Up Front

UP FRONT

MY FATAL MISTAKES

Allan Girdler

Random chance, luck of the draw, the Grace of God, I don't know which. Begin with the stripped stud that meant I didn't ride home on the bike I planned to ride, but had to roll out the Suzuki GS450S that was waiting for some experimental work in the shop. The house rule is that no bike ever gets put away with an empty tank, and that when you fill the tank you zero the tripmeter so the next guy can tell if the machine needs gas and won't get stranded out there on the highway

You guessed. When the office closed I grabbed the 450, didn't take the KZ440 because the GS tripmeter only showed 33 miles, no bother with getting to the station on time. I grabbed a hamburger and went to a meeting with the state motorcycle people. Broke up around 10 p.m. and I hit the highway thinking mostly about getting home to bed.

And—although I didn’t think anything of either of these—the headlight wasn’t aimed right. Low beam illuminated the front fender, high beam gave a good view 20 feet down the road. I don’t actually need to wear my glasses. I’ve managed so far to squint my way through the test at the motor vehicle department. Never mind that barely being 20-20 at 20 doesn’t mean I can see well enough at 40; I can’t. But my glasses were tucked away in my jacket pocket and anyway, I ride this route twice a day every day, who needs to see?

Ten miles from the start the engine began to sputter and gasp, already on reserve. I did all the right things; checked my mirrors and moved onto the shoulder.

I groped around with the petcock, hoping maybe there was some way to get more juice out of the empty tank, and I indexed down toward neutral, checked the switches, glad I was on the shoulder and ou . . .

Bigshapetruckparkednolights20feetcan’tbrakecan’tlookturnleft.

I had made what’could have been a series of fatal mistakes.

Skill had damned little to do with my not being killed.

Did you know you don’t feel fear for the first fraction of a second? I’ve noticed this racing and in the dirt and it’s just like that on the road. I was amazed how long it took and how calmly I reacted to the facts.

Experience took over. I knew without making any conscious decision that there was no time to brake. I did what the expert teachers call counter-steer, that is, I tugged the bars right and swerved the bike left and just made it around the end of the truck.

What was in the traffic lane I entered, no signal no warning? Nothing. Thank God. I didn’t have time to check the mirrors and I would have had to swerve into the lane anyway, in case the poor devil who might have been there had been able to miss me. I’d rather bounce off the side of a vehicle going my way than smash head-on into a parked truck.

Once again, a survivor. How did I do it? Plain dumb luck. There are bold riders and there are old riders but there aren’t many bold old riders. I never had a chance to learn this right. I wobbled home on my first motorcycle and through no virtue of my own I got to stay upright and miss parked trucks for enough miles that I now do what I should do, without thinking.

There was a time, surely the first year at least, during which in the same situation I would have pulled the bars the wrong way, or jumped on the back brake.

And I would have turned myself into custard pie.

Hot stuff, eh? Think of all the mistakes:

I could have checked the tank. Just because the rules say something should be done doesn’t mean it is done. I could have stopped and got a gallon of gas, even if it meant spending my own dollar instead of the company’s.

I could have adjusted the headlight.

I should have been wearing my glasses.

Worst of all, I assumed nobody but me makes mistakes. There’s no parking on the shoulder, says so right on the signs. And if your car stops on the Interstate you’re supposed to leave lights on.

Naturally this means you don’t have to watch for parked trucks on the shoulder, no lights, at night. I was so busy worrying about the switches and how far I could coast and did I have any gas in the emergency can at home, that I plain forgot to look where I was going.

I was wearing my certified helmet, my sturdy boots and gloves and warm riding t suit and eye protection, Mr. Sensible Rider, and I forgot to look where I was going.

This is how it happens, the freak circumstances, the assumptions that I won’t crash. I’ve been riding for years. I don’t need a helmet, I’m only going down to the corner.

Three days before this it was my birthday and I was out on the track, thinking here I am, 43 years old, sole support of four people, holder of a responsible position, what on earth am I doing here, going> 100 mph on a 12-year-old $300 motorcycle?, this is dangerous.

But on Wednesday night I was being a good citizen, riding this super new 450 Twin and I even kidded some of the guys at the meeting because they drove cars; 20 miles of familiar road at 55 mph, dangerous? I didn’t give it another thought.

Here’s the double moral. One, the most risky period in anybody’s riding career is the time between when you think you know how to ride, and when you do. While you must think about the controls and the reactions, you’re in peril. Some of us, me for one, lucked out. For a new rider nothing can beat a good riding school for getting the practice without the exposure and yes, that’s why this magazine endorses the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, the Illinois program, anything that helps any bike nut be a better rider.

Second, this is the way we crash. It ain’t racing or speed-crazed kids or overpowered bikes. It’s being human. Not paying attention, not taking the precautions, not using the equipment you bought or the sense God gave you, being so busy doing something else that you forget, yes, forget to look where you’re going.

But this time I lucked out and managed to miss the parked truck by less than a foot, and to swerve into a space where nobody was.

The rest of the trip was the usual comedy of errors.

I kept on coasting, off the highway and as near to the gas station (Closed. Of course.) as I could get.

I waved at the passing cars and they kept right on rolling, no telling what that nut in the funny suit was up to.

Even the highway patrol car rushed on past. Geez, I know I think of myself as the invisible man but this wasn’t what I meant.

The patrol cruiser zoomed past me and turned into the gas station. No point talking with pedestrians, there were gas pumps to inspect.

But I was desperate. When I left the tip at the hamburger stand I’d used all my change. I ran up to the cruiser and he managed to roll down the window.

“Could I borrow a dime?”

I could. I telephoned my wife, told her where I was and that we had some gas in the red can.

Then I walked back to the bike.

And sat down. My legs had got the message.

Last time I ran out of gas late at night and had to hike to the telephone and get rescued, I was madder’n Hell.

Somebody hadn’t filled the tank and I was paying for their mistake.

This time I didn’t pay for my own mistakes.

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