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Hi there fellow biker or soon to be biker. And welcome to “The Motorcycle Podcast”. My name is Patrik and I´m your humble host. Like I said in the introduction episode of The Motorcycle Podcast – this is a podcast by bikers for bikers giving you all the tips and tricks that they don´t teach you at the driving school and the tricks that you normally have to learn the hard way. In this podcast you will learn these tricks BEFORE you learn them the hard way and loose loads of money or even your own life. As we all know, motorcycling IS utterly dangerous and the margins couldn´t possibly be smaller. A simple mistake can have fatal consequences on you, your bike or people around you.
And that´s the mission of this podcast. To make bikers better bikers one little step at a time. To share tips and tricks between bikers so that we can all live to ride another day. No matter if you´ve been riding for 40 years or for 6 months or never – we can all become better riders because motorcycling is a continuous learning progress. To be honest, experience is great but just because you´ve got 40 years of riding motorcycles under your belt doesn´t mean that you´re a good rider or even a better rider than a well educated driver who has been riding for 5 years and continuously has been improving his or her riding technique. So for that reason, let´s get educated. Let´s become educated and skilled riders!
Today´s tip comes from the Yamaha r6 rider Alejandra in Spain. And she says like this:
“Hola Patrik and thank you for do this podcast. I think is going to help a lot of bikers and aspiring bikers out there. One thing that I learn the hard way was that only look in the rear view mirror when change lanes or make a turn is NOT enough.
So my tip is: Make it a habit to ALWAYS turn your head and look behind you when you turn or change lanes!
One time when I was driving, I was going to change lane to the left and pass a slow car in front of me. I check the rear view mirror, turn and BAM, I hit a car that was passing me in the blind spot. Lucky I do a slow lane change so I wasn’t crash into the car but I touch the car with both my left leg and the left rear view mirror that I just look in. I almost shit my pants and my heart was pumping so fast. I think I was going to crash and die but I didn’t. I manage to keep the motorcycle on the road but I was so scared every time I ride the bike for weeks after that incident and I don’t wish anyone else out there to experience this. Not to mention the cost of fixing the scratches my rear view mirror do on the side of the car. And that’s why I want to share this tip:
So, make it a habit to ALWAYS turn your head and look behind you when you turn or change lanes.
It only cost you a second to do it and it can be the difference between life and death. If I have done it, I would have save me a few of my nine lives and a bit of money and all the work have to deal with the insurance company and such.
I hope you find this useful for The Motorcycle Podcast Patrik. I at least wish that someone tell me this before I learn it the hard way. It’s just not worth it. The price for this lesson is too high.
Have a nice vacation on Gran Canaria and say hello to your red Yamaha Fazer 1000 from me. I let you know if I come there in the future to enjoy the curves of the island. I have so far never been even though it’s my country.
Take care Patrik, much love from Spain, Alejandra!”
Thank´s a lot Alejandra for taking your time to write to The Motorcycle Podcast and thanks for sharing your simple but yet very good motorcycle tip. I´m sorry for your horrible experience and I´m happy that you´re okey and that it was just some material damages. Good thing that you didn´t just park the motorcycle in the garage and left it there afterwards but actually got up on the horse again, even though you were afraid, to get over that fear and to be able to continue to ride your lovely R6.
And I think this, just like David´s tip in the first episode of The Motorcycle Podcast is, yet again, such a good example on why I´m doing this podcast and how such a simple thing can have such a huge impact on riding a motorcycle. The devil is very much in the details.
Luckily I don´t have a similar experience that comes close to what Alejandra was telling us about but sure, I have been changing lanes only looking in the rear view mirror when all of a sudden there´s a car in the blind spot passing me quickly. It´s horrible. It makes you realize how small the margins are when you´re on a motorcycle. A few centimeters less and you´d never be riding a bike again. The blind spot is a bitch but it will always be there and every time someone is passing you, they will be there for, hopefully, a very short time. But some people pass you by very slowly. They might be in the blind spot for many seconds. Then it doesn´t matter how many times you look in the rear view mirror. You´ll never see them.
So this tip can´t be stressed enough actually. Make it a habit to ALWAYS turn your head and look behind you before you change lane or make a turn. It´s truly a life saver!
The rear view mirrors on motorcycles are sometimes very small. You can see things that are close behind you in it, sure, but it´s super difficult to see if there´s a speeding car or motorcycle quickly approaching you. And I´ve had rear view mirrors on motorcycles that vibrate like crazy in certain rpms or speeds. They worked pretty good up to about 70 kilometers an hour but then my eyes would turn into a milkshake if I looked in them. Which was a good thing because then I actually HAD TO start turning my head.
When I was taking my driving license for the motorcycle I had a teacher who was on my like crazy nagging about turning your head and look behind you before you turn or change lanes. He was bloody crazy about it. Almost obsessed. He would drive behind me when practicing in the city and sometimes when I turned or changed lane without turning my head and look back, he would basically almost ram me from the side and stand on the horn and scream stuff like “look behind you you idiot” in the communication system and make me almost shit my pants several times a day. But it worked. Today I very, very seldom change lanes or turn without turning my head around for a second to look what´s coming from behind. And it has saved me countless times from crashing into people passing me in the blind spot or having speeding cars and motorcycles crashing into my ass.
So with that being said and like Alejandra and my crazy motorcycle teacher said:
Make it a habit to ALWAYS turn your head and look behind you when you turn or change lanes. It´s not about if shit hits the fan, it´s about when!
Do you have a motorcycle tip that you want to share in The Motorcycle Podcast? Sweet! It doesn´t have to be a huge thing, it can be as simple as David´s in the first episode or like Alejandra´s in this episode. I´ve said it before and I´ll say it again: the devil is in the details and we need them margins on our side always!
So bring them details and let´s talk about them. Think about it the next time you´re out riding. What little tricks do you do? What little tricks are you using? What have you learned the hard way that might be interesting for others to hear before they make the same mistake?
And if you have one, which I know you do, you send it to me on The Motorcycle Podcast on Instagram. It can be in text or it can be a voice message. You decide. I prefer voice because of course because it´s more fun and interesting to add your voice to the podcast. Don´t be shy guys! But it´s all up to you of course. So, like I said, hit me up on The Motorcycle Podcast on Instagram and we´ll take it from there.
Thanks guys for listening and thanks to all of you who are spreading the word about the podcast on social media. Big ups to you! I really appreciate it!
And last but not least, make sure to follow the podcast in your podcast player to make sure that you won´t miss the upcoming episodes. This is just the beginning and we have so much good content coming up that you don´t want to miss!
Two wheels, one love!
Keep the shiny side up folks!
See you next time in The Motorcycle Podcast
Adioooous!
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