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Bob Pickett looks at how to stay upright - this time, inanimate objects

It is a fact of life that from time to time we are going to come across something in the road that has the potential to dump us off the bike.

These can be broken down into two types; animate and inanimate. To know how to deal with each type, it is essential to get to know your enemies.

First up, inanimate objects. As this would suggest, these are not alive, but there are a number of them, all with their own quirks.

Bricks or pieces of wood, holes in the road or the like should be the easiest ones to deal with. They are not going to move and can be ridden around. But this is where the problems arise. Your instinct when faced with any potential danger is to focus on the threat. This is known as “Hazard Fixation” and unless you train yourself not to do this, can prove fatal.

If you fixate on an object, then you will find yourself riding towards it. The bike will follow your gaze. So the harder you stare at the object, the more likely you will be to head towards it. So you concentrate even harder on the object, get even closer and – SPLAT! – you hit the floor.

To avoid doing this, you must brake your fixation with whatever is lying in the road. Unless it is a huge object, then it will, if you concentrate on the road around it, only take up a small part of your vision and, just as important, only take up a tiny part of the road.

By getting your focus back onto the road around, you should then be able to choose a path round whatever it is– ever noticed how top racers, even when leaning the bike right over, are always looking as far forwards as possible? This is so that they can assess their path along the next section of the track, look out for slower rivals or another bike that has hit the deck and spilt oil all over the place.

That said, your brain (which is still equipped with a set of survival instincts not in kilter with today’s road hazards) will be telling you “I can’t see it, is it trying to attack me?” Put this out of your mind – it isn’t alive, it isn’t going to move. Get past it and carry on your way.

Plastic bags are another problem altogether. They could get caught up in your chain, the handles could catch round your brake lever or could plop onto your helmet, blocking your vision.

The essential thing to do if you see a plastic bag is slow down. Not only will this give you more time to assess the hazard, but reduces the effect of inflation. You are looking to avoid contact with the bag, so backing off will give you more time to see if the wind takes it, so you can ride away from contact. If it makes contact with the bike, then there is, to be honest, nothing you can do. If it does wrap around your lid, then don’t hit the brakes, but back off the throttle. Hopefully the reduction in speed will reduce the air pressure and the bag will slip away. Opening your visor should also help to shift the bag, as it will now be above your head rather than in front, so the wind will carry it over the top. Opening your visor will also mean that you have a degree of vision – something you lost when the bag latched onto you like a limpet.

These two are, although it might not sound like it, the two more benign members of the “inanimate object” group, being solid and therefore making a constant threat as their size is easy to judge. The more threatening ones are those that are not solid. In this group are such things as standing water, diesel and gravel. Discarded food also comes into this area – a friend of mine once narrowly avoided hitting the deck after hitting an oversized catering pizza that had been dropped in the road!

There are a range of keys to surviving contact with this type of hazard:

1. Keep your arms relaxed. If you tense, then you will be fighting the bike’s attempt to self-correct the slide. If you stay relaxed and keep a light, but firm grip on the bars, then they should steer into the drift by themselves, giving you more chance of stabislising.
2. Look at where you are heading, not at the hazard. Yes, we are back to ‘Hazard Fixation’ once again. If you concentrate on the hazard, then you’re not giving the bike the instructions it needs to get out of trouble.
3. Keep the power on, but gently. Dropping off the throttle will only put more strain on the front tyre that is desperately trying to find some purchase. Likewise, leave the brakes alone.

Countersteering is another key factor in getting out of this situation with nothing more damaged than the inside of your underwear. In the case of gravel or diesel, you want to avoid hitting the centre of the hazard. But where you aim for depends on the type of hazard:

Diesel has a tendency to spread on contact with water, hence the trademark “rainbow” patterns on the road. So either side of the rainbow will mean less contact with the slippery stuff and maximising the traction your tyres need to get you through this one.

Gravel, on the other hand, is best handled by aiming for the inside of the patch. You are best served by the bike being as upright as possible. It doesn’t take many grains to start you slipping and the more contact area with the road available, the better. This also means that even if the patch spreads, you’ve got more chance of getting/keeping the bike upright and aiming towards a clean piece of tarmac.

Mud is to be best avoided, so aim for either side of the main patch. As with both gravel and diesel, you are looking to maintain the most contact possible with tarmac, so the last thing you want is to reduce your potential contact area by riding into the worst of it.

Standing water presents it’s own special challenge, but one that bikes are well equipped to handle, due to the nature of your tyre’s profile. Bike tyres are designed to send water outwards, so they are less likely to aquaplane than car tyres. The key here is to hit the puddle as upright as possible and keep relaxed – the slowing down effect caused by the water will, if you keep relaxed, make the bike sit up and maintain that all important contact area. Don’t brake, the water will do that for you, but give it a hand by gently rolling off the throttle – this keeps your weight on the front, ensuring that you keep contact with the road.

Of course, the above scenario’s all suggest that you have had time to spot the hazard, assess it and take avoiding action, depending on the nature of the problem. But even if you’ve found yourself hitting the object with little or no time to react, staying relaxed and concentrating on where you want to go, rather than the hazard are THE keys to getting through in one piece.

Tense up or stare at the problem and you’ll find yourself in a much worse battle to survive.

Something you can do to prepare yourself is practice your last-second countersteering. The road planners in the UK have helpfully provided us with a series of targets to use – manhole covers. Practice (on a quiet road please – doing this in a busy environment could scare the bejaazers out of other road users!) heading towards a manhole cover, then at the last moment swerve using countersteering. If you’re used to doing this, then when you need it, you’ll have the skill in place and it should be an automatic reaction.

Next: Part 2 - animate objects (or animals to you)

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