

often lead to errors and judgment

14:56

and errors and judgment can lead to catastrophe,

14:59

which, you know, it ended up happening

15:01

on this ride. Did you

15:03

get much dirt riding in? Was there much

15:05

of the adventure that happened before this

15:07

incident that we're going to talk about? No,

15:11

we really only got one day

15:13

in. We decided to run, or I

15:15

decided to run the route

15:18

north to south, where it's commonly

15:21

run south to north. Although it's appropriate

15:23

to run it north to south, but the most

15:26

common direction is starting

15:28

in the southern part of Colorado at four corners.

15:31

So we started up in bags, Wyoming, and

15:34

then crossed the border fairly quickly, made

15:36

it to steamboat pretty quick because

15:39

it was a fairly pedestrian section

15:42

that it was, which is the last section

15:44

of the Colorado VDR. So we wind

15:46

up in steamboat, you know, midday.

15:49

And like I said, we were camping, and

15:52

so we said, well, let's just press on and find a camping spot.

15:55

Let's get a little further south. So,

15:57

and most of that first section was...

15:59

pavement and fairly easy gravel. So

16:02

there wasn't a whole lot of challenge up to that point.

16:04

Why did you choose to do it north to south?

16:08

I think because we flew into

16:11

Denver and the

16:14

ride from Denver to bags

16:17

was shorter than the

16:19

ride from Denver to the end of the

16:21

route or what normally

16:23

is the beginning of the route in four corners. And

16:26

I think the plan was really just that

16:29

we didn't wanna have a really stressful

16:31

long haul prior to the start of

16:33

the ride. And it just seemed

16:35

like a nicer, easier ride from Denver

16:38

to bags than it would have been if we went the other

16:40

direction. You flew in and how'd

16:42

you get your bikes there? So the

16:45

other guys flew in, I drove,

16:47

and I took three motorcycles

16:50

and got to Denver and I had

16:53

a veterinary conference there again in Denver.

16:55

So I had my bike with me

16:57

and I put the other two in storage. I

17:00

went at a Colorado

17:02

motorcycle adventures who were in Denver

17:05

at the time or in Boulder area. And

17:07

the other guy came out, he drove out. So two

17:09

flew, I drove, and the

17:12

other guy, John, he drove out as well.

17:15

You know, the trouble that you end up having

17:18

had nothing to do with it being an

17:20

adventure bike. It just had to do with other things.

17:22

No, it had to do with stupidity. Really. Well,

17:25

it's a little hard. We'll have to look into that. Let's

17:28

talk about this road that you were riding at the time. What would

17:30

describe this road? So we got

17:32

into Steamboat and one of the guys,

17:35

Dave, was, he's really

17:37

into photography,

17:40

videotaping, and he does a really

17:42

great job editing. He published

17:44

our ride as

17:47

a YouTube video. And so we stopped

17:49

and he flew the drone for a while and

17:51

at just north, south of Steamboat.

17:54

And then we saddled back up and headed

17:57

out and just south of

17:59

Steamboat before he did that. get back into off-road,

18:01

there's a series of twisty

18:04

pavement. And like I said, my

18:06

experience on pavement was really

18:09

limited at that point, even though we took the ride to

18:11

Canada. I didn't grow up riding

18:13

the street. And so

18:15

we were heading into

18:17

the first right-hand

18:20

tight corner. You're

18:23

the leader, as you said, mainly

18:25

because you had the time, I mean, that was your qualification,

18:28

I guess, the time and enthusiasm to do

18:30

it. So you feel the pressure, you've

18:32

got the routes on your GPS, and

18:35

you're riding up front, I assume? Yeah,

18:38

and then reading GPS was a new skill

18:40

for me as well. I

18:43

had done the part of the Transamerica

18:46

Trail with a friend, and I was like halfway,

18:48

three quarters of the way through it before I figured

18:50

out how to read the GPS. So

18:53

this was a new skill, and

18:55

so I was constantly looking at it to confirm

18:58

where we were and where we were headed. So

19:00

my eyes were not always on the road. Are you feeling

19:02

nervous about it? Yeah, I mean,

19:05

I had guys behind me that were friends, and

19:07

I didn't want to let them down. Yeah,

19:10

no doubt, the guide certainly, official

19:12

or unofficial, the guide takes on a lot of responsibility, and

19:15

it's hard not to feel that. So there you are, you're riding

19:17

along, you're heading into what you said was a twisty road.

19:20

You're constantly checking that GPS because

19:23

you're feeling a little antsy about this.

19:25

Let's just go through this very slowly, step by step. So

19:28

when you're checking your GPS, what does that

19:30

entail? You

19:32

know, you're looking down at the screen,

19:36

the map screen, sometimes

19:38

just switch back and look at the waypoints to see what's

19:40

coming up, or you'll scroll the screen

19:43

to see what the route has and

19:45

store up ahead, and

19:47

sometimes you get lost in it and just spend a little bit

19:49

more time checking the screen than you really

19:51

should. I mean, we've all been there even being

19:54

in a car, and getting focused

19:56

on navigation. Sometimes you start

19:58

looking at it and you forget. that there's actually a road

20:01

in front of you. And it's

20:04

something you really have to pay careful

20:06

attention to. And then,

20:09

you know, I've got the guys behind me. And then one friend

20:11

of mine was, he

20:14

wasn't meaning to be, you know, aggressive

20:17

in his writing or anything, but he was feeling

20:19

it too. He was having a good time and he was, you

20:21

know, up close behind me. So I was looking

20:24

concerned about that. You know, you guys

20:26

talk about that too, it's about not riding close because

20:29

it, you know, you don't have the time to react

20:31

or you make the person in front of you a little nervous.

20:34

So, so that was, you know, when I look

20:36

back and he was close to me and I thought

20:38

maybe it gets, the other thing I have is you

20:40

worry about, well, am I not going fast enough? And

20:43

are they going too slow and they're getting bored

20:45

or maybe I'm going too fast and the people

20:47

behind me are, you know, getting nervous about

20:50

the speed. So that's, that's been

20:52

something I've had to, to work on and deal

20:54

with as well. And at the time, you

20:57

know, I wasn't experienced as a guide and I, and

20:59

I worried about not giving them

21:01

the experience in terms of enough of a challenge.

21:04

So if somebody gets close to me, I assume that means

21:06

they want to go faster. So I speed up and

21:08

then they speed up and then I speed up and it, and

21:11

it gets to be this, you know, cycle that, you

21:14

know, often can end in problems.

21:17

So this is all going on. You're checking

21:19

your GPS, you're looking at it. You may be even

21:22

touching it and scrolling or zooming, you're

21:24

thinking about the, you're obviously checking your mirror.

21:26

You see the rider behind you is getting close. Then

21:29

you look up, talk about what happens next. So

21:33

I look up and I realized that I

21:35

am going too fast for the corner that's coming

21:38

up approaching way more rapidly

21:40

than I had planned. What does

21:42

that mean? Like you realize you're going too

21:44

fast. Like, like explain that. Well,

21:47

I mean, you have a, I think, you know, we

21:49

develop a comfort level on what we

21:51

can manage in situations and

21:53

you know, part

21:56

of the variable, we have the variable

21:58

of, of surface. You have. the tightness

22:01

of the corner and the speed you're traveling. And

22:04

at your particular comfort level of riding,

22:06

your skill level, you have

22:09

sort of a sense of what you can manage and what

22:11

you can handle and what you cannot. And

22:14

as I was approaching this corner, I

22:17

was sure that I was carrying way more speed

22:19

than I was able to safely

22:22

navigate the corner. Now, is that because

22:24

it's just a corner or is

22:27

it because it's that corner in particular? In other

22:29

words, was this just too fast for you to approach

22:31

a turn? Or was it because

22:33

you can't see through the turn? Both,

22:36

I mean, it was a tight corner and you couldn't see

22:38

what was coming

22:40

through the corner on the other side. And where are you

22:42

on the lane? I

22:45

was probably mid to mid

22:47

point of the lane and

22:50

then a little bit closer to the

22:52

center line. And the turn is

22:54

curving which way? To the right. To

22:56

the right. To the right. Just

22:58

to kind of throw in another little

23:01

thing. I rode with a guy and

23:03

I'm not sure if he was pulling my leg at the time or not,

23:05

but I still value this comment

23:07

that he made. As you know, when you're riding,

23:10

you should ride and this is his number.

23:12

I don't have a way of determining

23:15

it, but his number is you ride

23:17

at 75% of your ability. And

23:20

occasionally you'll stretch the envelope to

23:22

improve your skill level. And then

23:24

as your skill level increases, that 75% naturally raises.

