What does it mean to look ahead?
Mar 25th, 2010 by Leo
You’ve heard people say: “don’t ride the front wheel” – meaning don’t look at your front wheel while you’re riding but look further down the road. It sounds so simple…so simple in fact that I think only a few people pay attention to it. But whether you’re going fast in the twisties or negotiating your way through city traffic, the key to being smooth and safe (and fast…actually) is all in where you look. So what does that mean exactly?
Normally when you’re driving around in a car, you might look around, you look at the car ahead of you, you look at the sky, look at your gps… But when you’re riding a motorcycle, everything depends on seeing things in advance…before you have to act on them. In a way, every motorcyclist or scooterist needs to hone the same visual skills that race car drivers (or bike racers) use everyday…
This means more than just looking ahead of you. In order to get the most visual information the goal is to fix your eyes on the furthest point that you can see in the direction you are going. Sometimes you can only see a block away. Other times you can see a quarter mile or more. And as far as it may seem to look ahead half a mile, it translates to just a few seconds at speed on a motorcycle. The further you can see the faster you can go because the more time you will have to prepare for moves.
#1 Don’t look at the gravel on road in front of you…
#2 Don’t look at cars or pedestrians you need to avoid…
#3 Don’t even look directly at the turn point or apex or exit of the turn… (unless one of these is #4)
#4 But look as far ahead (in the direction that you’re going) as you can see…
But what about the pedestrian stepping off the curb 30 feet in front of me, and the cab edging into my lane, and the bus blocking the two right lanes? Shouldn’t I be looking at those things?
If you’re focused on a point in the distance, you can actually see and account for everything that is closer… It’s not exactly “peripheral” vision because it’s not off to the side, but it’s the same idea. When you’re focused far ahead, you can still see what’s a few feet in front of you. But if you focus 20 feet in front of you, you will most likely miss something that might be going on at the end of the block. Does that make sense?
All this requires practice. And you can’t do it until you’re competent enough with the basics of operating the controls and riding a motorcycle. Even once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to get spooked by something, and unintentionally stop looking down the road as far…so it’s a skill we need to recalibrate from time to time.
Anyway, hope you’re able to get that and translate it into something useful. Cheers!
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