Weekday riding is for some riders a rare luxury, and this week I was reminded just how luxurious they can be. I'm not working right now, and Monday night a friend reached out to see if I could show some visiting Brazilians some of our local roads. So on Tuesday I met up with Lynn and Lygia who were visiting from Rio on their Moto Guzzi Stelvio.
My friend who'd contacted me had highlighted a map of great Marin and Sonoma country roads for Lynn and Lygia to follow, and it included some of my favorite backroads, but since it was a weekday, and they'd never been here before, it seemed worthwhile to try out some of the routes I usually avoid due to overcrowding. We rode straight to Tam Junction to pick up Hwy 1, then over the hill towards Stinson Beach. A brilliant road, and recently re-paved! Normally I avoid that section of Hwy 1 like the plague due to its usual crowding with frightened sightseers, overloaded minivans, stoned out surfers, and HOG chapter rides. On Tuesday is was nearly empty at 11 AM. Woo-Hoo!
Hwy 1 was so empty I even agreed to ride through Bodega Bay! And even better, my head didn't explode!
In the end, it was a great day of riding. Lynn and Lygia fly down the road on that Stelvio. We only rode goat trails for fun, not for the purpose of avoiding crowds. If you get a day off, you should try a weekday ride on a road that's normally too crowded. Like me, you may find you'd forgotten just how much fun can be had on a tourist road when the tourists are gone.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
RAIN! AGAIN!
I posted about rain back in July when I had just returned from a trip to France that featured a couple of heavy rainfalls. Back here in California, it's been the usual weather pattern of a dry summer followed by the resumption of rain in the autumn. Any of you who saw the Giants defeat the Cardinals in the NLCS know that rain has returned to northern California in earnest. With that in mind, what are some things to think about when riding goat trails during or after rain storms?
Since most of the roads here that we call goat trails are on hillsides, the number one concern regards run-off. What has run off the hillside and on to the road surface? It can be mud, sand, gravel, manure, etc. All slippery. With short sightlines and and the possibility of poor visibility when riding in the rain, it's good to be cognizant of the risks of run-off and adjust your speed accordingly. While you're at it, give some to where on the road the run-off is likely to be, beginning with the uphill side of the road surface.
Next, since one of the characteristics of California that gives us such fun roads is our area's geological instability, it's good to think about what that means - particularly if it's been raining heavily for some time. Sometimes what it means are mudslides, and while some of those can be similar to the debris on the road mentioned above, they can also turn into the road you're on sliding away down the hillside. No fun to round a turn and find there's no road! Another thing to consider when choosing the entry speed for a corner.
As the rain falls this time of year, it will also bring leaves and pine needles down on the road, creating a very slippery surface, and one which may take months to clear on the less traveled roads. Add to the the falling of some of the branches that held those leaves coming down in big storms, and in really big storms, even the trees that held the branches that held the leaves can be waiting to give you a surprise around that next bend.
Last for today, though we won't have to worry about it for a while, after a long damp period, roads that don't get much sun can develop moss. Moss is another one of those slippery items that can deliver a nasty surprise. Running in the tire tracks can help, but you need to be aware that the path your head takes around a corner won't be the same as the paths your tires take. If you cross over the area between the tracks, you'll find yourself in the mother lode of slippery!
Just a few thoughts rattling around in my head as I get ready to go out for a ride following our first real rain of the season. What did I miss?
Since most of the roads here that we call goat trails are on hillsides, the number one concern regards run-off. What has run off the hillside and on to the road surface? It can be mud, sand, gravel, manure, etc. All slippery. With short sightlines and and the possibility of poor visibility when riding in the rain, it's good to be cognizant of the risks of run-off and adjust your speed accordingly. While you're at it, give some to where on the road the run-off is likely to be, beginning with the uphill side of the road surface.
