After 27 years riding street bikes, I've developed an intuitive ability to sense potential danger out on the road, sort of like the Spidey Sense that Spider-Man relies on to save his ass when the action heats up. As good as my Sportbike Sense is, though, I could have used a little more of it during my recent visit to the Isle of Man a few months back for this year's Tourist Trophy races. The warm beer was flowing as usual, and there were more fast motorcycles than you could shake a radar gun at, but for some reason (maybe the increased attendance over past years), it felt like a lot of the bikers turned up just to prove how fast they were in the unofficial "fan races" that kicked off the instant the track opened up to the public at the end of each race day. With no speed limits on the island's rural roads and crowds still lining the race course where just hours earlier they watched the racers from every wall, pub and sheep-filled field, the temptation to show off proved too great for many otherwise sensible riders to ignore.
During my first lap of the island on a Ducati Multistrada that Ducati North America was kind enough to lend me, some joker on a Hayabusa-a rare bike in those parts-whipped past me in my own lane with hardly an inch to spare at about 110 mph, forcing me (and my borrowed bike) off onto the steep shoulder of a mountain road. There was nothing saving me from a 300-foot free fall but my meager stopping skills. He was closely followed by four buddies all traveling at similar bin-it-or-win-it speeds, and until I brought the MultiDuck to a skidding, seat-eating halt, I was afraid that I'd be joining the nine other visiting riders who returned home from this year's TT in a body bag.
After parking the Duck and pondering my near-death experience over a pint later that night, I thought of the only other time I was nearly KO'ed by another motorcycle. It had happened years ago at a biker rally in Pennsylvania. A guy on a hot-rodded Harley Sportster decided to hoist a wheelie out of bar parking lot and along the centerline of a crowded street. I was making a left turn just as he approached, and his footpeg ended up clipping my left grip. The brief contact between our bikes sent this bush-league Evel Knievel sliding across an adjacent golf course-and I made a pledge to pay extra attention to stay safe at big motorcycle rallies where testosterone and the need to show off often trump common sense.
The problem with pledges like that is we never know just where or when other riders are going to get all "look, Ma, no hands" on our asses, do we? Though a crowded motorcycle gathering is usually THE absolute worst place to display your "mastery" (or lack-thereof) of your two-wheeled steed, it seems to be one of our favorite places to do so-due to the big crowds, no doubt. Add a little alcohol to the mix, as is unfortunately often the case at big rallies and other organized events, and it can be a lethal combination. We've all been around for situations like this, and sometimes you just KNOW somebody is headed to the ER soon.
I recently mentioned this phenomenon to custom sportbike builder Jimmy Brown, who runs Coastal Motorcycles down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and he laughed bitterly in response. Brown had just survived this year's twin Myrtle Rallies (one for the sportbike crowd and one for the Harley contingent), and he'd seen firsthand how the need to show off at the wrong time can only come to grief. "At one point some drunk guy was trying to do a burnout in front of my shop and completely lost it," Brown says. "The ambulance came and picked him up, so I kept his bike safe at the shop for him. Well, he shows up a couple of days later, still wearing bandages and with a cast on his fool broken leg, and he wants to get his bike back. Worst of all, he was still drunk and on painkillers too, so I flat-out refused to give him the keys," Brown said.
Brown's refusal to let the fellow ride away might well have prevented what could have been the seventh death at this year's Myrtle Beach rally, echoing an increase in rider fatalities at bike rallies from Laconia, New Hampshire to the Isle of Man to Daytona Beach. Getting home alive-or at least without a plaster-packed arm or leg-doesn't take a degree in accident-avoidance techniques. It just takes enough cool to know when to cool it and fine-tuning your own Sportbike Sense