23:28

But if you're always on the edge all the time,

23:31

and that's the way I used to ride, because I rode motocross

23:33

and that's the way I ride motocross, right? You're pushing, pushing,

23:35

pushing all the time. But you can't ride

23:37

that way with either dual sport

23:40

or adventure bike. Because if you're

23:42

pushing all the time, it's just a matter

23:44

of time before you

23:47

go over the line and get

23:49

into trouble. I remember a pilot

23:52

once telling me that he was just

23:54

talking, this is on the coast of British Columbia, but

23:56

he was saying that he has a lot of friends that had

23:58

perished over the years. playing crafts,

24:00

not a lot, but he had some. And he said

24:03

that when they were younger, they used

24:05

to fly what he called the gray zone. He

24:07

called that that maximum where you're really pushing

24:09

your luck, you know, you're out in some really bad conditions fog

24:11

and this gets to be fog and wind and

24:14

cold weather. And he said that

24:16

he sort of learned over the years that the more time

24:18

you spend in that gray zone, it's a very basic thought

24:21

process, the higher your chance of

24:23

succumbing to a problem, right? And

24:25

that's sort of what you're describing there with the 75%

24:28

because above that, that gets into what you could call

24:30

the gray zone. Like you're, you're going to your maximum.

24:33

I remember Chris Burch saying that on this show before,

24:35

I mean, he says, you know, you don't ride it a hundred percent.

24:37

You always got to have some reserve. You need something.

24:40

You always have something there. And

24:42

it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? I mean, what 75%

24:45

means is totally subjective. But I mean, I think we all

24:47

understand the concept in saying that. And

24:50

it can certainly help with the average rider

24:52

any rider, you know, what the thought process

24:54

is, is they ride the bike. Yeah, I

24:56

mean, if you're wide eyed all the time, you're,

24:59

you know, meaning the adrenaline is pumping all the time.

25:01

It's exciting. First, it's exciting.

25:03

Yeah, until it's not. Yeah. Right.

25:06

And then where's you out? I mean, you're, you're

25:09

physically, if you're in that

25:11

mode all the time, you're mentally

25:14

and physically going to be worn out faster than

25:17

you would if you just relax. And then plus, you just

25:19

don't enjoy what you're

25:21

doing. You know, if you're

25:23

constantly on edge, you

25:25

can't enjoy what's around you and

25:28

look at the trees and look at the clouds

25:31

and look at the leaves falling and, you

25:33

know, in sites that you may pass

25:35

by. I'm a, I have tunnel vision to

25:37

begin with, but when I'm riding fast, you

25:40

know, I don't see what's going on around me. And

25:43

so, and it doesn't mean you can never ride fast,

25:46

but you have to pick your spots. Because

25:48

if you don't, if you don't push yourself every

25:50

now and again, then you don't improve. That's

25:53

just the way it is. But if you live

25:55

on the edge, you're going to die on the edge.

25:58

You're in a corner here.

25:59

looked up you realized you're moving too

26:02

fast for this corner. What

26:04

do you think? What's the plan? Well

26:07

my first, again being a dirt rider, my

26:09

first instinct was to grab rear brake. Now

26:12

I know that now on the pavement

26:14

you know most of your stopping power and pavement is in

26:16

the front but I was

26:19

jabbing for the rear brake and because I was panicked

26:21

I couldn't find the rear brake pedal.

26:24

Why couldn't you find the rear brake pedal? Is it because

26:26

you're just not used to the bike? I got nervous

26:28

and then also it had,

26:31

I had dropped the bike at some point

26:33

and the rear brake pedal

26:35

had bent somewhat closer to

26:37

the cases so they weren't

26:39

as accessible. So rather than

26:42

me to take the time to fix it when

26:44

it happened I just left it thinking

26:46

oh it'll be okay. Well it wasn't

26:48

okay when I was in panic mode and

26:52

so it wasn't where I thought it should be. Now

26:54

panic mode probably came after

26:56

you pushed down with your toe and realized there's no

26:58

brake pedal. Yeah correct. Yeah

27:01

and so the first stab, when the first stab

27:03

came up empty yeah things like

27:06

my heart started pumping at that point. How fast

27:08

are you going? I was probably

27:10

doing I don't know 45-50 maybe.

27:12

So you're moving along pretty good

27:15

you're covering some ground that little reach

27:17

that you just did with your toe to reach that rear brake pedal

27:19

and find out it's not there maybe twice maybe

27:21

three times that's taking you a

27:23

long distance as you're driving along,

27:25

still getting closer to the corner. Correct

27:28

right so and then the other

27:30

the other factor was as

27:33

I got closer to the corner I was able

27:35

to see the traffic coming the other way and

27:38

there was a horse trailer coming the other

27:40

way not just a trailer but obviously being pulled

27:42

by something and it was being pulled by

27:45

like a semi cab and

27:47

they were on their side of the road but

27:50

when I saw that and I knew I was moving

27:52

too fast and I couldn't slow

27:54

down with the rear brake I got really

27:57

panicked and so I grabbed for the front

27:59

brake. Okay so what's it with the situation

28:02

here just to complete this picture again

28:04

so you're heading now because

28:06

this corner goes off to the right and this truck

28:09

and trailers coming towards you, they're

28:11

basically right in front of you if you

28:13

were to draw a straight line what

28:15

things tend to do the object in motion

28:17

tends to resist a change in direction or

28:19

speed so if you keep going you're going right

28:22

into this truck and trailer. Right

28:24

you feel like you're not gonna make

28:26

this corner that's exactly

28:29

right i had to determine once

28:31

i couldn't find the rear brake and i

28:33

saw this coming the other way i was

28:36

sure there was no way i was gonna make the corner

28:38

so i kinda went into salvage

28:41

mode at that point to see what i can do to

28:44

minimize the amount of damage that was gonna happen.

29:01

Motor Camp Nerd is a one-stop

29:04

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29:07

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29:09

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30:03

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30:06

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30:15

I have a new best friend. It's called

30:17

the Hugger, made by Purleys Possum

30:19

Socks. I'm telling you this thing is the ticket

30:21

for comfort, warmth, and even

30:23

good looks. Let me explain. Purleys

30:26

has invented a new sweater signed for

30:28

us motorcyclists, but honestly I don't think they realize

30:30

what they've got here. Because I'm an

30:32

outdoors person, have been my whole life, I

30:34

think I've probably told you that before. I always dress

30:37

for the weather and I've been layering my clothing

30:39

since I was a preteen and started

30:41

backpacking. So I've tried many many

30:43

combinations over the years and I thought what I found

30:45

was the best. And I did. It was the

30:47

best at the time. It was the best for many years. The

30:50

Merino Wool Sweater. I've been wearing them

30:52

for decades, but not long ago Duke Lambert,

30:54

the owner of Purleys Possum Socks, told

30:57

me that they had a prototype of a sweater that

30:59

they wanted me to try. I was seriously

31:01

intrigued because I've already been blown away

31:03

by the performance of and quality of Purleys

31:05

Possum Socks. So I wanted to see what they've got.

31:08

Well my first impressions taking this thing

31:10

out of the package was first it was

31:12

incredibly soft and second it

31:15

looked like a really nice sweater. So

31:17

being soft I'm assuming that well this thing's

31:19

probably gonna be delicate and being good-looking

31:21

I kind of wondered about the actual performance.

31:24

It didn't take long for me to find

31:26

out that Purleys new Hugger sweaters

31:29

would be something that I would wear almost

31:32

every day. I mean except for the

31:34

really hot summer days. And even then I'd throw my pack

31:36

for cool evenings or cool days

31:38

if it was raining or something like that. I mean this thing is amazing.

31:41

It's made of 20% New Zealand Possum

31:43

Fur, 70% Merino Wool

31:46

and 10% silk. And

31:49

when I got this thing it was cold outside so I put it in

31:51

rotation with my regular Merino sweater to

31:53

figure wear one one day and the other the next.

31:55

Well I didn't end up wearing my old sweater

31:57

anymore. I only wore the Purleys Hugger.

32:00

I wore it every single day and I wore it for everything.

32:02

I mean working in outdoors activities

32:05

I mean everything I washed it

32:07

to death and Months later after

32:09

the abuse of working in it riding in it getting

32:12

it dirty using it. I mean every day.

32:14

I'm not exaggerating I went to my son-in-law's

32:16

one day and when I arrived there He

32:18

asked me if I got a new sweater and it sort

32:20

of took me by surprise because this thing has been through

32:23

hell and back And it hit

32:25

me how durable this thing has been I have

32:28

used and abused the sweater and it still

32:30

looks like a new sweater Amazing

32:33

material incredible performance I

32:36

mean performance because it will keep you warm

32:38

and snug under your riding jacket, but you

32:40

can also use it every day So

32:42

it's incredible value. Imagine if your motorcycle jacket

32:44

would be worn as a regular jacket I

32:47

mean that would be great, right? You spend all the money on the jacket

32:49

and you can wear it every day Well the the hugger the

32:51

pearly's hugger is for riding. Yes,

32:54

absolutely But it's also for every other activity

32:56

you would do including going out for

32:58

dinner. This thing is Absolutely

33:01

amazing the pearly's hugger

33:03

you get it at pearly's possum socks

33:05

calm anytime you're dealing with them thrown this you heard them Here

33:07

on adventure rider radio

33:15

All these books you gave up at this point

33:18

you you you did you realize your To

33:20

yourself you're not gonna make this you're gonna have

33:22

to do something else. So what do you what are you gonna do bail?

