Sunday 10/19

[goldenchild]

Glad Tom's mostly ok, at least he has winter to fix his bike.

Do people jump out of planes during the winter months?

[GLantern]

Damn Eric i'm glad he is alright man.  The second i saw you post the cold tire thread this morning i had a bad feeling.  Like evil said sounds like he has a serious winter project ahead heh.

[Grrrly]

GC & Cru: I know you said that you guys had ridden with Tom before, but the first thing that immediately caught my eye when looking at the photos of the damage, was his back tire..... it says a lot to me.  No offense but it looks like a newbie's rear tire.  Perhaps it was a new tire, (though looks old to me) and it's just a photo and I don't know the dude and I wasn't there.  
Something that I do, (and this is me), when leading new riders around roads they don't know is, if there is a tricky section coming up that I know of, I will tap on my rear brake several times, to warn the riders behind me that something different is coming up..  If it's sweepers, or tight twisties that are all pretty much all the same, repeated rhythm then I don't worry about it and take off.  BUT again, if it's something that I know would give me a problem when I was a new rider I look out for them, and give them a heads up.  Even if it means me sacrificing the curve.  BUT THIS IS JUST ME!!!  so you can take from that what you want.  It's not meant to be a criticism, it's just something I do,  again I'll use my gender as an excuse and call it the "mom"/big sister thing lol neither of which I am.   (though I will pull the mom/big sister thing with my work crew members often)

As for me, I had the longest 120mile ride today with Ramapo. lol.  Took our group (RJ joined us and that was a pleasant surprise) all day doing (what must have been) below the speed limit the whole ride, but it was a nice way to end my season, their route was awesome, even with a GPS and the route plugged in I doubt I could find the roads they planned out, the scenery was beautiful.  We met up for breakfast and stopped for lunch.     yummm food.  (it's a foodie group, I went with)  Luckily I made it home, the monster wasn't happy going so slow lol... naa the gauges once again are caput, this time the bike shut off on me completely (2x) while I was riding in the morning, thankfully I was only doing about 2 mph for a turnoff the 1st time, and about 10-15 mph the second time.  See I wouldn't know exactly how slow/fast I was going as the needle of the speedometer fell off months ago.    So the bike gets torn down again now......   sad to see my season end, but we did manage to get in 7 trackdays in this year, so I have all those photos to look at this winter to get me through.

My bad incident was after a bathroom break, when we were on the side of a road with very heavy traffic, (were only on this road for the equivalent of 3 blocks, and the only traffic we saw all day), no one would let us merge back in, I saw a opening, and the woman driving a car behind me I guess decided she was going to speed up and not let us in.... and we both tried to occupy the same spot at the same time.....  the car won of course, so we sort of collided.  My ankle came off the peg as she hit me, and my leg got pinned then between the car and the peg........  I'm ok though.   I think I got home in time to ice it up my ankle and take 3 motrin,  it's not hurting this morning as I write this.   In a strange turn of luck, Terry didn't make it out today, as he wasn't 100% still fighting the tail end of this dreaded cold, if he was there... I think the  would've taken everyone away......   

[Howie]

Wow!  Take care of that ankle, Michelle  

[Grrrly]

Wow!  Take care of that ankle, Michelle  

I'm all good, Howie.  Not a problem bearing weight (and there's a lot of it now lol).   There's just a deep bruise above my ankle, the surface hasn't even changed color.   

[patricks2r]

Oh jeeeezzzzzzz...  seems like every week it's something new.  Cru, glad your boy is ok.  M...   sounds like you had a close call! - glad you are ok too.

[Cru Jones]

Oh jeeeezzzzzzz...  seems like every week it's something new.  Cru, glad your boy is ok.  M...   sounds like you had a close call! - glad you are ok too.

Yeah, Tom will be ok. In reference to his tires, they do look a little unworn towards the edges, but I have ridden with him prior (granted it was a year ago) & he kept up just fine. So, I can see where you're coming from IG, but rest assured he's not a newbie. Also, the corner that he went off on was a pretty easy corner (especially at the pace we were going at the time), so there wasn't really a need to forewarn him. He basically passed a car & although he came a little hot into the corner he just basically froze & went off the road. He realizes it was a dumb mistake and is just glad that he's ok & his bike was at least ridable.