Next, since one of the characteristics of California that gives us such fun roads is our area's geological instability, it's good to think about what that means - particularly if it's been raining heavily for some time. Sometimes what it means are mudslides, and while some of those can be similar to the debris on the road mentioned above, they can also turn into the road you're on sliding away down the hillside. No fun to round a turn and find there's no road! Another thing to consider when choosing the entry speed for a corner.
As the rain falls this time of year, it will also bring leaves and pine needles down on the road, creating a very slippery surface, and one which may take months to clear on the less traveled roads. Add to the the falling of some of the branches that held those leaves coming down in big storms, and in really big storms, even the trees that held the branches that held the leaves can be waiting to give you a surprise around that next bend.
Last for today, though we won't have to worry about it for a while, after a long damp period, roads that don't get much sun can develop moss. Moss is another one of those slippery items that can deliver a nasty surprise. Running in the tire tracks can help, but you need to be aware that the path your head takes around a corner won't be the same as the paths your tires take. If you cross over the area between the tracks, you'll find yourself in the mother lode of slippery!
Just a few thoughts rattling around in my head as I get ready to go out for a ride following our first real rain of the season. What did I miss?
Friday, October 12, 2012
Visual Discipline
It's a truism in motorcycling that where you look determines where you go. If you focus on a a tree, the edge of the road, the bumper of the car in front of you, that's exactly where you'll steer the bike. You can find lots of discussion out there on motorcycle forums and in other literature that explains that, but let's just call it a given, and refer to it as target fixation. Below is a classic, if somewhat chilling, example. The rider visually locks on to something that frightens him, then crashes straight into it.
There may be riders who've never experienced target fixation, but I'm not one of them. Come to think of it, most riders I know well will admit to having experienced it one time or another. Truth be told, I've experienced target fixation at least once per year for as long as I've been riding. Yet for me and most of these same riders, target fixation does not always result in crashing. Why is that?
Looking at the above video gives us a classic example of how target fixation typically begins. In the video it appears that the rider brakes for the upcoming turn / intersection and inadvertently looks the rear brake causing the rear wheel to slide, and the rider to panic - stiffen up, foot off the peg, etc. - the rider sees the wall, stares at the wall, and proceeds straight into the wall. Ouch! The critical point being that target fixation is typically preceded by something happening that scares the rider, causing the rider to stare at whatever is the object of fright, then steering straight into it.
If it's fairly common for riders to target fixate, but not that common for them to crash as a result, what is it that enables a rider to recover from target fixation incident, and safely avoid a crash? My experience is that somehow the rider recognizes what is happening, and breaks the fixation by choosing to look where he wants to go rather than at what he wants to avoid.
This ties to the topic of visual discipline - knowing where you're looking, knowing where you need to be looking in order to safely pilot your motorcycle, having the presence of mind to recognize when the two don't match and that corrective action is required, and having the discipline in the face to fear to put your eyes where you need them to be. No mean feat.
How do you accomplish this? Going back to an earlier post on self-awareness, it begins with knowing where you're looking as you ride. Where am I looking? Are my eyes scanning the road out to the vanishing point? Am I looking at the ground just ahead of my front wheel? Am I locking on to roadside objects that scare me? Some self-awareness and self-critiquing will go a long way towards establishing a baseline of experiential knowledge regarding where you need to look.
The next step is recognizing when your normal pattern of looking at the road has been disrupted. A good clue for this can be seen in the video - it's noticing that you're frightened. Have you suddenly stiffened up, stopped breathing, felt a jolt of adrenaline and a rise in your heart rate? Are you staring at something?
And this is where the "discipline" part comes in. Having noticed this, it's time to force yourself to look where you want to go. There are times when I've felt like I need to reach up and grab the chin bar of my own helmet to yank my head in the direction I needed to look! You know what? If that's what it takes, that's what you do.