33:25

so I grabbed

33:28

front brake and I didn't you

33:30

know You talked about front breakage usage

33:32

is not something you get four fingers on and yank

33:35

to the handlebar You use a couple fingers

33:37

and you and you use graduated pressure And

33:40

I didn't I didn't know that I just grabbed it because

33:43

I wanted to stop now and I was

33:45

in the Leaned over at the time

33:47

a bit and so the bike washed out and

33:49

in my mind I knew if I'm gonna wash out

33:52

I Want to wash out low side

33:54

and use the bottom of the bike as sort of a shield

33:57

to help minimize any injury I might get

33:59

so That all went through my brain

34:02

in that short period of time. And so

34:04

that's what happened. Very scary

34:06

situation. So, okay, so you pulled that front

34:08

brake. And now this bike, I believe is equipped with ABS

34:10

brakes, is it not? Yes, yeah. So

34:12

you had ABS on. But I may have had it

34:15

off at that time. That's a good question, because I don't

34:17

really know the answer to that question, but I

34:19

may have had it off because we were coming through dirt. Yeah,

34:23

I don't recall 100%. It

34:25

didn't act like ABS at that point though. It

34:28

locked up. Because if you'd pulled it on with ABS,

34:30

first of all, you would have noticed an incredible chatter on

34:33

the front as you yanked on that brake. But

34:36

you would think that if ABS was on, that

34:38

probably would have stood you up more upright and

34:41

really transferred the weight to the front. Yeah,

34:43

could have, yeah. Yeah, but that didn't happen. You

34:46

went down. And now, as

34:48

we've talked about this before on the show, when you've got your

34:51

rubber on the road and you're getting on the

34:53

brakes, that rubber is traction between your

34:55

bike and the asphalt and you and all this mass.

34:58

But as soon as you lay down, it's

35:00

metal on the road, which is like,

35:02

well, you pick up speed at that point. Yeah,

35:05

I've got a friend of mine, and he

35:07

used to own a Harley Davidson

35:09

dealership in Virginia. And he's had

35:11

people come in who've had crashes and

35:14

he always likes to say, yeah, they always told

35:16

me I had to lay it down and he

35:19

had to laugh. Yeah, that was the old

35:21

way. People would say it all the time. You know, yeah, I couldn't

35:23

stop, so I had to lay it down. It's

35:25

just completely wrong and a total misunderstanding,

35:28

but it's through some of the lore

35:30

that we get. So you go

35:32

down. Now you're sliding on the

35:34

road. What happens? So I'm

35:36

on the right side, sliding with the

35:38

skid plate headed towards the trailer.

35:41

And I make contact

35:44

at the left front corner of the trailer

35:47

with the skid plate and

35:49

also my left foot

35:51

peg and side stand combination. Now, are you

35:53

still on the bike at this point?

35:55

I'm on the bike, yep. Yep. So

35:57

your right leg has been pulled back, I'm assuming. I

36:00

believe so because I didn't get injured. So

36:04

I'm assuming it was out of the way. The bike didn't land

36:07

on it or cause any injury to that leg at all.

36:10

So once I hit the trailer, and

36:13

thankfully I hit the corner of the trailer, because

36:15

either way, if I was a little later

36:18

in the process, I would have rolled under the trailer wheels.

36:21

If I was a little earlier, I would have either

36:23

rolled under the cab wheels or under the

36:25

trailer itself. So the bike hit

36:27

the left front corner and

36:30

that impact bounced me back across

36:32

my lane to the opposite side of the lane. And

36:35

there you stopped? And then I stopped.

36:37

And then the guy who was behind

36:40

me, Dave, he was the

36:42

one who was a little bit close, but he panicked

36:44

and he just barely stopped before

36:46

he hit me. And a bunch

36:49

of traffic stopped, they all thought

36:51

I was dead. So, but I got

36:53

up just angry more than anything.

36:56

I was just, yeah, me. I was

36:58

angry at me for a while. I never get mad at

37:00

anyone else. I always get mad at myself. I

37:03

was just angry that I

37:05

let this happen. And one

37:08

of the other friends of mine, he

37:11

said, well, don't you know about counter steering?

37:14

And I remember I heard something about

37:16

it, but I don't know much about it. So

37:19

I mean, if I had had more backgrounds

37:21

on the road and if I had took

37:25

additional classes, it

37:27

would have been a matter of, okay, I can't find the brake,

37:29

but just push her on the right hand, hand the

37:31

bar. And it would have just pushed

37:33

me, railed me right through the corner without

37:35

any issue. But instead I panicked

37:38

and I didn't have enough muscle

37:40

memory to do something like that. And

37:43

so the outcome was what it was. So

37:46

I want to come back to this, but first let's just

37:49

hear the rest of the story here, because you end up trying

37:51

to lie to the law, I guess. I

37:57

fought the law and the law won. So

38:01

we get the bike standing back up

38:03

and like I said, people had stopped to make

38:06

sure it was okay. The truck and trailer, they kept going

38:08

and that sounds bad, but it wasn't bad. I'll

38:10

explain that in a bit. We

38:13

got the bike stood up and we rolled it. This

38:15

was on a slight hill, so we rolled it down

38:17

the hill to a side street to

38:20

assess the damage. And while we

38:22

were doing that, Sheriff's Police pulls

38:24

up and one of the guys

38:26

in my group said, now don't tell him what happened.

38:29

Just tell him we're working on the bike. And

38:31

I was like, well, I guess you're no better than me.

38:33

So okay. So what

38:36

I went, I didn't know was that the

38:39

tractor trailer had kept

38:41

going because there was no place to turn around. And,

38:44

and there was a woman that was driving and she thought

38:46

for sure she killed me and she

38:48

called the police and told them

38:50

what happened. So when he pulled up, he knew,

38:53

he knew exactly what happened. So

38:56

me telling him, Oh no, we're

38:58

just working on the bike. Nothing happened.

39:01

He's like, the smell meter

39:03

was, went high. And so

39:06

he knew I was lying. Isn't there bits of plastic

39:08

and stuff all over the place? Uh,

39:10

no, not really. No, there really wasn't.

39:13

No, but there was a lot of tire marks. So

39:16

he said, so he points the motions

39:18

to me and he says, well, let's take a walk, you and

39:20

I. So we walked back up

39:23

to the scene of the accident and there are skid marks,

39:25

you know, all over from me and everything.

39:27

And he said, and he told me exactly

39:29

what happened and he was right on the money. And

39:33

so we walked back down and he gave me a

39:35

talking to and gave me a ticket. And

39:39

so he, and which, you know, he had an insult

39:41

to injury and I

39:43

was initially supposed to come back to Colorado to

39:45

face the fine, but I was able to

39:48

write a letter of apology. I

39:50

felt like I was back in third grade. And

39:54

so I got away with a fine and

39:58

a new respect for things. Right,

40:00

and a bit of a messed up bike out of the deal.

40:02

Well, okay, so let's go back to the corner, because you said it but you

40:04

didn't understand counter steering. Now this is an

40:06

interesting thing, because counter steering is

40:09

something that we do on bicycles as kids,

40:12

but we don't think about it. The problem

40:14

with it is, is that when you're riding a motorcycle,

40:17

if you don't really fully understand

40:19

the dynamics of how you turn your bike,

40:22

you can get by with a lot of riding for

40:24

many years. I think people get by their entire

40:26

lives without fully understanding. So

40:29

did you have that feeling? Like you sort

40:31

of, did you ever find that you go into a corner, and sometimes

40:33

you corner better than another corner, and you don't know why

40:36

before this? Yeah, maybe. Yeah,

40:38

maybe. I mean, I think I remember, like I

40:40

think I had some exposure

40:42

to the concept of counter steering prior to

40:44

this, but I just sort of brushed it off,

40:47

but it's like, well, yeah, that's just kind of some

40:49

technical aspect of something we already know how

40:51

to do. And but what

40:53

I had in mind was more of just

40:55

leaning the bike into the corner, not

40:58

physically putting pressure on the handlebar

41:00

to get to improve the turning radius. And

41:03

I think part of it is, sometimes we

41:05

want to understand all the technical

41:08

aspects and we try to explain it,

41:11

and people's eyes glass over,

41:13

whereas all you have to do is just feel it. And

41:15

you don't have to know why it works, you just have to know that

41:17

it does work. And I

41:20

think once you feel what

41:22

happens when you push on that handlebar and

41:25

the bike just pivots, it

41:27

makes all the difference. And you don't have to really know

41:30

all the physics and aerodynamics or

41:32

whatever that causes that to happen. It's

41:34

just like your conversation with Chris Burch

41:36

on putting pressure

41:38

on the peg, peg steering, how that

41:41

works. I was like, yeah,

41:43

I don't know. I just know that when you put pressure on there,

41:45

you don't slide out from under you while you're

41:47

going around a gravel corner. So,

41:49

yeah. So sometimes I think you

41:51

lose people by trying to get too complicated

41:53

with the description. Just, this is

41:56

what happens. And this is the effect.

41:58

Yeah.

41:59

Yeah.

