Lanesplitting phobia is something unique to North America. Most of rest of the world does it without it resulting in uber-high accident rates. The notion that it's inherently more dangerous is not shared by all.
Used to lanesplit in Germany, Italy and back here in the U.S.. I will agree that when done properly the increased risk is limited primarily to riding on the paint and that it puts you closer to the easily spooked and provoked non-riding public.
I relegated this practice to emergency use only when some friends helped me to understand how lane splitting often hurts how the non-riding populace view the riding community.
I feel that it should be leagal in all major metroplises but at the same time we need better driver education on this practice to keep people on both sides of the drivers window in line. Help drivers get over the, "They are cutting in line mentality" and help reign in the Jackass riders who lanesplit too fast and aggressively.
I ride without a helmet whenever I can. (On the LT, where it's legal, not raining.) I'm fully aware of the increased risk but I enjoy it much more than riding with a helmet so TO ME it's worth the additional risk.
I agree, that we as individuals should have the right to determine the amount risk to which we expose ourselves.
I've got well over 100,000 miles under my belt (stopped counting years ago,) much of it without a helmet or wearing a half helmet and I have yet to be subjected to the automatic death sentence that many assume it to be. Does that prove ANYTHING? Nope. Only that I'm alive today and could still be, helmeted or not, killed in an instant tomorrow.
I admit you've got me beat on mileage, I've only got 80,000-ish miles of riding. :yes
The concept that there is no gaurantee that there will be a tomorrow and everything else I whole heartedly agree with.
I think people who take up street riding and then pretend that personal safety is their primary concern are engaged in self-deception.
Again, I absolutely agree. The act of riding is an assumed risk. Therefore the rider bears the responsibility for what happens to him from any mistakes he/she makes. This is only modified if it can be proved that someone elses mistake was a contributing factor.
No matter how many miles I ever have under my belt, how much gear I have on, how good/safe a rider I consider myself to be or whether I have ABS or not, I will never be arrogant enough to assume that I can control or predict everything that goes on around me and realize that I am exposing myself to an increased risk of personal injury or death every time I throw a leg over. The reality of street riding is that a human body is VERY exposed on a motorcycle riding among multi-ton hunks of moving metal driven by people making mistakes all of the time or not paying attention. And yes, I'm a human too so I'm capable of making mistakes as well. If you never ever make mistakes when riding then my hat is off to you..
First)I apologize for not being clear in my previous post. The language of this part of your post is pretty much a personal shot at me where you seem to feel that I am arrogant and that I think that I don't make mistakes. This means that my previous post has produced unintended rancor.
I want to be clear and say that nothing in my previous posted was intened as a personal shot. My, "ABS uber alles myth" line was meant as a descriptor of certain language that is very misleading and has made its way into common usage amongst the riding community.
Second) I make mistakes and have admitted such in this thread.
Third)While I agree, that no one is so perfect as to contol everything around them and that agree that we all make mistakes this is not about arrogance, rather it is about the expectations of the law.
Driving/riding laws operate from the perspective that we "have to be perfect and mistake free". By the law, if we make an error that either affects someone else negatively or in front of a cop we are responsible and have to pay.
This is what rider traing is for. To help us make as few mistakes as possible and to help give us the skills to recover from a mistake unharmed or with minimized damage.
I agree that ABS has a role here but how much of a role is, imo, determined more by the choices we make as riders than by actions of other drivers
I don't consider ABS a primary safety feature but a back-up one. Like any sane rider, out of self-preservation, I try to ride within an envelope of safety that ensures I won't hit anything and that nothing hits me. I can leave room, pay attention, alter my lane position, stay out of blind spots, etc.. and try to predict what the cars around me might do but I will never be perfect at it and will, on occasion, be surprised. There have been one or two occasions where I f'd up and the ABS saved me. You know what? In those situations I'd rather learn from my mistake, remain upright and keep riding than end up with a smashed bike and an ambulance ride.
1)We are agreed on ABS as a back-up safety device and that any sane rider shoould know this. My point is that the language surrounding these systems has become misleading in this area and that young/new riders (and car drivers) do not think of it as a back-up but as more of an active safety device
2)I'm glad that you are still with us. And will not argue your experience of the ABS saving you.
3)I will contend that are riders who attribute too much to the ABS system. That the system saved them from their mistake when it played no roll at all. That the system saved them in a situation where having ABS had no bearing on the outcome
4)Here, lets see if I can describe my stance a bit better.
Many riders now-a-days will describe the ABS as a safety feature that will prevent you from washing out if you hit wet leaves in the apex of a curve.
This is patently untrue. The ABS will not magically keep the bike from sliding on wet leaves while leaned over. Neither will it automatically stop the slide.
What it does in this situation is to prevent the rider from locking up the rear wheel out of panic and it can "possibly" aid in recovering from the skid but such a recovery would be more due to rider skill, the situation and to luck that allows the ABS to help as opposed to it being an inherant safety feature.