Lee Parks has an exercise he describes in his book, Total Control, that helps out with this. You'll need a friend and a parking lot to pull this off, but it will greatly help you in developing the ability to recover once you target fixate. Lee suggests that you figure out where you can comfortably ride in a circle with your friend standing in the middle. As you ride around the circle, your friend rotates in the middle so that the two of you can maintain eye contact. Every time you break eye contact your friend will point it out and tell you, "look at me." Keep doing this until you can consistently ride the circle without breaking eye contact. When you can do that, tighten the radius of the circle until it begins to be difficult to maintain eye contact, then stay at that radius until you master it, then tighten the circle again. Do this turning both clockwise and counter-clockwise, trading places with your friend so that you both gain experience looking consistently where you want to go, and recovering if you get distracted.
This is a great way to develop and sharpen the visual discipline that will help you recover when you start to target fixate, assuring that your ride home is on the bike and not in an ambulance.
There may be riders who've never experienced target fixation, but I'm not one of them. Come to think of it, most riders I know well will admit to having experienced it one time or another. Truth be told, I've experienced target fixation at least once per year for as long as I've been riding. Yet for me and most of these same riders, target fixation does not always result in crashing. Why is that?
Looking at the above video gives us a classic example of how target fixation typically begins. In the video it appears that the rider brakes for the upcoming turn / intersection and inadvertently looks the rear brake causing the rear wheel to slide, and the rider to panic - stiffen up, foot off the peg, etc. - the rider sees the wall, stares at the wall, and proceeds straight into the wall. Ouch! The critical point being that target fixation is typically preceded by something happening that scares the rider, causing the rider to stare at whatever is the object of fright, then steering straight into it.
If it's fairly common for riders to target fixate, but not that common for them to crash as a result, what is it that enables a rider to recover from target fixation incident, and safely avoid a crash? My experience is that somehow the rider recognizes what is happening, and breaks the fixation by choosing to look where he wants to go rather than at what he wants to avoid.
This ties to the topic of visual discipline - knowing where you're looking, knowing where you need to be looking in order to safely pilot your motorcycle, having the presence of mind to recognize when the two don't match and that corrective action is required, and having the discipline in the face to fear to put your eyes where you need them to be. No mean feat.
How do you accomplish this? Going back to an earlier post on self-awareness, it begins with knowing where you're looking as you ride. Where am I looking? Are my eyes scanning the road out to the vanishing point? Am I looking at the ground just ahead of my front wheel? Am I locking on to roadside objects that scare me? Some self-awareness and self-critiquing will go a long way towards establishing a baseline of experiential knowledge regarding where you need to look.
The next step is recognizing when your normal pattern of looking at the road has been disrupted. A good clue for this can be seen in the video - it's noticing that you're frightened. Have you suddenly stiffened up, stopped breathing, felt a jolt of adrenaline and a rise in your heart rate? Are you staring at something?
And this is where the "discipline" part comes in. Having noticed this, it's time to force yourself to look where you want to go. There are times when I've felt like I need to reach up and grab the chin bar of my own helmet to yank my head in the direction I needed to look! You know what? If that's what it takes, that's what you do.
Lee Parks has an exercise he describes in his book, Total Control, that helps out with this. You'll need a friend and a parking lot to pull this off, but it will greatly help you in developing the ability to recover once you target fixate. Lee suggests that you figure out where you can comfortably ride in a circle with your friend standing in the middle. As you ride around the circle, your friend rotates in the middle so that the two of you can maintain eye contact. Every time you break eye contact your friend will point it out and tell you, "look at me." Keep doing this until you can consistently ride the circle without breaking eye contact. When you can do that, tighten the radius of the circle until it begins to be difficult to maintain eye contact, then stay at that radius until you master it, then tighten the circle again. Do this turning both clockwise and counter-clockwise, trading places with your friend so that you both gain experience looking consistently where you want to go, and recovering if you get distracted.
This is a great way to develop and sharpen the visual discipline that will help you recover when you start to target fixate, assuring that your ride home is on the bike and not in an ambulance.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Friuli?
An area in northeastern Italy near Slovenia and the Adriatic that I've not visited, but now I feel compelled. My favorite videographer of alpine riding is a German fellow whose YouTube channel name is TheMimoto, and he recently posted a video taken in August of riding in Friuli. My mouth is watering!