41:59

So I just, I never really got that, but

42:02

now I do. If you had counter

42:04

steering as a skill back then, would

42:06

it have been no problem? Would you have been able to break? Oh

42:09

yeah. Oh yeah. I would have, even if

42:11

I couldn't break, I would have, I would have made it through that corner

42:14

without any issue. Because, because the

42:16

guy John who taught, asked me about it, you know, after it

42:18

was over, he said, have you ever heard about counter steering

42:21

and steering? You know, I told him I had heard

42:23

of it. He said, well, you should just practice

42:25

it while you're riding. Just even if you're going down a straightaway.

42:28

Just push on the bar on either side and see what

42:30

the bike does. And yeah, and

42:32

that was a great suggestion because I

42:34

started doing that and then I started doing it in corners.

42:38

And now it's, you know, it's a no

42:40

brainer. There's so many single

42:42

motorcycle crashes that

42:45

are from that. There's a road not far

42:47

from where I am right now that there's

42:49

numerous crashes there probably every year. And

42:52

it appears to always be the same. Someone

42:54

who goes into a corner, panics because

42:56

of the corner, maybe they're going to, if you're

42:58

going to fast, wrong position on it and they just

43:00

steer into the corner. And there's the big mistake. As soon

43:03

as you steer into the corner, the bike stands up and away

43:05

you go. Well, that's exactly, I mean, I guilty

43:08

as charged on all counts. You

43:10

know, I feel bad, you know, you hear, and it

43:12

is true. I mean, there are motorists who are responsible

43:15

for motorcycle crashes, you know, cars, but

43:18

that wasn't the car's fault. I mean, my accident

43:20

was squarely on me. And

43:24

I, whenever I hear the, you know, the

43:26

thing about, you know, watch out for motorcycles and

43:28

I understand that, but I always, to

43:30

me, I say to myself, yeah, watch out for motorcycles,

43:33

but it's the, it's the guy behind the handlebars

43:35

that has the most control over

43:37

whether you crash or not. Even

43:40

though people can pull out in front of you, I get

43:42

that all of that, but we have

43:44

the most control over whether we crash,

43:46

get hurt or die or not. You

43:49

went to the hotel that night and at

43:52

that point you were done riding. Can you talk about that? Yeah.

43:56

So, we took the,

43:58

I took a ride. a wrench and we

44:00

kind of zip tied it to the bike

44:03

so I had somewhat of a foot peg to stand

44:05

on. And we went back in the steamboat

44:08

and kind of disassembled

44:10

any, you know, the parts that

44:13

we needed to off the bike. So we're

44:16

trying to decide what we're going to do to complete

44:18

the ride or not. And I had

44:20

in my back of my mind that whole time that I'm not

44:22

going to complete this ride. No, and I'm done.

44:25

I'm not going to ride anymore. It

44:28

scared me. The possibilities you mean?

44:31

That's what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I

44:33

could have, I mean, very easily could have been dead. And

44:35

I've had some episodes before then

44:38

after then that were close.

44:41

But this one was different. And

44:44

I actually talked, I didn't know what I was going to tell

44:47

my wife. So like I called her and I

44:49

finally told her what happened. I said, I'm done. You know,

44:52

I'm not doing this anymore. Of course,

44:54

that was a lie. I mean, you feel

44:57

the time, right? Yeah. So, you know, after

45:03

I told her that and I hung up and we

45:05

got the bike, the next morning we found a shop

45:09

that would do some welding and we got there first

45:11

thing in the morning and they were so great. They

45:14

welded the kickstand and the foot

45:16

peg back on almost better than it was

45:19

initially. And it allowed me to, you

45:21

know, to ride on and complete the ride.

45:23

And once I realized that I can still ride

45:25

the bike, you know, I didn't, number

45:28

one, I didn't want to let everybody else down. I felt

45:30

like, you know, I was the one who planned this ride.

45:33

I had the most information and I didn't want

45:35

to just let them go on their own.

45:37

So I just said, okay,

45:39

well, I'll at least finish this ride

45:41

and then after it, I'm done. But

45:44

as the ride went on, there was

45:46

no way I was given this off. There

45:48

was no, no

45:50

possible way. It was

45:53

just, it was everything that I

45:55

thought it was going to be and more after

45:57

the course, after the accident. And

46:01

as the week went on, I was solidly

46:04

into continuing

46:06

with adventure riding. So,

46:09

yeah, we had one more episode on that

46:11

ride. I don't know if you're familiar with Black Bear

46:13

Pass in Colorado. Many

46:15

years ago, a long time since I was on the

46:18

bike. The same guy who told me

46:20

to tell the cop that we were just working

46:22

on the bike, convinced us all to

46:25

do Black Bear Pass instead of Ophir.

46:27

Ophir is on the BDR, but

46:30

Black Bear is an alternate. And

46:32

it comes down into Telluride. And I didn't

46:34

know anything about Black Bear and everybody

46:36

else in the ride didn't know anything about Black

46:38

Bear. So we

46:40

get up to the top and it was a fun ride going

46:43

up, but it's coming down. That's the problem

46:45

in Telluride. It's a couple

46:47

hundred yards of very steep,

46:49

very slippery rock. You

46:52

only went one way though. You didn't go up and down, up

46:54

and back. No, no, no, no. You can only go one

46:56

way. Yeah, and the last section in Telluride,

46:58

you can only go down. You can't come back up. And

47:02

man, we were all scared. We made it, but

47:04

we were very frightened. And

47:08

I think it was on Bluetooth with one of the guys and said, you

47:10

want to get some pictures? He said, heck no.

47:13

I just want to get off this mountain. I

47:17

think there's a hydro generating plant up there, isn't

47:19

it? Yeah, I think so. I think it

47:21

is. Yeah. But it was beautiful.

47:23

And the view of Telluride from up there is gorgeous,

47:26

but I don't think I'd take an adventure bike

47:28

down Blackberry again. Yeah.

47:31

So let's go back to this for a second. I just want

47:33

to look at the stuff that maybe you've identified

47:35

as being a problem in this corner. And

47:38

obviously, the first one would be the GPS, wouldn't

47:40

it? Yeah. Well, I mean,

47:42

the GPS in and of itself is not a problem.

47:45

It's how you use it and whether you allow it to

47:47

be a distraction. So now

47:50

I've learned that if you need to look at

47:52

it, you glance. You take short

47:54

glances at the screen. And if you need to do much

47:57

more than that, pull over, stop and

47:59

look at it. look at what you need to find out. And

48:02

so you can't just get lost in

48:04

the GPS. You're

48:07

moving too fast, stuff happens fast, and

48:10

you're in trouble. So it's a great tool.

48:14

You just have to be careful not to get all

48:16

caught up in what you're doing

48:18

and forgetting that you're trying to ride a motorcycle. Yeah,

48:22

and of course there's so many distracted driving

48:24

laws in different places now trying to

48:26

deal with that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit of

48:28

an epidemic of proportions right now

48:31

with people messing with mobile

48:33

devices. Very much so. And certainly while

48:35

we're on a motorcycle, that's not

48:38

the place to be messing with a mobile

48:40

device. And what you said earlier, and

48:42

I thought was really to the point

48:44

with it, because you said, you know when you

48:46

go into something like this, sometimes you forget

48:49

what you're doing because you're so

48:51

into looking at the device. And for those few

48:54

even partial seconds that

48:57

you spend zooming, you're kind of zoned out.

49:00

You've given up control of the bike. I

49:02

mean, think about, you know, like you're watching television. I

49:04

mean, I'm a child

49:06

of Saturday morning cartoons and TV. If

49:10

there's a TV on, my eyes

49:13

get glazed over and I'm locked in. And

49:15

a bomb can go off around me and I don't

49:17

even notice. And, you know, a GPS

49:20

screen is really not that

49:22

much different than a television screen. And

49:24

it's so easy to get caught up in

49:26

what's in front of you that you

49:28

can forget what you're doing

49:32

and get in the trouble. What other things

49:34

did you learn?

49:37

I have a guardian angel.

49:41

And in all seriousness, I

49:43

shouldn't be here. I mean, I had something help me that day.

49:47

And it wasn't my skill. And

49:49

that's for sure. Where are all the gear? You know, you

49:51

hear Agat all the time and it's no joke. I

49:54

mean, I don't know if you want to talk about hitting the deer

49:56

the following year, but our

49:58

last year.

49:59

But if I didn't have the gear on and that either

50:02

of these situations I wouldn't be talking

50:04

to you today. Yeah,

50:07

so back to that corner though. What about before

50:09

you got into that corner things that sort

50:11

of, you know, added

50:14

to what happened before you got into that corner?

