Lessons in resilience from retired motorcyclists

Any motorcyclist who spends a good length of time in the saddle learns a lot about resilience. Most have an accident or two early on in their riding careers. With luck those accidents are minor enough to bounce back from, to take the lessons learned into how they ride into a long future.
Their first response may be to buy a better set of leathers, a higher quality crash helmet. But those are just symbols of safety (more often symbols of status, if truth be told). This kind of after-the-event protection is classic rear-view-mirror strategy - a too-late response to something that already happened.
The more important response is to build on the experience they have had, learn from it, perhaps seek out training, to give themselves more capacity to cope with the next random shock. This is classic forward-looking strategy.
They do so in a way that allows them to continue to move at pace - but with a greater capacity to recognise - and respond - to risk. Sounds useful today, right?

They learn:

• Read the road ahead. The further ahead you look, the faster you can go in (relative) safety. You will spot the hints about the direction the road is about to take (tree lines, power lines, signage, street lamps etc) and the bumps (literally, in it). The better you get at knowing what to look for, the better you will be prepared for what comes next.
• Use the whole road available to you: Within the constraints available, go right out to the gutter to get the best view around the next corner, preparing you to accelerate through the turn as you see the road open up. As the view opens up, you open the throttle.
• Acknowledge and compensate for your blind spots. Watch a biker regularly turn their head to ensure they are constantly gathering information. The 'life-saver' head-turn before a manoeuvre is a constant reminder of the blind spots we all have and the information-gathering from 'unexpected' sources we should consider to cover them - all the time.
• Don't target fixate: Once you recognise the risk you need to look away from it to swerve around it. Focusing on the pothole means you hit the pothole. So look for the smoother road you actually want to be on in to ensure you continuing making progress.
• Sometimes it's smarter to cross the lines: It's not part of Police System Advanced Motorcycle riding today, but when I was taught, the broken white lines down the centre of the road were simply 'hazard warning lines'. You were at liberty to cross them at any time to give yourself a better view. Be prepared to go where others don't.
• Ride defensively: Riding defensively is about recognising risk and taking appropriate action in response. Riding at speed is never without risk, but in your recognition of risk and your actions to ameliorate, you make yourself a lot less exposed to what may seem like the random acts of other road users. Examples: Car driver's not seeing you, pulling out of junctions, driveways, from the side of the road etc, as if you weren't there. The defensive rider reads the road ahead and, where there is a risk situation ahead, uses the full-width of the road to increase their distance from that risk and or slows a little to allow a little more time in which to respond.

Steve Jobs was a motorcyclist.

Photo by Harley-Davidson on Unsplash