May 10, 2007

Almost useless riding tip: How close can you go?

Puma Motorcycle Boot DetailI consider myself a bit of an artist, a commuting artist. The concrete jungle is my backdrop, the roads in all their myriad forms are my canvas and when I paint, boy, I really paint. They're probably not what you would call pretty, but I'm certain that my works would be pretty impressive. Now, that rather boastful intro is for something I did today which lit up a 100 watt light bulb over my head. Just another small drop in my growing ocean of riding tricks, techniques and skills... I think.

I was crawling at about 2.5 kph at an intersection where the left lane is being dug up. The diversion is marked with a angled wall of corrugated sheet that gradually blocks off the hole they've dug up and leaves only the top lane open for traffic.

Now crawling along, slightly bored because of the very obviously novice rider on tatty Splendor/CD100/clone ahead is taking too much time to get on with it. So I look left and take note of the space betwen my left hand pinkie, the bar-end and the aforementioned corrugated sheet. Given that the wall slopes away from me and that I'm wearing my titanium toe-slider equipped boot, I decided to try and see how close I could get to the wall before my slider scraped the wall.

What I found out was that there is a lot more space than you think there is. So much space in fact, that I'm convinced that you should, at least once, find out the quantum. So much space, that I never actually scraped my toe. When I reached the point where I didn't dare go any closer, I actually shifted my boot out about 2 or 3 cm and only then did it actually touch the sheet. You can do this at standstill, but it takes a lot more effort. Park the bike as close to a wall as you dare (you on the bike, right foot down, not on the stand). And keep reparking until your little toe (feet stuck out slightly to make the peg width a little more than the handlebar) touches the wall. You'll be amazed at how close you need to get before your handlebar or other unintended hard part touches.

Oh wait, I don't have a leg/crash guard. I hate the stupid things and they're useless anyway (please don't post comments about this, I will put up a separate Crash Guards Are Useless post soon). If you do have a crash guard, that will probably be the first thing to touch. If your low speed skills allow, find a long, smooth wall where you can edge closer without being disturbed or getting hurt and try this at a really slow speed.

Why should you do this?
I'm obsessive, I was bored, I tried it and it taught me something. Tomorrow, if some idiot in the last lane pulls a sudden lane change type thing (happened to me two days ago), I now know that I have a lot more space that I thought I did.

What else, in this rather OCD lesson plan, can I do?
Well, another experiment I intend to try is to figure out which obstacles my pegs will clear without scraping on when riding vertical. That way, again, in the urban crawl, It will make it easier for me to judge if that rock blocking the storm drain will need maneuvering around or not.

How much time will this save me?
Er... not sure. Six seconds over a three hour commute?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems you suffer from some form of OCD. You need to read about it here: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/healthinformation/ocdmenu.cfm

Then do the sensible thing and get some medical help. It really isn't anything to be ashamed of these days.

rearset said...

While I will admit that I probably show symptoms of some form of OCD or the other, I refuse to agree on the fact that I suffer. Hell, I'm loving every minute of it. Oh crap, I just dirtied my index finger typing again... gimme a minute... I'll just wash it again and come back.

There.

Hey, who moved my towel. That corner wasn't folded like that. I hate it when people move my stuff around.

Because of whoever this idiot is, now I've forgotten the total number of comments posted to the blog since it began.... this is going to be a long day...

rearset said...

the idiot who moved my towel, not you anon... I thought I would clarify...

Anonymous said...

Oh, the towel was folded incorrectly. I could have sworn you meant to type 'bowel' instead.

Anywho, you left out one detail...what bike do ya ride?

rearset said...

At the moment, I have a CBZX

Anonymous said...

So, how about a long term review of the 'X'? The bike seems to be selling extremely well, so much so that there are rumors that HH is going slow on Karizma manufacturing to make room on the assembly line for the Xtreme.

rearset said...

Long term update of X coming up. Later in the day today...

Anonymous said...

Awesome, thanks for posting the review!

With the astonishing speed with which you seem to fulfil wishers, perhaps you could do something/tell us about the HH FI Karizma?

--xh-- said...

how much time it can save? 3 seconds? not at all.. first, let me thank you for this tip. I tried this , and realised that there is a whole lot of space i ws wasting. And it is very very useful in traffic jams and signals, and at times, while riding also. Time saving is really considerable too. I am of the notion that crashguard saves your bike whn u hv a fall. but i read that u belive they are useless. can you post a blog about that? If the pros are tempting, i may remove my crash guard and try.
I observed that the first thing which touches on sides are my RVMs , and then also, i hv enough room to sqeeze through, if i fold my RVMs. (I ride a Honda unicorn and a Enfield STD 350)