A moment's error, and a spared life...

[98tls]

Keeping hydrated is extremely important at this time of year.
Coffee being a diuretic won't do it for you. Fatigue follows the buzz.
Apples, Water and Electrolites do the business for me.
The apples let you know if your brain isn't functioning properly. You bite your tongue if the gang upstairs are on holiday or having a tea break The fructose feeds your brains powerdrive.
Good thing about riding a sprots bike. You get plenty of opportunity to rehydrate yourself when refuelling the bike.
Simple test. If your urine has any colour in it apart from the first leak of the day then you are not drinking enough and you won't function as well.

JesusHow the fuck us old motorcyclists survived without the interweb is beyond me.38 years riding and much the same number of bikes owned with never an apple along the way.Xcuse am just off to the loo to work out if i should ride tommorow.No wonder you fuckers fall off,your to worried about crap to worry about stuff you should worry about.

[FJRider]

After completing five 1000 milers myself, seven hours riding is not even half way. For the very fast one or two... it may be half way. You have to fuel the body and bike.

[jrandom]

Always enough space??? Really!!

Yup.

Of course, when it's two trucks...

[Badger8]

There's always enough space... it's just a matter of whether you come out the other side of the gap as wide as you went in...
Not something i would want to depend on, but that gap has saved my ass once before

[TOTO]

Oh my god. Glad you are with us. may you ride many many more trouble- free years (and so all of us). Some of us can relate to what has happened to you very strongly. Every meal will taste better now for a few days, every class of water will be so sweet. Enjoy life brother.

[more_fasterer]

Glad you're OK man.

[Hinny]

After completing five 1000 milers myself.....

Man, you are a tiger for punishment.
I'm guessing the mental toughness would be extremely important. An attribute which us old fookers are supposed to have an advantage over the young thrusters.

[longwayfromhome]

Glad to hear you are still up and about.

One of the things you are talking about is the tendency of the body to slip into old habit patterns. I think because you were pretty tired, your mental strength was lessened and your instinctive part took over, pulling out an old pattern from long ago. I have some examples from my riding:

I rode a Suzuki 120 when I started uni in 1972. It has a 4 down gearbox. Even today at 54 years, I still occasionally find myself changing from first to second by tapping down, worse is redlining 3rd to 4th and changing down to 2nd. Not often, but when I'm tired. I only had the bike a year or so, but that first learned behaviour still pops up now, 36 years later.

The other example is more worrying....after 10 years in America, driving on the RHS....empty roads and intersections still call for some deliberate thought at times. Both in the US after having been back here or now that I am here and when I visit the US occasionally, this is a definite issue, not very often, maybe once or twice a year, but its a deadly problem as you found out. On this specific point, I feel that this is one of the most important things that RHS-riders visiting NZ need to be careful of, much more so than visiting drivers.

I think the key is to make sure your mental acuity is still performing as a gatekeeper role on top of the latent body reactions/conditioning - you can do this by forcing yourself to take breaks/drinks etc, its so tempting to just go on. Also to acknowledge that things learned when you were younger still live with us today. All this is a challenge because our most enjoyable rides are those where we go with the flow..where mind/body/emotions seem to become one.

[sinned]

This thread is a totally honest and humble admission of fault from me. No stone throwing.

I have the attention span of a sugared 4 year old, one with ADD. Today's ride is one of the longest that I've done, and I think it was a contributing factor.
As I cut through the valley - I felt like I was in another valley that I know really well in another country, but that other valley and two laned road is a one way stretch. It felt correct to be on the right hand side, as the other valley is actually in a country where people ride/drive on the right.

This is the first time in 20 odd years of being on the road in cars and on bikes that I've ever made any error close to this magnitude.

I'm having a week long stand down from the bike.

If this happened to me the first thing I would do is go to my GP and tell him about the experience. Get the medical check up and then decide what to do. In the meanwhile a stand down from riding sounds like a good idea. We all get older and things do change.

[madbikeboy]

shit mate! you said to read about your mistake... didn't realise it was this serious! well glad you made it out, and made it home with your bike all in one piece. Definitely good to hear there was a ute driver with their mind switched on!

Hope your knee is feeling okay as well!

Been icing it for an hour, can actually bend it now. I can't understand why Gixers are advertised as touring bikes....