Duck, I'm not criticizing you, I'm criticizing the descriptive and misleading language that has crept into the riding community. Language that when one tries to point out the fallacies of which, those using the language feel personally attacked/slighted.
The Gen 1 and Gen 2 ABS systems may be "dodgy" by today's standards but the fact is that they do work OK.
Sometimes.
My issues with the ABS system are not isolated. As these systems age their documented malfuction/failure rates are increasing. We as a community should be adressing this problem by disgussing the issue and all of our options. There is a point in the forseeable future where those that want to keep these systems functioning are going to need to know how to refurbish the existing parts that are wearing out, find a suitable replacement or look at removal as an acceptable option.
I understand that my experiences with the system are my own and that others have have differing experiences. Thats why whenever someone asks about removing the system, my usual reply is that it's their bike and that they should do what they want. I will let them know that I removed mine for my own reasons, that their mileage may vary as to reliability/safety and that I neither encourage nor discourage doing such.
Is ABS vs. non-ABS a deal-breaker for me when buying a bike? Nope. But if I were looking at the exact same bike for the same price with or without ABS I'd probably opt for the one with ABS.
Or you can find a K with a non-functioning ABS and use that fact to buy it for less than a non-ABS bike. :yes :2thumbup:
Do I care if other people like/want ABS? Not in the least. Just like I don't care what other people choose to wear or ride. So no, I don't advocate anybody else have or not have ABS. Personally, I think it has value so I choose not to remove if from my bikes.
Not trying to be antagonistic here, but go back and look at what your replies have been on this and other forums when riders had posted that they are considering ditching their ABS. You almost nvariably offer them help on fxing the system.
Yes, I've been lurking on the various forums for years. Coincidentally, your strong involvement with Motobrick is one of the things that lead me to join.
I hope that you understand that while we disagree on somewhat on this subject, I still have the utmost respect for your knowledge and experience regarding K bikes.
Here's an example of when I sure wish I'd had ABS. I was approaching a slightly angled to the side downhill stop sign on a dry sunny day and not riding fast at all. When I got to the last two feet of the stop the front end washed out and I was instantly turned into a pedestrian as the bike threw itself to the ground. I was left there standing with a WTF look on my face next to my now napping non-ABS K75RT. What happened? Right at that spot there was a very fine layer of sand that was the exact same color as the pavement. Even standing on it it was incredibly hard to see, virtually invisible. And it wasn't in a place where one would expect there to be any sand. I'm pretty sure that if I'd had ABS that day that the front end would've ABS'd and not washed out. Since I just walked off of the bike at a very low speed and remained upright I did not sustain any personal injury but my fairing got pretty f'd up on the right side.
First) Glad you came to no harm
Second)Again, I agree that we all make mistakes and miss things.
Third) Where we seem to (correct me if I'm wrong)differ here, is that I look at such things as teachable moments. I don't hesitate to question what I could have done different or possibly why I'm having trouble seeing such things.
Case in point, A few years back, I realized that my vision during dusk was having trouble with the new bright projector lights. I asked myself if it might be age and had my vision tested. Found that while still legal my vision had dropped lost a few points and that I was developing mild astigmatism. I then took steps to adapt my riding to my new limitations.
However, I'm sure that with your zillion miles of riding experience and uber-riding-ESP that you would not have gone down in that situation. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
Yay, another personal shot.
Seriously Duck, I again apologize for failing in my efforts to communicate. My "ABS uber alles myth" comment was meant to refer to the ridng public in general, not about you in specific.
I would ask that in the future you first ask for clarification as to my intended meaning before assuming that I'm attacking/disrespecting you. Deal?
And I've had a situations where I've had to ride over a wet manhole cover while braking. I live in Seattle. The roads are wet here nine months a year and we have lots of manholes. On one occasion some dipstick to my right started changing lanes without looking. Since his car already occupied the right half of the lane and there was a car in the lane to the left of me, my only viable route of travel was the left half of the lane where I had to brake over a wet manhole cover. I didn't need to brake hard enough to have the ABS kick in but it was nice to know it was there if I did. .
A)Sounds a little like riding in Germany and Down here in Houston during the monsoon season(Seattle average annual rainfall 39"....Houston average annual rainfall 46". Though we've been in a drought so we only got 38-ish inches last year).
B)Anyway, glad you escaped without harm.
C)My point was that if your tires could have easily started to slip on the manhole covers with no brake input and if such had happened the ABS would have had no impact on the resulting skid. That's all.
(I ride in multi-lane city traffic. I do my best to stay out of blind spots but it's physically impossible to never be in somebody's blind spot.)
Agreed. This is why the safety courses train us to not let ourselves get boxed in and to have a constantly evolving/changing escape route running through our heads.
BTW, Just realized that we have hijacked this thread enough. I've attempeted to clear up what my intentions were and to clarify my point. I now humbly bow out and will wait and watch
to see what the OP gets accomplished with his ride.
@OP-Sorry for my role in hijacking the thread.
Later,
Freelancer
