Todays question is brought to you by the chap riding a blue and white bike this morning, a bit south of Tai Tapu.
The event sparking my thoughts:
Peeled over in a nice corner (blind exit) I find a fellow motorcyclist on my side of the road sharing my most excellent corner while he/she passes a slow car. It was fine in that I was holding a nice inner line as I like to allowing exit room to drift out if I am over cooking it. All was well other than my thoughts of 'WTF are you doing there sir?' all three parties carried on. Hopefully he/she had a little bit of pee come out in their leathers and it will smell bad every warm day for the next year or so.
I assume (ass out of U & me) he/she had not considered another motorcycle in the corner at speed before committing to his/her somewhat questionable passing maneuver.
In reality it was just a stupid-as-fuck to be passing.
Which brings me to my question: Do you consider the potential for a motorcycle at speed 110% committed to their corner on the opposite side of the road from you when you consider a passing move?
I do, and have for decades due to the volume of motorcycles on my usual stretch of road, it's not unusual to see a fellow rider on the other side of the road committed to his/her cornering craft (read going rather fast officer...).
Bike-on-bike is nothing like girl-on-girl, sure fluids will be spilt, but the former is going to hurt like shit.
There have been plenty of passing opportunities that due to the outstanding acceleration, braking and cornering abilities of modern motorcycles I could easily have committed to the pass, but when considering the possibility of a motorcyclist on the opposite side equally committed I hold back for a better location to dispense of the car/bus/tourist/gay bunch of cyclists.
So - do you consider the potential speed of a oncoming motorcycle when you commit to that pass?
And to this mornings rider - really WTF where you thinking if I'd been in the car it could have been very, very messy for you. Cunt.
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