Riding The Curves With A Friend

  “Hold tight in the turns.”

  That, I believe was the closing line in a recent email from one of this blogs readers. (I don't know for sure because I was unfortunately a little quick with the delete key. I do apologize to this reader. I like to take the time to personally respond to all emails.) Now this may not mean much to those to don't ride a bike, but to those who do corners are an entirely different concept. Why? Counter steering!
  What is counter steering? Don't worry that you don't know because the fact is, even many motor bikers, though they do it every day, don't know what counter steering is. It is probably the most difficult concept for those who teach motorbike drivers courses to explain. The basic concept is this. You steer into the the turn but as you continue the turn, you counter steer, or steer out of the turn as you lean into the turn. This is counter-intuitive to those that don't ride a motorbike but the fact is the more you turn into a corner, the more upright a motorcycle stays. Combine staying upright with the concept of g-force which wants to pull you out of the corner and you find yourself either driving into the other lane of traffic, the ditch, or worse.
  Now add to this formula the loose gravel, pot holes, oil slicks and variety of obstacles that suddenly appear on the ground beneath your wheels as you lean deep into your turn, just encouraging your tires to loose traction and slip out from under you. Of course if you ride that turn truly fearlessly (or like a crazy lunatic depending on your point of view) you can find yourself leaning so far that your foot peg is scraping the ground just seeking out an opportunity to grab hold so your rubber completely removes itself from the road and your leathers (if you are smart) and skin embed into the rough pavement.
  Riding the curves on a motorbike can be exciting, enthralling, exhilarating, exasperating, scary, frightening, bone chilling, and death defying – all at the same time. Riding the curves in life is very much the same experience. You live your life with a final destination in mind (other than death), a goal of sorts. As you head towards your destination every once in a while you find yourself facing a curve in the road that you just have to ride out. You turn it to it, knowing it is taking you off track, so you counter steer, in an effort to get back on path. You might ride that curve a little fast. You might lean into it a little hard. The choice is always up to you on how you ride that curve, and in the end you are either going to find yourself pulling out, or crashing and burning. If you do find yourself pulling out you may find yourself heading in an entirely new direction.
  I recently had one of those curves thrown in my path. I had pretty much decided that I wanted nothing to do with animals anymore. Just as I put that down on paper I received a phone call from someone saying they had got one of my basset hounds from a rescue that had found it wandering the back country a couple hours north of Edmonton. Leaves me wondering what has happened with all the other animals. Anyway, to make a long story short, I have my old friend back and I love it. I won't be rushing out to add more animals to my life but having my old friend back in my life has raised my spirits and given me hope. This is a curve I had to lean hard into but as I pull out of it I am still heading in the same direction, only now I have a friend to accompany me.