It's definitely worth a watch, and when you're done, if you still want some more, here's a video made by one of his companions on the same trip.
If you've ever wondered whether you should ride the Alps, these videos should make clear that the answer is an emphatic, "Yes!"
It's definitely worth a watch, and when you're done, if you still want some more, here's a video made by one of his companions on the same trip.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Self-Reflection
No, not that clown in the mirror. Well, sometimes.
Self-reflection in this case is your ability to evaluate your own performance of any skill, activity, knowledge, whatever. In this case, let's assume it has to do with riding motorcycles, and evaluating your own abilities, and based on that evaluation, make positive changes in the way you ride. Is this something you do? Is it something you think about?
Assuming you're not a riding god, and assuming you know that, and you're not a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, most of us have some room for improvement in our riding. Barring having regular sessions with a riding coach who observes your riding and provides useful feedback, we're pretty much stuck with evaluating our own riding. We may read all the best books on becoming better riders. We may post questions on internet forums and eagerly sift through the answers. We may even ride with more accomplished buddies who demonstrate how they get up and down the local racer road. But even after we do all that, we still have to compare these ideals with an unvarnished look at the way we're riding now before we can hope to figure out the steps to take to improve. Yep, self-reflection.
Here's what got me thinking about this. A few weeks back I was with some motorcycle friends talking about (what else?) riding. One of these friends - who will remain nameless for now - knows more about what it takes to ride a motorcycle quickly and well than anyone else I have the pleasure to know. When the topic of conversation moved to embarrassing events, I related what happened when I crashed my motorcycle about a year ago.
Crashing my motorcycle is not something I like to do, and it had been 5 years since my prior crash, and 20 years back to the one before that. Last year's crash had been a bit of a mystery to me, and the only thing that seemed to explain it was too much throttle in a low traction situation, but the quickness and violence of the crash made that explanation a bit unsatisfying, and no one I'd talked to about it had any better of an explanation than that one.
When my friend heard how the crash happened, he said that he'd seen a lot of people crash by getting back on the throttle before they finished setting the lean angle for the turn, and in those cases these riders experienced losing the rear tire and low-siding even though their lean angle wasn't terribly steep and traction was not that bad. This seemed odd, and it stuck with me.
The next day a group of us were riding over the Sierra headed back to the Bay Area, and I began to reflect on what he'd said, asking myself, "Am I opening the throttle before I've finished setting the lean angle?" I didn't think about it every turn, but when I had time to think, I posed the question. Any time I felt like the rear tire had been squirming or skittering across the road, I posed the question. Here's what I found: yes, in some cases in some circumstances, I sometimes start opening the throttle before I finish setting the lean angle for the turn. Exciting! A new insight! Once home a brief exchange of messages confirming what had been suggested, and some helpful feedback, and more to work on.
The moral of the story is that it doesn't matter how much Code, Parks, Ienatsch, Hough or others you read, you've got to bring them with you when you ride. The only way to do that is save a little bit of bandwidth to observe and record your own riding, then - perhaps later - reflect on what you observed and how it compared to what you read. Is there a gap? Can you learn something from that gap? Can you bring that gap back to another reading of the book to see if you learn something else? I hope the answer is in all cases "yes"!
Self-reflection is a key skill to develop in becoming better at pretty much anything, including riding, just don't let staring in the mirror overwhelm everything else. We all know what happened to that Narcissus character.
Self-reflection in this case is your ability to evaluate your own performance of any skill, activity, knowledge, whatever. In this case, let's assume it has to do with riding motorcycles, and evaluating your own abilities, and based on that evaluation, make positive changes in the way you ride. Is this something you do? Is it something you think about?
