I joined the club tonight.

[LOKi]

 

[JB1290]

  ^^^^

[bajakirch]

OK, so it's been a few days since my spill. Undaunted, I jumped back on the horse and have been riding it to and from work all week.

So here's my question:  When do I get my confidence back?

Every corner I take now, I'm waiting to feel that slippage. I find myself taking my turns wider and slower to reduce my lean.

Nearing the end of my second riding season, and having put nearly 10k miles on the bike, I really felt like I was a pretty confident rider. Before my tires got bad, I wasn't shy about leaning enough to scrape a peg or two.

Now I kinda feel like a big chicken-sh!t. Are the tires well-scrubbed yet? Can I take this curve at 60 without sliding into opposing traffic? Can I safely weave around that obstruction in the roadway? These are the kinds of thoughts running through my head when I'm riding now.

Do I simply cowboy-up and push myself to get my confidence back? Or will it come with time, just like it did after I first started riding?

OK, whining over.  

[chas550sc]

OK, so it's been a few days since my spill. Undaunted, I jumped back on the horse and have been riding it to and from work all week.

So here's my question:  When do I get my confidence back?  

From my experinces some twenty years ago, the fear will subside most of the way, but you will never get all the way back, because some of your cofidence was based on ignorance.
You just learned that not only are the cagers homicidal maniacs out to get you, but the GD surface is not a uniform plain of trustworthy friction, but rather an ill maintained conglomerate of variable surfaces, often bathed in a wide array of water and petroluem based lubricants, all craftily disguised to appear innocuos.

So it is unlikely that your confidence will ever be the same, but like many things once the innocence is lost the fun begins, so consider this is a good thing, since your prior blissful ignorance gave you license to be over confident and unhappily surprised. Now you can add a constant scan of the surface to your already active scans for cages, dogs, birds, children and other fatal objects.
FWIW, here is my personal lanudry list of scary surface conditions that i HAVE PERSONALLY had a close call or worse and I am constantly vigilant for:
Dirt,
sand,
gravel,
oil,
water,
ice,
black ice (under overpasses triple bad)
expansion jounts
exppansion joints running the length of a bridge
any kind of patch
dieffernt color surface
paint,
shadows,
leaves,
dead animals,
body fluids,
beer,
oil in toll booth lanes
deep wear grooves at stop lights or toll lanes making getting a foot down,
twinkies (jk)
others what would you add?
(low airpressure in tire can have the exact same efftect btw)

PS -IMHO, peg scraping is really best suited for tracks or previously inspected courses where you know he danger.

[ariwhiteboy]

Good list chas!  May I add to it that metal grate that you often find on draw bridges...somethimes that stuff can make you feel like the front wheel is thinking about mutiny.

[Bumblebee]

So here's my question:  When do I get my confidence back?

At some point you'll be riding along and realize you haven't been thinking about the ground for weeks. That's when. Not a minute sooner. Not a minute later. It'll happen when it's time. Just keep getting on the pony and be patient and you'll get there.

Nearing the end of my second riding season, and having put nearly 10k miles on the bike, I really felt like I was a pretty confident rider.

Just two years? What are you complaining about?   I had over 11 years of regular experience when I went down then realized I knew absolutely nothing about riding. My previous confidence was actually me being too stupid to even know I was a danger to myself.

Confidence and competence is two different things. Focus on the ride and what you're doing, not your prehistoric don't get eaten by the dinosaur fears. Analyze, think objectively, apply the lesson, improve yourself. Go back to the parking lot and let the motorcycle teach you that you can trust it. I got over the problem by improving slow school skills and riding hundreds of miles on forest service roads. Competence will be followed by confidence.


IMHO, crashing is one of the best things that can happen to a rider. Everyone should go down without warning at least once.

[LOKi]

Ride with us at the rally. Two or three days fallowing other nighthawks around twisty roads will boost your confidence in the bike 100 fold. It's easy to trust your bike to make a turn when your watching YOUR BIKE make that turn right before your eyes.

[ariwhiteboy]

Just don't follow Loki...

[Munkey]

others what would you add?

In my neck of the woods, I'd have to add corn and soybeans to the list at this time of the year. Nothing worse than going into a corner and seeing the road covered with corn kernals.

Well....maybe seeing the road covered with corn kernals and a whole flock of turkeys eating it. That would be worse, but so far, haven't seen that.

[hppants]

Just don't follow Loki...

I don't think he has a choice. 

[LOKi]

you can add mud to that list of road hazards. Here in Louisiana the mud is really slick. When tractors pull out onto a road they leave a trail of it. Hit that stuff when it's wet and you might as well be on ice covered by snail snot.

[LOKi]

Just don't follow Loki...

Well next year probably not. I'm going back to stickies over the mud grips. Mud grips just encourage me to take the bike places it really shouldn't be. Next rally I'll be more confident in the bike NOT to drift when I get on the gas in the turns. The slight drift is fun but I would rather it just stick.

[LOKi]

I too lost confidence in the bike this summer. Even though my "offs" where caused by something that just doesn't apply to riding (being pulled by a 4 wheeler on rutted gravel roads). I still ride pretty aggressively but I'm wherry of leaning to far. Maybe my back tire braking free as I turned out into traffic put the fear in me. Didn't go down but shook me up a bit. Enough the question the tires.

Shortly after getting the bike back together I went for a ride with Paints and he was diving into turns I was second guessing. If he was not leading the way I probably would not have taken some of those turns as fast as we did. This was after a month layoff to rebuild the trany. So I was really questioning my ability and the bikes ability still. Fallowing Pants helped a lot. "well if his bike can do it mine can too".

 

[gammer]

others what would you add?

Frost.

Could be considered ice, but not exactly. Should be treated like driving on ice though.