50:18

I don't know. I think we you know, there was a concern

50:22

about people behind me. There was a

50:26

Concentrating on the GPS

50:28

device The

50:31

road condition was good. It wasn't

50:33

like it was wet or anything like that I'm

50:37

thinking more about that brake pedal. Oh, yeah,

50:39

we're pairing it And you knew that you had

50:41

to reach for it and aren't totally familiar

50:43

with it It's those type of things that

50:45

you know can come back and bite you when

50:48

you don't realize it. Yeah Yeah,

50:50

I mean I think part of it too was when it happened when

50:53

it bent I'm like, oh I gotta get going I don't want

50:55

to let these guys hold these guys up and

50:58

you know get them upset that They have to wait for

51:00

me to fix a brake pedal and that was all in my brain

51:02

it wasn't them it was just you know what

51:04

I convinced myself and So

51:07

I just like well, I'll get it later and And

51:09

I you know, I didn't so

51:12

your equipment having your equipment prepared

51:15

and maintained and Ready

51:18

to be used is is critical. It's

51:20

important. You know really important Did

51:22

you end up taking any any courses after this did that

51:24

prompt you to take a course? Yeah

51:29

Jack O'Connor had he I

51:31

think he sold the business now, but he had Pine

51:33

Barrens Adventure Camp and So

51:36

I took a class with him

51:39

in the state college PA area and

51:41

that was real helpful So

51:44

yeah Well John,

51:46

thank you very much I want to thank you for

51:48

for sharing the story because this kind of stuff is hard

51:51

to share and admit You know that you did

51:53

something wrong and and especially,

51:55

you know It's so easy to look at something in hindsight and say

51:57

well that was stupid. This guy did this it's

51:59

time to admit this stuff and talk about it sometimes,

52:02

but by doing so, it'll illustrate

52:05

the point to someone else. And let's hope

52:07

it helps. I hope it helps someone else.

52:10

But so thank you very much for that, and thanks for

52:12

your time, for coming on the show and talking about it. Oh, you're

52:14

welcome. I just, I don't

52:16

want to say this has been my dream to

52:18

be on your show, but ever since

52:20

my brother turned me on to it a few years

52:23

ago, and I haven't missed an episode since, and you

52:26

just do such an amazing job, and

52:28

you do such a service for the motorcycling

52:31

community, I can't thank you enough. No, thank

52:33

you, John. I really appreciate that.

52:35

You're welcome.

52:53

That was John Cierbasi from Emmaus Moto

52:55

Tours from his home in Chicago. We've

52:57

got some photos from John in the show notes for this

52:59

episode on our website AdventureRiderRadio.com.

53:02

Now we're gonna take a short break. I got a couple things I want to tell you,

53:04

but when we come back though, we have a cornering

53:06

expert to talk about counter-steering, and he

53:09

has a great way for you to practice

53:11

counter-steering and have some fun doing

53:13

it. Stay with us.

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56:35

My name is John DelVecchio I

56:37

am from Rochester New York and

56:40

I'm a cornering coach.

56:51

John, welcome to Adventure Rider Radio. Thanks

56:54

for having me.

57:00

So how long have you been a corner coach? Well

57:03

I began to become

57:05

a rider coach in 2007 and

57:09

I decided I wanted to get more involved with

57:11

rider training as a motorcyclist myself

57:14

and for 10 years I taught

57:16

the basic rider course here

57:19

at my local training site and

57:21

around 2015 I decided I

57:23

wanted to maybe branch off into

57:26

more advanced or what

57:28

I call next level training and

57:31

I transitioned from the

57:33

basic skills into more of a cornering focus

57:36

with my curriculum. I wrote a book called

57:39

Cornering Confidence have an online course

57:41

that goes along with that which is basically

57:43

the curriculum I use in a

57:45

variety of methods. And

57:47

I have this book this is a good book for anyone

57:50

that whether you're say experienced rider

57:52

at least you have a lot of years under your belt or not to

57:54

understand the physics behind riding.

57:57

What is it about the teaching

58:00

of writing or understanding the physics that really

58:03

excites you about it. Like why this path

58:05

for you? Well, I do

58:07

like to say that I'm really not

58:09

a scientist. I'm not an engineer. What

58:13

I am, I'm a high school teacher. And so what I like

58:15

to do is take some

58:17

complex information and sort of reduce

58:20

it into the most

58:23

essential pieces to communicate

58:25

to people. So the book is really

58:27

my way of sort of taking

58:30

the brainy

58:32

type of scientific whys

58:35

and how things work behind

58:37

writing a motorcycle and putting

58:39

it into layman's terms for the average

58:42

rider because that's what I think is really

58:44

going to make a difference. What's

58:46

the day out for writing for you, John? I

58:49

like to do sport touring. And

58:51

my friends and I will go down to Pennsylvania. So

58:53

I'm in New York state and the roads are pretty good

58:55

here, but we'll take a day ride down to Pennsylvania.

58:58

Sometimes we'll do overnights. I commute

59:01

occasionally. And

59:03

are you camping from your bike?

59:04

I tried

59:06

that. And I'm more of a

59:09

motel, hotel, mom and top

59:11

type of guy. My buddies and

59:14

I, we really like to get into the

59:16

back country, West Virginia, down

59:18

by tail of the dragon and these types

59:20

of places where you have, you know, hole in the wall

59:22

places where you really get

59:25

to see the back country. And that's really what

59:27

I like. I really love

59:29

getting out there and just seeing the parts

59:33

of the country that you just pass on

59:35

an interstate. And a lot of these

59:38

towns we go through, it seems

59:40

like you're really going back in time because

59:42

the diners the same.

59:45

The streets are

59:47

awkward.

59:48

They don't have as many of the refined

59:52

elements when you talk about the highways

59:54

and things like that. And it just

59:56

kind of brings you back to, I guess,

59:58

a simpler time. Oh yeah, that's

1:00:01

great. Well, you know, we've

1:00:04

what we're about to talk about today. We've just heard a story

1:00:07

about a rider that went down in

1:00:09

the corner, which in hindsight he

1:00:11

feels could have been prevented if he

1:00:14

had understood counter-steering at the

1:00:16

time. Which brings us to you because

1:00:18

this is what you live for as corners and

1:00:20

teaching people how to corner properly and efficiently.

1:00:23

So in short what he did is he entered the corner

1:00:25

too fast for him for what he thought

1:00:27

he could do. He panicked and he

1:00:30

locked up the front brake, the front

1:00:32

wheel went out and he low-sided. It

1:00:35

nearly cost him his life. It was very, very

1:00:38

fortunate the way it turned out for him. Now

1:00:40

unfortunately we hear of these type of single

1:00:42

vehicle crashes often occurring on a twisty

1:00:45

road. And if you look at the tracks of some

1:00:47

of these, if you've ever come upon one, sometimes

1:00:50

you'll see that skid mark going straight off

1:00:52

the road and you can't help but think, did

1:00:54

this person not understand counter-steering?

1:00:57

Did they come in, panic, turn into

1:00:59

the corner and have the bike stand up,

1:01:01

get on the brakes and just panic and slide off?

1:01:04

And if you've ever ridden behind a rider, and

1:01:06

I know I've seen this a number of times,

1:01:08

that rock their upper body to try and

1:01:10

set themselves into a turn, I believe

1:01:13

that what you're seeing there is a rider that does not

1:01:15

fully understand, not on a conscious level,

1:01:18

counter-steering and certainly doesn't understand

1:01:20

what it takes to make a motorcycle turn.

1:01:22

What's your take on that? Yeah,

1:01:26

so the number one problem

1:01:28

that people have when it comes to curves and crashing

1:01:30

is they just can't steer the motorcycle. And

1:01:33

the primary

1:01:35

control to steer the motorcycle is the handlebars.

1:01:38

Now we can use our upper body

1:01:40

weight, we can move a little bit inside, we can

1:01:42

do other things, but the

1:01:44

primary steering mechanism on a motorcycle

1:01:47

is that handlebars. And

1:01:51

they teach you in the course, I think your biggest

1:01:54

experience

1:01:56

in the classic

1:02:00

rider courses with the

1:02:02

countersteer is your swerve.

1:02:04

So you're going in a straight line and

1:02:07

they teach you to press down

1:02:09

in a way to avoid the object and

1:02:11

then come back with the other press and then

1:02:13

straighten out. And

1:02:16

at the speeds you normally learn in a

1:02:18

parking lot, you're sort of

1:02:20

in that gray area between will counter

1:02:22

steering work as well as just pointing

1:02:25

the tire in the direction that you want to go.

1:02:29

If people don't consciously practice

1:02:32

a skill, especially

1:02:34

a motor skill, then they're

1:02:36

not going to have it when they really need

1:02:39

it. And what we try

1:02:41

to teach them is to press the inside grip

1:02:43

down in a way to initiate that

1:02:45

lean, you're going into a corner. Now,

1:02:48

one of the things that led

1:02:52

me to do cornering confidence

1:02:54

and to teach people these

1:02:57

next level skills, that's your course,

1:02:59

courting confidence. Yeah. Was

1:03:02

that the people just,

1:03:04

they don't know how to steer the motorcycle in a turn

1:03:07

and we love corners.

1:03:10

You know, I know the ADV guys, they

1:03:12

love their dirt roads and, but they get on

1:03:14

a, I'm sure when they get out on a curvy road,

1:03:16

they want to, you know, kind of lean into it

1:03:18

as well. And so the

1:03:21

new rider or the rider that

1:03:23

doesn't even see a lot of corners, their

1:03:25

body just will,

1:03:28

will turn, will counter steer.