You ride really well. Thanks for being the only one who stopped for the upchuck guy on the loop yesterday.

[madbikeboy]

Oh my god. Glad you are with us. may you ride many many more trouble- free years (and so all of us). Some of us can relate to what has happened to you very strongly. Every meal will taste better now for a few days, every class of water will be so sweet. Enjoy life brother.

I don't think it was quite that dramatic, but it gave me pause for though.

Now, Toto - good day yesterday, thanks for organising a good ride. You need to have a chat with the young guy on the HyoDung, PM me or Trace.

[madbikeboy]

The rehydration thing - I'm a long time cyclist as well, so I was reasonably well dehydrated. I recall taking a piss at Wellsford soon afterwards, and it was normal.

In retrospect, I reckon it was rider fatigue. We did enough mileage to put 5 tanks of gas in Scoot, and a lot of the ride was on twisty roads with 1st gear corners - the roads we're great, and the focus is similar (if not more) to what you put in at the track, despite the speeds obviously being much less.

One guy (MP, I'll let you write about it) dropped his bike in the twistiest of twisties - an experienced rider, not speeding, but the roads were bumpy and not in great repair.

I stopped at Wellsford with ZXRider - I was ashamed to tell him about my stupid mistake, and to be honest, if the trailer was there (instead of at home), I would have cheerfully loaded Scoot up and fallen asleep.

[sinfull]

I'd like to buy that Ute driver a dinner or a week in Fiji. It was his quick thinking that spared my life. With a closure speed of 160 km/h (assuming both of us were doing 80), I would have been vapourised.

A funny thing happened while driving my ute along a two laned road yesterday !!!

Guess you've found a limit to be aware of? The more I ride the more I think its similer to when I was a diver - you dive and dive within your limits then one day you push it to far and alomost become fish food. I once did a controlled dive to asses just how deep I could go before I got narked! turned out that was pushing 60 meters!

The positive thing about this is that now you know what your "hit the wall" point is and maybe if you do a ride like that again you will know at which point you will need a stop and energy boost.. a positive lesson I would say

Don't think it's a matter of hittin the wall, sure ride fitness is an issue and i hit that wall alot (soooo unfit lol) but a brain fade has alot to do with dehyd.

Keeping hydrated is extremely important at this time of year.
Coffee being a diuretic won't do it for you. Fatigue follows the buzz.
Apples, Water and Electrolites do the business for me.
The apples let you know if your brain isn't functioning properly. You bite your tongue if the gang upstairs are on holiday or having a tea break The fructose feeds your brains powerdrive.
Good thing about riding a sprots bike. You get plenty of opportunity to rehydrate yourself when refuelling the bike.
Simple test. If your urine has any colour in it apart from the first leak of the day then you are not drinking enough and you won't function as well.

What was it dpex said to me ? If ya aint taking a clear piss every two hours ya aint drinkin enough and if ya feel a thirst coming on its too late !
I used to go all day without taking a piss at the track ! Wasn't till i read his thread on dehydration and its effects that i googled, researched it rah de rah and changed my habits a bit ! Now i force myself to drink a half ltr after each session at a track day !
Still foookin useless but boy do i piss alot !!!

Have learnt that one m'self at the start of this summer. Luckily nothing bads went down, but really felt the effects one ride on a hot day. Spent 35 bucks on a camel pack off retardme, and damn i find myself a lot more focused on long rides now. Dunno how i used to do without it!

Wow we might have just come up for a new idea to use up that waist of space hump in race leathers !!!!

am just off to the loo to work out if i should ride tommorow.No wonder you fuckers fall off,your to worried about crap to worry about stuff you should worry about.

Noooooo 98 its not the night before ! Cause if ya anything like me ya been pissin clear since ya cracked that first beer

[sidecar bob]

There's always enough space... it's just a matter of whether you come out the other side of the gap as wide as you went in...
Not something i would want to depend on, but that gap has saved my ass once before

Sorry, i disagree. Its arrogance like that that makes motorcyclists look like a bunch of fuckwits, or dead.

[Badger8]

Sorry, i disagree. Its arrogance like that that makes motorcyclists look like a bunch of fuckwits, or dead.

Sorry if my point didnt come across there. Was taking the piss, but saying in a roundabout way that the gap aint always big enough, if it's there at all.
Definitely shouldnt be considered as a legitimate option whilst riding