Also, sorry to hear about your incident with the cager.   

[EvilSteve]

Do people jump out of planes during the winter months?

Yep, snow on the ground & all. I haven't done that yet but I want to give it a go at least once.

[goldenchild]

Sorry to hear about your mishap M, glad that you're relatively ok . Also, thanks again for the sound advice. I don't foresee people knocking down the doors and lining up to join these rides any time soon so perhaps the winter will be a good respite for it all.

I've been trying to evaluate whats been going on in these rides and why folks are crashing so much and quite honestly, I can't think of any one particular reason. I also can't think of what may have changed and what differences there are between the last few seasons and this one. In the past, there has never been an issue apart from my own "almost moments".

The only thing that I can even remotely come up with is the pace up front may have gotten a bit faster than in the past, but then again, I can't say for sure

[CDawg]

I've been trying to evaluate whats been going on in these rides and why folks are crashing so much and quite honestly, I can't think of any one particular reason.

Perhaps, you've ridden most of the roads around NYC enough to know what speed to carry and what type of turn is coming up so there's no pucker moment (10/10 focused on the turn) where as the late-joiners doesn't know the lay-of-the-land and expends mental effort at puckering while leaning (8/10 focused on the turn)?

[goldenchild]

Perhaps, you've ridden most of the roads around NYC enough to know what speed to carry and what type of turn is coming up so there's no pucker moment (10/10 focused on the turn) where as the late-joiners doesn't know the lay-of-the-land and expends mental effort at puckering while leaning (8/10 focused on the turn)?

Maybe but... we've been doing about 90% of our riding in areas that aren't very local (you should know ), and in areas that are a lot newer to us, unlike Harriman , the 'Skills , and the tristate intersections (NY,NJ,PA).

[Grrrly]

GC  & Cru,

you guys said you rode with Tom last year, and you were impressed with his riding ability.   I'm just "guesstimating" here, but I can feel pretty certain to bet that you two have improved your riding abilities light-years ahead of what you guys where doing last spring.  If I'm wrong, tell me....

This is similar to what I had to deal with when I first started riding with Terry.  You guys have no clue as to how quick you guys can ride, in comparison to most of us.   I've seen Terry try to lead a newbie up to Perkins Dr. last summer and I cringed because I saw what was going to happen, and sure enough the newbie dumped it in a turn.  Lucky for him it was on the inside of a turn, and didn't go off a cliff.   It wasn't that Terry was trying to show off, to him he was going slow....  but to the rest of us he might as well have been Vale.      Face it, you guys are just too good    I think that if you truly want people to join you just to ride and make friends, then you're going to have to turn it down more than a few notches.  But then you're going to fall asleep.....  so it's a choice you make....  Make it an open to all skills ride and just putt putt around, or make it a spirited ride, and only invite those that you have ridden with and can hang.    I think most that have done group rides for a while come to this decision sooner or later.   
edit: there's no reason you can't do both.  I will invite people I know to putt putt rides and I will gladly lead them around and have Terry sweep for me (so he can play a little bit and try not to fall asleep).... or we won't invite anyone and we go out together, just the two of us, so he can play and I'm pretty good at catching up, or he's just happy following me around.   


PS Terry wants to know when is he going to see you guys on the track?  You can even borrow his SV!!

[Cru Jones]

I think that if you truly want people to join you just to ride and make friends, then you're going to have to turn it down more than a few notches.  But then you're going to fall asleep.....  so it's a choice you make....  Make it an open to all skills ride and just putt putt around, or make it a spirited ride, and only invite those that you have ridden with and can hang.    I think most that have done group rides for a while come to this decision sooner or later.   

PS Terry wants to know when is he going to see you guys on the track?  You can even borrow his SV!!

IG,

While I can't speak for GC, I think you've hit the nail on the head with that comment.