1:03:31

But it's like, if you bring it to the

1:03:33

front of your consciousness,

1:03:36

that's when you really get to experience

1:03:39

the power of what it can do for you. Now,

1:03:41

when I hear of a person who

1:03:44

made that mistake that you're saying

1:03:46

a couple of things can really happen

1:03:48

here beyond just not understanding

1:03:51

counter steering. And I can get into a little bit more of that

1:03:53

in a second, but we do have the

1:03:55

panic that happens because I know you had chief

1:03:57

code on recently and he.

1:04:00

He talks about survival reactions in

1:04:02

these types of things in

1:04:04

his book. And that's

1:04:06

what I think happens. People just freeze

1:04:09

up when they enter that corner too

1:04:11

fast, not understanding

1:04:13

that if they just press

1:04:16

a little bit more. And

1:04:18

I'm kind of getting at the something

1:04:22

that I guess bothers me a little bit about

1:04:24

what we teach people. In

1:04:26

the beginner course, we say to them,

1:04:29

alright, if you go into a corner too fast,

1:04:32

you just got to press more. You

1:04:34

just got to press more. It's kind of

1:04:36

like press and pray, I think. I heard another

1:04:39

expert say it one time. And

1:04:41

we'd start when you say press more, which you're talking about, it's pushing

1:04:44

the handlebar forward to, to push

1:04:46

it. Yeah, pushing the

1:04:48

handlebar down on the inside

1:04:50

of the turn down and away from you to induce

1:04:52

more, more of a countersteer. Okay,

1:04:55

to help to increase lean so

1:04:57

that you make that turn because of the faster speed.

1:05:01

And we tell people this in a classroom,

1:05:03

we tell these people in a parking lot, but

1:05:05

they don't have a chance to make those mental connections

1:05:08

between their brain and their arms and their hands

1:05:10

and their body to make

1:05:12

all this work. So what

1:05:15

I will say is there are other ways

1:05:17

of handling this, which I talk more about

1:05:19

in cornering confidence. We can do trail

1:05:21

breaking, we can slow down our speed because speed

1:05:26

is a primary factor of our steering.

1:05:28

Okay, the slower we're going, the sharper we

1:05:30

can turn and so forth. We

1:05:32

can also straighten out

1:05:34

our line a little bit more. So let's say this person

1:05:37

was going into a right

1:05:39

hander. They,

1:05:42

if no one were coming the other way, they could straighten

1:05:44

up a little bit. Yes, they might come an oncoming

1:05:47

lane, that kind of thing. That wouldn't be good

1:05:50

if someone was coming the other way yet, you

1:05:53

know, you're taking your chances there. Now,

1:05:55

there's other options. But

1:05:57

what I've noticed is, oh, man. many

1:06:00

riders, they think they're

1:06:02

leaning the motorcycle really

1:06:04

more than they are. They

1:06:06

lean into a turn and they feel like they can be dragging a

1:06:08

knee any second. You can

1:06:10

see this a lot if you go to the

1:06:14

Tail of the Dragon photographer

1:06:17

website, you'll see people that really have a lot

1:06:19

of lean angle left.

1:06:21

While

1:06:22

I'm a proponent of keeping your motorcycle

1:06:24

more vertically upright in a turn, so

1:06:27

I call that my straight principle. We

1:06:29

do want to lean the bike, but I

1:06:31

try to say, well, get inside, kiss the mirror

1:06:33

to keep the motorcycle more

1:06:35

vertically upright. I

1:06:38

prefer that with slowing down

1:06:40

than what I'm about to tell

1:06:42

you now. That's what the standard

1:06:45

training says. Press

1:06:47

more and you'll hopefully

1:06:50

come out on the other side upright

1:06:52

and happy. I think in

1:06:54

this particular instance, while I wasn't there,

1:06:57

I would tend to think

1:06:59

that this person, although they

1:07:01

were going too fast and they were comfortable,

1:07:04

they probably did have some

1:07:08

ground clearance and decent

1:07:10

traction and that kind of thing that they probably could

1:07:12

have given it a little bit more press in

1:07:15

the direction of the turn to give them

1:07:17

greater lean to make that turn other

1:07:20

than have that survival reaction. And then, of

1:07:22

course, Jim, you know that target

1:07:24

fixation. I see the

1:07:27

outside of the turn and

1:07:29

we can tend to give

1:07:31

up at that point. I've

1:07:34

actually seen a video of somebody who unfortunately clipped

1:07:36

a bus that was going the other way and

1:07:38

I slowed the video down frame by frame and

1:07:40

you can see in the last little bit to actually lean

1:07:43

into the bus. It's

1:07:45

horrible. It's just horrible. And it

1:07:47

was like, it's just that giving up. He was fixated

1:07:50

on the bus watching it as he made

1:07:52

his corner. But let's

1:07:55

take this example

1:07:57

out of the picture then and just talk a little bit.

1:08:00

about counter steering. Now, the one thing I want to ask you is that you said,

1:08:02

you say when you're talking about counter steering,

1:08:05

you talk about pushing down. Why

1:08:07

do you say down instead of just pushing forward?

1:08:09

Because really that's what we're doing with the bars, we're

1:08:11

pushing forward. Well, it's interesting you say

1:08:14

that because my mentor, when

1:08:16

I taught the MSF classes for 10 years, verbiage,

1:08:20

language, the words you use, they're

1:08:23

very specific. And you

1:08:27

could say the sun

1:08:29

is shining brightly out there and

1:08:31

someone will hear it differently that it's raining.

1:08:34

It's just, you think you

1:08:36

have the words perfectly chosen and

1:08:39

someone hears it a little differently. Now, my

1:08:41

mentor had explained when I was

1:08:43

teaching the swerving

1:08:46

maneuver that we're pressing kind

1:08:48

of down in a way. And you

1:08:50

are pressing forward. But

1:08:53

I guess if you're

1:08:55

sitting vertical on the motorcycle and you got your hands on

1:08:57

the bars, if you want to lean into

1:08:59

a turn, you're gonna sort of press that bar

1:09:02

down in a way from you. So

1:09:05

I guess the only way I can explain

1:09:07

that is that's what I was kind of told

1:09:09

to say that would give people a

1:09:12

little bit of a better idea what to do, maybe

1:09:14

not to abruptly push forward, then

1:09:17

maybe turn the bars abruptly in a different direction.

1:09:20

But forward, down in

1:09:23

a way. And that's what

1:09:25

I think of. If I'm already

1:09:27

leaning and I want to

1:09:29

add more lean angle and countersteer

1:09:31

more into the direction of that turn, I

1:09:34

would be pressing down in

1:09:36

a way from where

1:09:38

I'm from my body access

1:09:40

or whatever. But so I guess

1:09:42

it's semantics

1:09:45

at this point. And

1:09:47

I just wanted to ask because I'm sure that somebody's

1:09:49

listening and thinking, that's not what

1:09:51

I've been told. I've been told push forward. But yes,

1:09:54

I agree with you. It's pretty much the same

1:09:56

thing that we're talking about here. Right, so

1:09:59

we'll also say it. people and this goes along with

1:10:01

your listeners, we kind

1:10:04

of straighten out that inside arm. So

1:10:07

if we're going to, let's say make

1:10:09

a left hand turn, we will press our left

1:10:11

grip forward or

1:10:13

down in a way, it's going to extend

1:10:16

our arm in a straighter. And

1:10:19

so that's sort of the idea there. Now,

1:10:22

with countersteer, we all have ridden, most

1:10:25

of us have ridden bicycles as kids and you

1:10:27

countersteer automatically when

1:10:29

you're riding a bicycle. But I think the difference here

1:10:31

with the motorcycle is that obviously

1:10:34

the speeds are much greater, there's much more

1:10:36

weight, there's many different,

1:10:39

many things that are different from riding a bicycle. But

1:10:41

I think because you haven't actually consciously

1:10:44

thought about it, and you've got the power of

1:10:46

the engine at much greater speeds and you're on the road with

1:10:48

other traffic, that's my thought

1:10:51

process is where people run into trouble because

1:10:53

yes, they know how to countersteer intuitively,

1:10:56

but they don't understand it fully.

1:10:59

So in other words, they don't think when they get into

1:11:01

that corner that they can tighten their corner

1:11:04

by countersteering. Does that make sense? It

1:11:07

makes perfect sense. And

1:11:09

I've said this before, and I'll probably

1:11:12

say it another hundred times, teaching

1:11:15

someone how to ride a motorcycle is probably

1:11:17

one of the most difficult things

1:11:20

to teach somebody how to do. Because

1:11:22

you're not there, you're not sitting

1:11:24

with them, you can't

1:11:26

really see what they're doing to give

1:11:29

them the appropriate feedback. Now you can

1:11:31

in a parking lot, right, when you see

1:11:33

them, where they stop, if they put the left

1:11:35

foot down first, that kind of thing. But

1:11:38

when it comes to the nuances

1:11:41

of a gentle press

1:11:43

forward, or however you want to talk

1:11:45

about the initiating of that turn, it's a

1:11:49

little bit harder to tell if they get it or not.

1:11:52

I can't tell you how many times

1:11:55

I have taught a student,

1:11:58

I think they get their gift.

