Dear VTwin Mama,
I wrote to you awhile ago. On a July 2004 weekend my girlfriend and her
husband, along with me and my husband, were riding from New Jersey to
Upstate New York for a MC rally. On the way up, traffic stopped and she
couldn't and was killed.
Now it is a year and some months later and I am full of fear on riding. I've been riding 4 years and now I feel that I have no confidence in my riding ability and I have put my bike away and am waiting for the desire to ride to come back. I do not know how else to get through this. – Angela
Dear Angela,
I recently talked with a friend who knew someone who went through a
similar experience and I jumped into the conversation with, "but he's
riding again, right?" Wrong, the experience was so horrific he
determined that riding was no longer appealing to him. This is a hard
truth to face . . . that you may never really want to ride again,
especially given you worked so hard to gain the skills in riding in
pursuit of the dream which once was so clearly defined and beautiful
to you.
Years ago, I ran off the road at a high speed and sustained injuries and the bike took some hits as well. It was the end of the season, so I let myself heal and the bike sit. When spring returned, my friends breathed a sigh of relief when I finally asked for help in straightening out the bike's dings (bent handlebars, trashed turn signals, etc.). As I worked on the bike, I started getting my desire to ride again despite my trepidation and lack of confidence that I wouldn't muck up again. I have to report that for years following this accident I was highly fearful of all higher speed left sweeping curves, because that's the curve I missed and flew off the road. It's diminished to some extent now, but I still find that sometimes I seize up inside. I continue to internally "talk" my way through high speed curves on occasion. I have learned to live with this and recognize the fear for what it is . . . a response to a lesson learned the hard way.
As you know, I am not a trained psychologist. What I do know is that it isn't enough to just say to yourself that you have a "general" fear. You are an accident survivor and that means (to me at least) that there are specific aspects to the fear that are deep inside of you now. Part of your "fear" may in fact have a component of pure grieving for a loved friend who is no longer in your life, and there is never a timeline on the grieving process.
Find a quiet moment, if you haven't already, to write down specific statements in relation to the experience and how you are feeling now. One might be "I'm afraid that I won't be able to gauge a bad situation in time to handle it." Build the list of statements in one column and then in the second column, begin to noodle out what you think you can do to rebuild your confidence.
For instance, if the above statement applies, then one thing you could do is to sign up for an advanced riding course where you take your own bike to the course and rework skills. While this may be purely review, if you talked with the course instructor in advance, they might be willing to bring up your accident survivor status and address it with the group and how the techniques being practiced in the course are applicable to bad situations.
I have received a few letters from women and men who noted that they benefited from seeking out a survivor counseling group. Although these survivors may not be related to motorcycling, the common thread is that something happened and they no longer feel they can continue to do something that they cared about deeply. My understanding is that a call to your general doctor or to the local hospital for referrals is the way to find these groups.
My parting thought is this: do not for one second think that your prolonged sense of fear is in any way overboard, unnatural, or weird. You do however need to find the truth within in yourself and have the courage to face it. What is your inner voice whispering to you? – Mama
Wednesday, December 14
Dear VTwin Mama,
Honda will be offering an automatic sport cruiser soon. See Alice
Hill's review. – No Name
Dear
NN,
Thanks for sharing this link! –
Mama
Monday, December 5
Wazzup
Mama,
Could you please tell me if it is ok to downshift every time when slowing
or stopping? I have been because I thought it would save my brakes. I go
all the way to first most of time. Is this hard on engine?? Thanks. –
Patricia
Dear
Patricia,
When you see a stopping situation coming up it's perfectly normal
to downshift the gears to slow the bike down instead of using the brakes
as long as it's done smoothly, meaning you don't downshift into a gear
without having bled off speed or you'll hear the high rev of the engine
and that's wearing. The fact is that every time you use the engine to
bleed off speed, or use the brakes to do so, there is wear. This is just
part of a mechanical beastie.
I use a combination of both downshift and brakes depending on how quickly I need to bleed off speed. What you definitely want to make sure of is that you know how the bike handles when you need the brakes in a quicker stop situation. It does no good to save the brakes if you then don't know how to use them properly when you need them! – Mama