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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. You know by now that 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. It can be expensive and even dangerous to learn these things the hard way and that´s why we´re here. To share experiences and tweaks from other riders so that you don´t have to learn it the hard way. Because lets face it. We can all become better riders. And there are so many different kinds of motorcycles so just because you more or less master a custom bike doesn´t mean you know how to handle an adventure bike.
So big ups to all of you who PM me your tips and tricks to The Motorcycle Podcast on Instagram. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. And I know many out there will too.
Today´s tip comes from the Kawasaki er6 rider Emily from France and she says like this:
“Hi Patrik, and thank you for doing this podcast. I love it! I´ve already learned a few things by listening to you actually. Now I always turn off my motorcycle with the kickstand for example haha. I´m a pretty new motorcycle rider. I´ve been riding for about two summers so I´m still learning new things every day I ride. It´s just mindblowing how many things there is to think about and how vulnerable we are on these machines. It´s kind of crazy it´s legal to drive machines that are this fast with just a few weeks of training. Isn´t it? Haha!
I actually had an accident just 6 months after getting my motorcycle licence and I´m pretty sure it could have been avoided if I just would have been a bit more educated as a driver. Now I´m obviously more experienced BUT it cost me a broken arm and a crashed motorcycle.
So what happened is that I was out riding my lovely little Kawasaki er6 in the afternoon. The weather was quite nice and it was summer and I was so happy to go visit my friends in the countryside. So I had been driving for about 15–20 minutes and was just about to leave the city in a long exit that was slowly turning right. You know how it can be if you want to enter or leave a big road. This exit had, for some reason, huge wite arrows on it in the ground and I didn´t think about it and I didn´t drive that fast but all of a sudden, when leaning into the exit and driving over them white arrows, my rear wheel lost traction and I didn´t even have time to react. The motorcycle instantly fell to the ground and slid several meters away towards the side of the road and the guardrail.
I caught myself in the fall with my right hand and kind of slid on the right side of the hip before I tumbled over and landed on my back. I was soo scared and I was probably super high on adrenaline because I didn´t feel pain like the first 5 minutes after the crash. A car that came behind me called for 112 and an ambulance came pretty quick and by then I had already realized that my right arm probably was broken. So even if the motorcycle had been drivable I just couldn´t possibly drive it. It turned out later that it wasn´t drivable. The tow truck took it to the closest workshop and the insurance company was talking about scrapping the motorcycle instead of repairing it but in the end they repaired it and they did a good job. I still have her today. Luckilly I was fully insured so it wasn´t super expensive to repair her but it was somewhere between 500 – 600 euro. Money I was suppose to spend on an upcoming holiday. All my protection gear was luckily covered by the insurance as well so I got a whole new leather outfit and shoes and helmet.
Nowadays I´m obviously much more aware of the white lines and how slippery they can be when leaning into a curve. I still get a bit scared when I see them but I won´t let them scare me from riding my motorcycle!
So to all of you new riders out there. Avoid the white lines. Especially if they are in a curve or a corner. I imagine they´re even more slippery when wet so be careful!”
Much love from France Patrik! And yeah by the way, we will win the European Championship in football this year. Wait and see, wait and see. We will crush Spain tomorrow! Allez les Bleus!
Thank you so much for writing in Emily. I appreciate that you took the time to share your story to me and to the motorcycle community here. I´m sure a lot of people will have good use of this information. Especially new riders or soon to be riders who hasn´t already had their fair share of slippery white line encounters.
White slippery lines is indeed a thing. Especially when wet. I´ve had a few “almost accidents” on them white lines and like you said Emily, white lines in curves are definitely the worst. Especially if you´re giving it a little too much throttle OR, god forbid, break on them.
Not long ago I was actually out and about on my motorcycle here on Gran Canaria and suddenly it started to rain. It never rains in southern Gran Canaria so me and my friend was so surprised. But we saw on the skies that the weather was better further east so we turned left and started driving there on a 50 kilometer an hour road that we´ve been driving on a thousand times before. And yes, we were speeding a bit just to avoid the rain that suddenly came over us. My friend drove first and I followed. Then I saw his break lights shining up like a huge baboon arse and luckilly I wasn´t directly behind him but to his left a little bit.