Assuming you're not a riding god, and assuming you know that, and you're not a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, most of us have some room for improvement in our riding. Barring having regular sessions with a riding coach who observes your riding and provides useful feedback, we're pretty much stuck with evaluating our own riding. We may read all the best books on becoming better riders. We may post questions on internet forums and eagerly sift through the answers. We may even ride with more accomplished buddies who demonstrate how they get up and down the local racer road. But even after we do all that, we still have to compare these ideals with an unvarnished look at the way we're riding now before we can hope to figure out the steps to take to improve. Yep, self-reflection.
Here's what got me thinking about this. A few weeks back I was with some motorcycle friends talking about (what else?) riding. One of these friends - who will remain nameless for now - knows more about what it takes to ride a motorcycle quickly and well than anyone else I have the pleasure to know. When the topic of conversation moved to embarrassing events, I related what happened when I crashed my motorcycle about a year ago.
Crashing my motorcycle is not something I like to do, and it had been 5 years since my prior crash, and 20 years back to the one before that. Last year's crash had been a bit of a mystery to me, and the only thing that seemed to explain it was too much throttle in a low traction situation, but the quickness and violence of the crash made that explanation a bit unsatisfying, and no one I'd talked to about it had any better of an explanation than that one.
When my friend heard how the crash happened, he said that he'd seen a lot of people crash by getting back on the throttle before they finished setting the lean angle for the turn, and in those cases these riders experienced losing the rear tire and low-siding even though their lean angle wasn't terribly steep and traction was not that bad. This seemed odd, and it stuck with me.
The next day a group of us were riding over the Sierra headed back to the Bay Area, and I began to reflect on what he'd said, asking myself, "Am I opening the throttle before I've finished setting the lean angle?" I didn't think about it every turn, but when I had time to think, I posed the question. Any time I felt like the rear tire had been squirming or skittering across the road, I posed the question. Here's what I found: yes, in some cases in some circumstances, I sometimes start opening the throttle before I finish setting the lean angle for the turn. Exciting! A new insight! Once home a brief exchange of messages confirming what had been suggested, and some helpful feedback, and more to work on.
The moral of the story is that it doesn't matter how much Code, Parks, Ienatsch, Hough or others you read, you've got to bring them with you when you ride. The only way to do that is save a little bit of bandwidth to observe and record your own riding, then - perhaps later - reflect on what you observed and how it compared to what you read. Is there a gap? Can you learn something from that gap? Can you bring that gap back to another reading of the book to see if you learn something else? I hope the answer is in all cases "yes"!
Self-reflection is a key skill to develop in becoming better at pretty much anything, including riding, just don't let staring in the mirror overwhelm everything else. We all know what happened to that Narcissus character.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Hawthorne!
Tomorrow begins the annual Bay Area Riders Forum (BARF) Rydther Rally bound for Hawthorne, NV. I think this is the 5th annual, or thereabouts. We travel to Hawthorne each year in memory of a deceased member whose motto was Ride There, wherever it might be. Going there by motorcycle is better than going just about any other way. We ride to Hawthorne every year to remind ourselves of the truth of his motto.
Why Hawthorne? Lots of reasons, but I'll start with four:
Once you're over the passes, the fun doesn't stop. You can have lunch at The Whoa Nellie Deli at The Mobil in Lee Vining to experience fine dining in a truly improbable setting. If that doesn't suit you, there's always Mountain View BBQ in Walker, CA, a worthy destination even if you chose to turn around and head back home.
While you're taking in the natural beauty, you'll pass right by the legendary Mono Lake, which is slowly returning to its earlier water levels.
As for Hawthorne itself? Well, Hawthorne is an old munitions town, with bunkers dotting the hillsides surrounding the town. It's a remote spot, a relatively quiet (unless they're disposing of old munitions) spot in the desert. It's inexpensive to stay there. It's inexpensive to eat there. The locals have always been happy to see us, and to share their hospitality over the course of a few days of days of riding and hanging out by the pool, and evenings of having fun over in Joe's bar. It's tough to beat.
See you when I get back.