1:11:59

I'm getting feedback

1:12:02

from them that they're totally getting

1:12:04

it and then

1:12:06

they do something that

1:12:08

just shows me, geez, they didn't get it. So

1:12:12

you have to kind of rebuild those blocks up again.

1:12:16

One of the things that

1:12:18

I wanted to add to the

1:12:21

world of motorcycle training, if you will,

1:12:23

development in my book is I talk

1:12:26

about oscillations

1:12:28

I call them are basically line changes in

1:12:30

a curve. And

1:12:33

you can think about this as if

1:12:35

you were to be upright in

1:12:37

a riding straight down the road and then a

1:12:40

car backs out of a driveway, you're going to want to do a swerve

1:12:42

maneuver around the back onto that car

1:12:45

to avoid hitting that object. Well,

1:12:48

what I like to tell people is

1:12:51

that problems in

1:12:53

your path don't end

1:12:56

when the corner begins. So we have

1:12:58

to be skilled at adjusting

1:13:01

or changing our line in a curve while

1:13:04

we're leaned over. Now we could do

1:13:06

this just to adjust our line. I

1:13:08

think you mentioned earlier someone when

1:13:12

they headed into a bus, the direction of a bus.

1:13:14

Well, let's say I'm going into a left

1:13:16

hand turn and I see a big

1:13:19

huge doodly pickup door mirror

1:13:23

coming towards me and I'm too close to that center

1:13:25

line. I might want to

1:13:27

adjust my line just to avoid

1:13:30

that or scenario from happening.

1:13:32

Or maybe I don't like the pavement

1:13:35

over here. I see a little bit of gravel. I

1:13:37

may want to just adjust for better vision

1:13:40

around the corner. Now we also might

1:13:42

want to change our line in

1:13:44

a curve if there's an emergency

1:13:46

situation clearly like a tarsnake

1:13:49

or a huge pothole. Now

1:13:52

what I would advise is

1:13:54

that to practice

1:13:56

these light swerves

1:13:58

in a curve.

1:13:59

When I would teach the coaching

1:14:02

tours and do

1:14:04

other track day classes and that

1:14:06

kind of thing, those methods,

1:14:09

the students loved practicing

1:14:12

these light swerves in a corner.

1:14:14

Now we're not talking tight, tight turns here,

1:14:16

we're talking sweepers. So

1:14:19

as you would swerve upright,

1:14:22

you can do a very similar thing as

1:14:24

you're leaning over, say just a few degrees

1:14:26

in a sweeping turn, you can just

1:14:29

kind of press the bars back and forth

1:14:31

a little bit. And what this does, it

1:14:34

will gently change your direction. And

1:14:38

I would tell people like this individual

1:14:40

to contact you and say, Hey, you know,

1:14:42

while you're in a corner, look

1:14:44

for shadows on the ground, look for, you

1:14:46

know, something that, you know, you can

1:14:49

a filled in pothole that

1:14:51

you can just gently swerve

1:14:53

around. Because if

1:14:55

you practice this

1:14:57

skill and you just

1:14:59

do these gentle, gentle swerves

1:15:03

in the sweepers, as

1:15:05

you're practicing and building that muscle memory,

1:15:08

what ends up happening is when the chips

1:15:10

are down, you have

1:15:12

your programmed into doing that autonomously.

1:15:15

Right. So, you know, we start

1:15:17

with the cognitive thing, you know, we're the

1:15:19

cognitive stage of motor learning. And

1:15:22

I'm telling you now, and I'm telling

1:15:24

people in my books, you know, when you're leaning a curve,

1:15:26

try to just do a few light swerves.

1:15:30

And then what happens is you practice in that

1:15:32

associative phase, then

1:15:34

you become a little bit more experienced

1:15:36

and you practice it. And then you become

1:15:38

autonomous after that, the

1:15:41

item presents itself that you want to avoid.

1:15:44

And you simply, you can just do that

1:15:46

light swerve around it. And

1:15:49

I think that is a huge thing that's missed in

1:15:52

much of the training that I've seen in the books

1:15:55

that I've read. And

1:15:57

I'll go so far as to say this, Jim. The

1:16:01

experienced riders, even this person

1:16:03

that might've had just a few years, we

1:16:06

are told

1:16:08

that if you don't have the corner

1:16:11

figured out before you enter it, you're

1:16:13

just not a skilled rider.

1:16:17

Before you tip in, you got to know the whole thing. I

1:16:20

think I've read a couple books that just

1:16:22

said mid-corner adjustments

1:16:25

is an error. I

1:16:28

tend to think the opposite. I think

1:16:32

we should take advantage of the opportunities we have

1:16:34

to change our line in a curve if we need to.

1:16:37

Oh, sure. It'd be great if we could

1:16:40

prepare and execute that

1:16:42

corner from start

1:16:44

to finish just as we plan it. But

1:16:47

you and I both know something's

1:16:49

going to be in our way at some point, or there's

1:16:52

going to be gravel on the road at some point.

1:16:55

If you haven't rehearsed and practiced

1:16:57

this very simple

1:16:59

thing, then you

1:17:02

put yourself in a little bit more greater risk

1:17:05

of being a victim to that kind of situation.

1:17:08

That's beautifully said. And that's exactly

1:17:11

the point of what I wanted to talk about here.

1:17:14

Now, when you're saying you get

1:17:16

a person at the corner and they make their corrective changes

1:17:19

or they're going around something, swerving around something,

1:17:22

there's only one way that they can do

1:17:24

that. Am I correct?

1:17:26

Yeah. Well, counter steering. Right. So,

1:17:29

counter steering is the big one. Now, sometimes

1:17:31

you can shift your body a little bit

1:17:35

and you can kind of straighten up the bike and you can

1:17:37

do things to change your line, which

1:17:40

is something that people could do as they practice

1:17:42

these line changes. For example,

1:17:45

sometimes if I'm leaning too much, I

1:17:48

can sort of just kind of get my shoulders up quick

1:17:50

and I can straighten the bike up a little more. It helps me

1:17:52

straighten that bar out. But you're

1:17:54

right. Practicing counter steering

1:17:57

while leaned is kind of

1:17:59

the... I'm gonna say the silver bullet

1:18:01

here.

1:18:02

So when you're telling someone to go in practice,

1:18:05

their counter steering, is that the one method

1:18:07

you give them? Do you give them anything to do on the straight sections

1:18:10

of the road?

1:18:11

Now, so the straight sections

1:18:13

of the road, one of

1:18:15

the things I learned from my experience

1:18:18

is the basic rider courses, they

1:18:21

do what they do very well. You

1:18:23

know, the traffic management, mental

1:18:26

strategies, the quick stops, the

1:18:28

swerves. And so I don't really

1:18:31

talk too much about swerving in a straight line.

1:18:33

I figure that that's pretty much

1:18:35

covered in the basics where I'm

1:18:39

positioning my curriculum at the

1:18:41

next level, okay? But

1:18:44

what I would suggest people do when they're practicing

1:18:47

is, and I talk about this in my curriculum

1:18:49

book, online course, live sessions and

1:18:52

things, is to have your

1:18:54

arms what I would call loose and level, okay,

1:18:57

so you're gonna have your shoulders and arms loose

1:18:59

and your forearm will be level with

1:19:02

the ground kind of parallel to the road. And

1:19:05

what this allows us to do, and

1:19:08

I learned this from Keith Code's stuff, it

1:19:11

just helps us make

1:19:13

those very gentle presses

1:19:16

of the handlebar in

1:19:19

a neutral way so that

1:19:21

we don't get that chatter from the front

1:19:23

to transfer back to the rest

1:19:25

of the motorcycle and upset the

1:19:28

whole scenario. And so the loose

1:19:30

and level really helps

1:19:33

people isolate when

1:19:35

they're going to be pressing in the direction

1:19:38

that they wanna go. I would also say

1:19:40

that you just tell someone to go

1:19:42

down a road 30 miles an hour and just start pressing

1:19:44

the handlebars. And

1:19:47

it's undeniable the response

1:19:50

to press left, you'll go left, to press

1:19:52

right, you'll go right. This is just in a straight line

1:19:55

within your own lane. So

1:19:57

that's what I tell people. when

1:20:00

it comes to the basics, okay,

1:20:03

palms pressing down away. And of course,

1:20:06

we also want to make sure that we're not

1:20:08

counter steering abruptly because again,

1:20:12

you know, the traction pie, we have the braking,

1:20:14

turning and acceleration and then kind

1:20:16

of what's left over there. And so if we press

1:20:19

suddenly, okay, or we change

1:20:22

direction suddenly under

1:20:24

the right circumstances, if we don't have enough traction

1:20:26

underneath us, we could get ourselves

1:20:29

into a low side or a took of some

1:20:31

kind. But I really

1:20:34

would stress, get into a

1:20:36

corner. We're

1:20:39

talking a sweeper here. Because

1:20:41

in my book, what I'll say is when you practice

1:20:43

oscillations, I call them, it's just kind of like weaving

1:20:45

back and forth as you press

1:20:48

on each grip side to side. I

1:20:50

will encourage people to do that

1:20:52

first in a nice wide

1:20:55

sweeper. And then as the

1:20:57

skills build and the

1:21:00

experience and

1:21:02

they know how the motorcycle is gonna respond to this,

1:21:05

then to start doing it more in the

1:21:07

more

1:21:07

tighter turns.