So I started breaking but the wet asphalt was slippery as hell and then on top of this I realized that the reason he was breaking was because the red light that´s never ever been red before was indeed red and people were waiting to cross the street by the crosswalk. So my breaking was going quite good on the asphalt BUT as soon as I entered the huge white lines on the crosswalk, my rear wheel started traveling to the side. The flat and slippery surface on the white line probably caused the rear wheel to loose grip and for that reason it started going sideways. I instantly let go of the rear break for a split second and the motorcycle´s rear wheel found it´s way straight forward again. But it wasn´t a smooth manouver because it got straight with a little twitch when it found it´s grip again and the twitch could potentially have caused me to loose control of the motorcycle. In this case I was lucky and I didn´t loose control. But it was of course scary as hell and I was so thankful that the pedestrians wasn´t in the middle of the cross walk when I came there like an idiot, speeding on my motorcycle.
This whole “almost accident” was, if you look at it, the result of a very unlucky equation. We had 1) the rain that made us want to get away quickly, we had 2) the bad judgement to speed in rain and we had 3) a red light that´s normally never red that all of a sudden turned red. And that my friend is how accidents happen. Take one of the variables out and this situation wouldn´t have turned into an “almost accident”.
With all this being said about them white lines. We´re not saying you should be scared about them and never drive on them. The intention here is not to scare anyone. It´s just good to know that they CAN be slippery, especially in rain, and that it might be a bad idea to lean on them while giving throttle or break on them. That’s it!
So thanks again Emily for sharing this little golden nugget of wisdom and I´m sure many of the listeners have experienced similar things with these white lines. I´m glad you “only” broke an arm and I´m happy to hear that you´re out riding again and I hope your arm recovered well. And yeah we´ll see about that football game between Spain and France. I´m not so sure France will win actually =P Since I spend a lot of time on the Spanish island Gran Canaria I obviously have to root for Spain. May the best team win and take of you and your Kawasaki Emily. Ride safe!
To all my motorcycle brothers and sisters out there! Do you have a motorcycle tip that you want to share to the motorcycle community? Nice! I´m looking forward to hear it. Like you´ve seen in the previous episodes of The Motorcycle Podcast, it doesn´t have to be rocket science stuff – it could be a super small but yet so important detail that makes a difference. The devil IS in the details in the world of two wheels and we can all become better and safer motorcycle riders.
Spill the tea and drop your tops on The Motorcycle Podcast´s Instagram. Whether you wanna send a quick text or a lively voice message, the choice is yours. I prefer voice messages because I think they add a personal touch to the podcast. But it´s totally up to you. Reach out to me on “The Motorcycle Podcast” on Instagram, and let’s take it from there.
Thanks guys for listening and please share the podcast to your fellow riders or soon to be motorcycle riders. Stay humble, keep learning and keep teaching other riders. Be humble about the fact that you don´t know everything about motorcycles. No one does. And never ever become “Pretentious Peter” who pretends to know everything and is too proud to ask questions. That is, in my opinion, the number one reason why many older motorcycle riders are still pretty bad riders. They´re not humble enough. They are too proud and pretend to know it all. And for that reason they only learn from their own, often very expensive, mistakes. Maybe it´s a generational problem. I don´t know. But don´t you ever be “Pretentious Peter”.
If you want to be a part of building and contributing to a more humble and safer motorcycle community out there, please share The Motorcycle Podcast with your fellow motorcycle riders, soon to be riders and in your local motorcycle Facebook groups.
Last but not least, make sure to follow the podcast in your podcast player to make sure you won´t miss the upcoming episodes. We got plenty of good stuff coming up and you don´t want to miss it!
Two wheels, one love!
Keep the shiny side up folks!
See you next time in “The Motorcycle Podcast”
Adioooous!
Got a motorcycle tip burning in your pocket that you’re eager to share on The Motorcycle Podcast? Fantastic! It doesn’t have to be a groundbreaking revelation – it could be as simple and valuable as David’s insight from our first episode or Alejandra’s gem in today’s show.
As I’ve emphasized before, the magic lies in the details. So, spill the beans on those intricate maneuvers, nifty tricks, or hard-earned lessons you’ve picked up along your riding journey. Consider it your chance to help fellow riders avoid making the same mistakes.
Think about your next ride. What do you do differently? What’s your secret sauce? Share it with us!
Drop your tips on The Motorcycle Podcast’s Instagram. Whether it’s a quick text or a lively voice message, the choice is yours. I’m biased towards voice messages – they add a personal touch to the podcast – but feel free to choose what suits you best. Reach out to The Motorcycle Podcast on Instagram, and let’s take it from there.
Thanks guys for listening and thanks to all of you who spread the word about The Motorcycle Podcast on Instagram and TikTok. Big up to you! Also make sure to follow the podcast in your podcast player to make sure that you won´t miss the upcoming episodes.
Two wheels, one love!
Keep the shiny side up folks!
See you next time in “The Motorcycle Podcast”
Adioooous!
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