Why Hawthorne? Lots of reasons, but I'll start with four:
- Tioga Pass
- Sonora Pass
- Ebbetts Pass
- Monitor Pass
Once you're over the passes, the fun doesn't stop. You can have lunch at The Whoa Nellie Deli at The Mobil in Lee Vining to experience fine dining in a truly improbable setting. If that doesn't suit you, there's always Mountain View BBQ in Walker, CA, a worthy destination even if you chose to turn around and head back home.
While you're taking in the natural beauty, you'll pass right by the legendary Mono Lake, which is slowly returning to its earlier water levels.
As for Hawthorne itself? Well, Hawthorne is an old munitions town, with bunkers dotting the hillsides surrounding the town. It's a remote spot, a relatively quiet (unless they're disposing of old munitions) spot in the desert. It's inexpensive to stay there. It's inexpensive to eat there. The locals have always been happy to see us, and to share their hospitality over the course of a few days of days of riding and hanging out by the pool, and evenings of having fun over in Joe's bar. It's tough to beat.
See you when I get back.
Hairpins (again!)
Two weeks ago I enjoyed a great goat trail ride! Some of my favorite Marin and Sonoma roads, little traffic, nice weather, and ripe blackberries by the roadside for a little al fresco feasting. Combine that with riding with good friends, and that's just about ideal. Throw in a new learning, and it gets even better.
I've posted before on the topic of hairpin turns on a couple of occasions because they cause problems for lots of riders. One of the varieties of hairpins that I've seen cause the most difficulty are downhill right-handers, and I devoted a post to that particular variety earlier this summer. Our ride two weeks ago demonstrated that uphill right-handers can be problematic too, and that's the topic of this post.
What do the two varieties have in common beyond the obvious fact of turning to the right? In the ones I've seen cause the most problems the other common feature is very short sight-lines - the rider can't see where the road goes beyond some obstruction (tree, hillside, wall, house) that is on the inside of the turn. The result of that short sight-line is one of the following, or some combination; the rider slows (not a bad idea), stiffens (not so good), stares at the ground in front of the front wheel that is visible, stares out the opposite side of the road which is also visible, forgets to shift down to a gear appropriate for the slower speed, etc. With the exception of the first one, not optimal responses. Let's examine them.
Slowing down is not a bad idea. The conventional wisdom is that you should travel at a rate at which it takes you four seconds to reach the edge of your line of sight so that you have adequate time to react to any obstruction of your path. It's pretty hard to argue against that even when your line of sight is so short that your speed drops to what feels like a crawl, however unless your path actually is obstructed, I can't remember seeing a hairpin so tight that you need to get your feet off the pegs. Keep your feet in the pegs, shift to a gear appropriate for your road speed, cover the clutch if necessary, and be very careful of using the front brake unless you actually have to stop. You're going uphill, so you should be able to control your speed by rolling off the throttle and/or using the rear brake.
Stiffening is pretty much always a bad idea, in hairpins or otherwise. It your elbows are stiff and/or you have a death grip on the bars, you're too stiff, and nothing good can come of that. This is the time when you need to be a little self-aware (difficult if you're frightened), and wiggle your fingers and waggle your elbows to loosen them up. Two of the most common causes are the following:
Looking at the ground. The old saying in motorcycling that shows up as more and more true the longer I ride is that you go where you look. Meaning in this case that if you look at the ground, that's where you're going. Looking at successive spots eight feet in front of you will mean that even at very low speeds the world will be a continual surprise, you'll be frightened, you'll stiffen as a result, and you make bad things more likely to happen. Get your eyes up.
Looking at the outside of the turn. Where you look is where you go, right? If you're looking at the opposite roadside, where do think you're likely to end up? Bingo! Across the road and in the ditch, unless you're really unlucky, in which case the local in the F350 heading to pick up the day's second sixpack may turn you into a hood ornament before you get there.
