As you all know California happens to be the place where lane splitting, I mean lane sharing is legal. While the jury is still out on whether it is more dangerous to split lanes than not the reality is that most of us California riders are taking advantage of this daily.

Motorcycle riding is inherently dangerous. However lane splitting presents a brand new set of dangers. There is a really good discussion thread on advrider about lane splitting. It is very detail oriented and provides plenty of insight on the matter. And even though it does provide abundance of information about lane splitting I believe it still leaves one thing unclear. What is the worst enemy of a lane splitter.

I was riding to the office the other day. I saw a rider coming up behind me. I let him pass. Casual thank you wave and off he went. He took off pretty fast. My competitive nature woke up. What if I tried to keep up. So I did. I kept up for the major part of my commute until we had to part ways at a major freeway intersection. I had to merge to another freeway. “The leader” continued on.

I came into the office thinking that I did a good job keeping up with a fast rider. And right then I realized that essentially I faced my worst enemy as a daily lane splitting commuter - my competitive nature. Admittedly I did not do anything more dangerous than I usually do on my daily commutes. Though this statement is questionable as I was going faster than usual. A huge part of motorcycle riding is about finding one’s comfort zone and sticking to it. For instance a couple of my friends are much better canyon riders than I am. So clearly I stick to my comfort zone and go at my own pace when we are out in the canyons. If I let my competitive nature win and try pushing my limits even though my skill set is not yet up to par then I could endanger myself and possibly other riders or drivers on the road. Exactly the same concept should be applied to lane splitting.

I learned my lesson that day. At certain times competitiveness is good and healthy. But I have to be able to tame it while I am out there riding my bikes. This is of course just my humble opinion. And I am sure there are plenty of other riders out there who might not necessarily think of their competitiveness as their absolute worst enemy. Well, everyone is entitled to having their own opinion. I am not trying to impose mine …

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Auto, Riding, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.