Attention getter

I was riding one of my favorite local roads yesterday, approaching a right hand 35 MPH corner. I have ridden this road fairly often, and tested how fast I could go on the turns, starting at recommended speed, then going faster in 5 MPH increments. While the turns can be taken a lot faster than recommended, and by a more experienced rider probably a lot faster than I am willing to go, I have settled on 15 MPH over recommended as my safe and comfortable speed. So, there I was, approaching the right hand 35 MPH corner at 50, getting over by the yellow line to set up for corner entry, when about 100 feet short of the corner a dump truck comes around the corner about 2 feet over the yellow line. Got my attention real fast, and I adjusted to the inside of my lane and went around the corner fine. Point being, while we can take a given corner at warp 5 when there are no problems, with clean dry pavement, backing off and leaving yourself a good margin of traction can make an attention getter easy to handle where warp 5 might have been an accident. If you are already using all you and the bike have to give, cutting sharper ain't gonna happen.

An excellent example of why it's always best to ride with plenty of safety margin. We literally never know what's around the next corner.

I agree. I was mentioning this to my riding brother (literally) the other day. It seems more often than not when about to enter a sharp highway or backroad curve there seems to be an oncoming cager that is cutting the corner leaving you with a holy $h!t moment. The extra heart rate helps to keep your arteries clean for sure .

"Yes, but the dump truck was in MY lane!"




Overheard at the Pearly Gates. It don't matter. Protect yourself.

On a desolate five mile straight stretch of road, the only oncoming traffic you will encounter will be on the bend at the end. So, play safe, ride within legal and physical capabilities on public roads.
Dump trucks get my attention, even when stationary.

As Hi Yo says, you gotta protect yourself never mind whether other people are in the right or in the wrong.
People will always make mistakes - in order to survive you need to ride in such a way so as to help them get away with their mistakes. It goes against the grain certainly, but it hurts a lot less than saying afterwards that the accident was their fault.

I know that these people have to learn not to make mistakes but let someone else (preferably in a big truck) do the teaching. Bikes are too small and frail to teach people a lesson here.

Definitely, bikes vs. four wheelers is the same as bringing a knife to a gunfight.