I'd like to get on the track, but at present can't afford the cost of a potential crash & tires. Possibly in the spring I'll be able to get out to a trackday though. I'd love to see how much fun the RC is to ride legally at ~9.5K for more than a few moments. 

[R.J.]

Sorry to hear about your mishap M, glad that you're relatively ok . Also, thanks again for the sound advice. I don't foresee people knocking down the doors and lining up to join these rides any time soon so perhaps the winter will be a good respite for it all.

I've been trying to evaluate whats been going on in these rides and why folks are crashing so much and quite honestly, I can't think of any one particular reason. I also can't think of what may have changed and what differences there are between the last few seasons and this one. In the past, there has never been an issue apart from my own "almost moments".

The only thing that I can even remotely come up with is the pace up front may have gotten a bit faster than in the past, but then again, I can't say for sure

IG, I thought that your bike just fell over and didn't realize what happened until I saw the woman getting out of the car. Glad everything was okay and the rest of the ride was uneventful. Although the ride was slower, it was cool checking out some roads that probably don't even exist on map. That crazy small downhill corkscrew stretch was awesome.

GC, you guys ride at a fairly quick pace and just feel newer people that show up are not prepared or don't expect it.  In the ride description, you state that they're not a race and to ride within ones ability which roughly translated means: use common sense. While in a calm state of mind, following this advice should be easy but under a stresssful situation this is probably the last thing someone is thinking about.  Nobody wants to be the rider that is last to arrive at the intersection, the rider holding everyone up, or the rider not able to keep up with the everyone else. While most people could care less with how someone performs on a friendly ride in the country, it's these situations that will cause someone to start taking chances and push beyond their abilities. The typical scenarios are always the same: crossing the double yellow, corner entry speed to high, inability to properly threshold brake, not looking far enough ahead, etc. With enough of these happening together, it's easy to figure out what could happen.
Since the situations are almost identical (as far as the mind is concerned), I thought I'd share some of my experiences. I'm fairly new to sport bike riding but have attended many open track events on four wheels. At EVERY event, there is always one person (or more) who puts the car into the wall. The driver behind trying to keep up becomes so focused on the car ahead that instead of driving the track and hitting all his marks, becomes a danger to himself and everyone else participating. It's easy to tell who's overdriving the vehicle as they'll be the guy with lots of oversteer on corner exit or locking up the wheels in the braking zone. What some of these drivers fail to realize is that it's not a race and nobody wins anything but it hurts even more when you've just wadded up your new M3. It's always the same excuse too: the car just started spinning, the tires just let go and (my favorite) I was trying to find the limit. While I'm a big fan of finding ones limits, I believe it has to be done with a clear mind, unstressed, and done small increments. In alot of these incidents, most happen during the last run group of the day when most people are tired and hungry.

Personally, I'm guilty of pushing harder than my skills allow at times and had many "check my shorts" moments but am better at slowing things down a bit when realizing my mind is traveling faster than my abilities. You shouldn't feel responsible for people crashing as it's they're own choice on whether or not to push harder. Your "just cruising around the turns" 70% could be someone elses "Oh my god get me off this thing" 130%. I hope nobody here will take this the wrong way as I mean no disrepect to riders who have gone down here or claim to be a know it all because I don't. I just wanted people to be aware of the "Red Mist" and how ones judgement can become clouded when dealing with personal stress or pressure when riding.

[mookieo2]

Glad to see Tom is ok. You to Michelle.

  You guys have no clue as to how quick you guys can ride, in comparison to most of us.   I've seen Terry try to lead a newbie up to Perkins Dr. last summer and I cringed because I saw what was going to happen, and sure enough the newbie dumped it in a turn. 

I think I was behind that guy on that ride.  Terry had to ride his bike home w/no clutch in the rain over GWB in traffic.

Terry is a very experienced rider. GC and cru's skills have gotten sooo much better his past season since the first time I rode w/them. They were already pretty good to begin with. They also put in the miles to get there.

I hope to ride w/you guys again next season.