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I honestly can't imagine not reading the road and being sure my line of sight has some distance to it. Even on roads I know.
I guess you can let your guard down here and there, and one days all the variable turn you into a statistic. Probably how it happens.
bright-
It’s about the way you read it though. I’d have thought my use of the vanishing point (for example) is quite good. However, after discussing the difference in where you apex for where your turning point and exit point is, every corner this past week I have been reassessing where I am positioned.
Like I said tl:dr, advanced training - yes. 100%.
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The difference with motorbikes is that you do it much faster and often use the whole road, getting close to the verge on the 'wrong' side of the road. Calculating the best line while taking all hazards into account at high speeds is a new skill.
Or you can just slow down, nothing wrong with that. But as you get more confident your speed may well increase. You could be one of the few bikers who doesn't break the speed limit. But you seem like one of the ones who will.
The electronic aids don't have a role to play in a high proportion of bad crashes. If there's a smidsy, ABS doesn't help if you freeze in terror. This is very common. If you pick the wrong line and suddenly realise you won't make the corner, the aids don't stop you panicking or allow you to lean past the point of no return.
Study other people's crashes on youtube and try to work out how the riders could have prevented them, especially when a car driver has made an obvious mistake. Bikers always say that drivers are trying to kill them and that drivers are to blame for this and that and the other, as if staying alive is a lottery or not in your hands. But you make your own luck. You have to factor others' possible mistakes into your riding. If you don't, you're also guilty of making a mistake. The driver is hardly ever the one who gets hurt, so if you want to live you need to be the responsible one who plans with everybody's mistakes in mind.
pdlouche
nick_h.
Last weekend an ex-police-trainer advanced riding training guy did a couple hour talk for local riders. It was on the back of all the recent crashes and fatalities in and around Swindon. Very interesting stuff.
He skimmed over a lot of stuff because it was a very brief, cramming 3 days into 2 hours. Vanishing points, early/late apex and road vs race line, positioning, IAM vs other training, overtaking and how and when especially on bends etc.
Points hammered home - don’t overtake on junctions, don’t bother speeding in 30/40/50 limits, read the road well ahead to reduce anxiety but don’t forget to scan the ground in front as well.
Similar to the Biker Down talk, discussing looming and other phenomena… a lot is second nature but you need to make it conscious.
Since the talk, on roads I know well, I was looking at all the stuff to read the terrain and topo to give me clues on road shape and such.
Tl:dr - yes. Advanced training.