1:21:11

When you say wide sweeper, you're talking a sweeper is a corner.

1:21:14

Yeah, yeah. So a sweeping turn,

1:21:17

something that, you know, the

1:21:19

radius is nice and big and wide

1:21:22

and you can really see through

1:21:24

the turn quite well. It's almost like

1:21:27

you're on a straight road so that

1:21:29

you're not going to overcorrect

1:21:31

because when you're teaching someone that new skill,

1:21:35

one of the things that I'm concerned of when I

1:21:37

teach people these

1:21:39

techniques is that they might go overboard

1:21:41

the first time. And

1:21:44

so that's why I say, you know, just gently, just

1:21:48

do those light swerves back and forth.

1:21:51

And I used

1:21:53

to hear the guys giggling in their helmets when they did

1:21:55

it, when we did the coaching tours with

1:21:58

the BMW MOA. rallies that

1:22:00

I used to go do more training

1:22:02

at. And so

1:22:05

that could help this person and they contacted

1:22:07

you. And

1:22:10

that was really the first step in

1:22:13

them correcting the problem. If

1:22:17

I know that you have heard people say

1:22:20

after a mishap of some kind,

1:22:23

geez, I just don't know what I could have done differently.

1:22:25

I just don't know how I would have prevented it. And there's a

1:22:27

sense of despair there. People just

1:22:30

have this, gosh, if

1:22:32

I don't know what I did,

1:22:34

how am I supposed to fix it for next time? Or

1:22:36

denial where they'll say, oh, it was

1:22:38

just a road. There was something out of my

1:22:40

control, in other words.

1:22:43

Right, right. I mean, there

1:22:45

was even a situation where I have a friend and

1:22:48

we were

1:22:49

on a ride overnight in

1:22:51

Maryland and they

1:22:55

had just, we call it chip sealing

1:22:57

here, okay? They put oil down and then they throw

1:22:59

the little pebbles in it, little tiny jagged pebbles.

1:23:02

And they had swapped it up and

1:23:05

they had painted the center line

1:23:07

and the edge and the fog lines. And

1:23:09

you would think that this road was ready

1:23:12

to go. Well, the greater,

1:23:15

whoever it was, it was kind of

1:23:17

like a downhill, out of sight,

1:23:19

right-hander. And

1:23:22

I heard in the center, my friend went

1:23:25

down and I couldn't believe

1:23:27

it because it was pretty good pavement

1:23:29

at the time. It was pretty well manicured. And when we went

1:23:31

back to see,

1:23:35

there was a pile that the greater

1:23:37

must have left kind of right at the wrong

1:23:39

spot for my buddy. Now, when I went through it,

1:23:41

I took a different line, I missed it. Well,

1:23:44

he completely hit this

1:23:47

thing head on. And there was, and so

1:23:50

while I

1:23:51

give him a break on this and say, he's

1:23:54

right. There really isn't anything

1:23:56

you can do if suddenly

1:23:59

the... patch underneath your motorcycle

1:24:01

is a half inch

1:24:04

deep of like that little gravel. But

1:24:07

one of the things that I like to teach in my

1:24:10

curriculum is what I call that straight principle,

1:24:13

okay? Keeping the motorcycle more vertically upright.

1:24:15

And to do that, we kind of just, you know,

1:24:17

get our chin inside, kiss the mirror,

1:24:19

I so to speak, and that

1:24:21

will make the motorcycle a little bit more upright.

1:24:25

So had

1:24:28

a little bit more kiss the mirror been

1:24:32

employed by my friend, the motorcycle

1:24:34

would have had less lean and then there might've

1:24:36

been a little more time to react.

1:24:39

So the more vertically upright the motorcycle

1:24:41

is, the more likely you can

1:24:43

regain control, the more you have to lean on

1:24:46

the motorcycle, the less likely

1:24:48

you can regain control if there's a slip. And

1:24:51

that's why I usually would

1:24:54

say pressing more

1:24:56

to increase lean angle to make

1:24:58

that turn for excessive speed. That's

1:25:02

why I'm really not a huge fan

1:25:04

of it. Although I constantly

1:25:07

press more to make more of a lean and

1:25:09

do a turn. It's just in an emergency

1:25:12

situation, you could

1:25:14

overdo it. Yeah. That kind of thing. Countersting

1:25:17

isn't the only thing you're going to do in the corner. It's not the only thing that's going

1:25:19

to save you in a corner. Correct. And according

1:25:21

to you have so many other things you could talk

1:25:23

about that you should be doing in a corner. Right.

1:25:26

I think to summarize right here today,

1:25:28

you could

1:25:30

practice those light swerves in

1:25:33

a light turn, a slider

1:25:35

turn, and just

1:25:37

try to build that muscle memory

1:25:40

to avoid those objects if you need

1:25:42

to. And so that you understand what

1:25:44

counter steering is. And just very quickly,

1:25:47

John, just to recap, describe

1:25:49

counter steering.

1:25:51

Counter steering is

1:25:53

when you press the

1:25:55

handlebar grip down and

1:25:57

away or forward. into

1:26:00

the direction that you want to initiate your turn

1:26:03

and then once the turn has been initiated

1:26:05

you'll need to counter steer with the outside

1:26:08

who

1:26:10

holds your line to make

1:26:12

that turn and to ultimately straighten

1:26:14

out. Which we'll do automatically

1:26:16

but understanding that counter steer to put the bike

1:26:18

into the lean is key because you're

1:26:21

just not going to lean it not any significant amount

1:26:23

without counter steering. And just

1:26:26

to underscore I guess the whole discussion

1:26:29

here is

1:26:31

talking about it reading a book listening

1:26:34

to a fantastic podcast is

1:26:36

not going to produce the

1:26:40

counter steer that you would so desire

1:26:42

in a situation. It's

1:26:44

going out consciously

1:26:48

working on this and like I said people

1:26:50

are having fun with this and the curves just kind

1:26:52

of doing a light these light changes so get out

1:26:54

there you know make it so that it's

1:26:56

it's an automatic

1:27:00

steering counter steering technique because

1:27:02

you can't be like oh yeah what did I hear on Jim's

1:27:04

podcast or what did you say I got a

1:27:06

press which way do I got to do it

1:27:09

can't be like that it has to be right

1:27:11

there on tap you know

1:27:13

ready to go.

1:27:15

That's great John thanks so much for your time I really

1:27:17

appreciate it.

1:27:18

Well thank you for having me I really do appreciate

1:27:20

it and I love the podcast.

1:27:37

I was speaking with John Del Vacchio from

1:27:39

Cornering Confidence his website is streetskills.net

1:27:43

his book is called Cornering Confidence

1:27:46

we've got some photos from John in the show notes as well

1:27:48

as a link to his website all in the show

1:27:50

notes at our website adventureriderradio.com

1:28:08

Hey,

1:28:13

I just want to remind you that this episode has been brought to

1:28:15

you by Green Chile Adventure Gear, GreenChileADV.com,

1:28:19

Motobreeze Chain Oiler at Motobreeze.com,

1:28:23

and the best rest products at CyclePump.com.

1:28:26

And we'd really appreciate it if anytime you're dealing with these companies,

1:28:29

anytime, email or otherwise, let them know you heard them

1:28:31

here on Adventure Rider Radio.

1:28:45

Well, that about wraps up another episode of Adventure

1:28:47

Rider Radio, and we sure hope you enjoyed listening to it as

1:28:49

much as we did making it. Special thanks to

1:28:51

our producer, Elizabeth Martin, and of course

1:28:53

to you, thank you very much for being a part of this by the end of

1:28:55

the show. Hey, if you've got any ideas for

1:28:57

topics or people that you'd like to hear on

1:28:59

Adventure Rider Radio, certainly drop by our website

1:29:02

and send us a message. Now,

1:29:04

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1:29:09

use your support. So drop by our website, AdventureRiderRadio.com,

1:29:12

click on support, think of what you get from things

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it if you'd look at our patron option, that's where we can count on

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you being there each month for us. Time to get out

1:29:25

there and ride your bike if you can. Oh, wait, I should

1:29:27

throw in there that we are coming up, I think

1:29:30

it's next week, on the 21st, we

1:29:32

have Adventure Rider Radio Raw coming out

1:29:34

for November. It comes out on the 21st of every month.

1:29:37

That's the other show that we do, if you're not familiar with that, again,

1:29:39

at the website, AdventureRiderRadio.com,

1:29:42

all the information's there, you get it anywhere

1:29:44

you find podcasts

1:29:45

just like you at Adventure Rider Radio.

1:29:47

Very popular as well, and I think you'll

1:29:49

like it. My name is Jim Martin, thank you very

1:29:51

much for listening, and I will talk to you next

1:30:03

Hey, I'm James Barkman and you are listening

1:30:05

to Adventure Rider Radio.

1:30:30

You