So, if it's okay to slow down, but it's bad to stiffen, or to look at the ground, or to look at the other side of the road, and your line of sight is blocked, where in the world are you supposed to look? I'm glad you asked. You want to keep your eyes probing the place where the road is about to appear. You're always pushing your eyes out in front so you can see the road surface at the earliest possible point of visibility. Your eyes won't be in just one place, you'll scan to the farthest point you can see, then let your eyes come back, then scan ahead, moving quickly to take it all in. Ideally, you should be scanning the roadside, the trees, the local geography to see what other cues about that emerging road you can pick up. I'll post something in the near future about reading the road, but for now keep looking ahead to where the road disappears (the vanishing point), keep on looking for the right-hand edge of the road, keep your eyes up, and your elbows and grip loose, and keep the bike on your side of the road. Enjoy!
I've posted before on the topic of hairpin turns on a couple of occasions because they cause problems for lots of riders. One of the varieties of hairpins that I've seen cause the most difficulty are downhill right-handers, and I devoted a post to that particular variety earlier this summer. Our ride two weeks ago demonstrated that uphill right-handers can be problematic too, and that's the topic of this post.
What do the two varieties have in common beyond the obvious fact of turning to the right? In the ones I've seen cause the most problems the other common feature is very short sight-lines - the rider can't see where the road goes beyond some obstruction (tree, hillside, wall, house) that is on the inside of the turn. The result of that short sight-line is one of the following, or some combination; the rider slows (not a bad idea), stiffens (not so good), stares at the ground in front of the front wheel that is visible, stares out the opposite side of the road which is also visible, forgets to shift down to a gear appropriate for the slower speed, etc. With the exception of the first one, not optimal responses. Let's examine them.
Slowing down is not a bad idea. The conventional wisdom is that you should travel at a rate at which it takes you four seconds to reach the edge of your line of sight so that you have adequate time to react to any obstruction of your path. It's pretty hard to argue against that even when your line of sight is so short that your speed drops to what feels like a crawl, however unless your path actually is obstructed, I can't remember seeing a hairpin so tight that you need to get your feet off the pegs. Keep your feet in the pegs, shift to a gear appropriate for your road speed, cover the clutch if necessary, and be very careful of using the front brake unless you actually have to stop. You're going uphill, so you should be able to control your speed by rolling off the throttle and/or using the rear brake.
Stiffening is pretty much always a bad idea, in hairpins or otherwise. It your elbows are stiff and/or you have a death grip on the bars, you're too stiff, and nothing good can come of that. This is the time when you need to be a little self-aware (difficult if you're frightened), and wiggle your fingers and waggle your elbows to loosen them up. Two of the most common causes are the following:
Looking at the ground. The old saying in motorcycling that shows up as more and more true the longer I ride is that you go where you look. Meaning in this case that if you look at the ground, that's where you're going. Looking at successive spots eight feet in front of you will mean that even at very low speeds the world will be a continual surprise, you'll be frightened, you'll stiffen as a result, and you make bad things more likely to happen. Get your eyes up.
Looking at the outside of the turn. Where you look is where you go, right? If you're looking at the opposite roadside, where do think you're likely to end up? Bingo! Across the road and in the ditch, unless you're really unlucky, in which case the local in the F350 heading to pick up the day's second sixpack may turn you into a hood ornament before you get there.
So, if it's okay to slow down, but it's bad to stiffen, or to look at the ground, or to look at the other side of the road, and your line of sight is blocked, where in the world are you supposed to look? I'm glad you asked. You want to keep your eyes probing the place where the road is about to appear. You're always pushing your eyes out in front so you can see the road surface at the earliest possible point of visibility. Your eyes won't be in just one place, you'll scan to the farthest point you can see, then let your eyes come back, then scan ahead, moving quickly to take it all in. Ideally, you should be scanning the roadside, the trees, the local geography to see what other cues about that emerging road you can pick up. I'll post something in the near future about reading the road, but for now keep looking ahead to where the road disappears (the vanishing point), keep on looking for the right-hand edge of the road, keep your eyes up, and your elbows and grip loose, and keep the bike on your side of the road. Enjoy!
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