Motorpsycho: Lean Into It!

Last Monday was my first unsettling experience on the bike.

Okay, it was just a few shades shy of sphincter-clenching terrifying, but I got over it quick.

See, to turn a bike, you have to lean into the turn. You don’t have to lean like the driver of a racebike nearly dragging his knee, but on most turns your’re leaning over a lot more than you’d otherwise be comfortable with, and for a big guy that’s not an easy feeling to get used to. I know from experience: big guys fall down hard.

The bike actually keeps you from falling over. That’s just how the physics of bike riding works: you put on the speed through the turn and the bike tries to keep itself upright. Your lean creates the turn and when you stop leaning it goes back to vertical and off you go. They tell you all about it, and assure you that as long as you continue to look through the turn rather than at it and you roll onto the throttle with your lean, you’ll be just fine.

The problem is your brain believes it, but your body doesn’t. Trying to get the brain to overpower that reflex took more effort thanI thought, and the first few turns I went way wide and had a deathgrip on the hand grips. I also didn’t quite understand what they meant by pressing on the grips with the lean, and had to ask exactly what I was supposed to be doing with the handlebards (which turned out to be slightly different on the bike in the end, anyway). I got the pressing, looking and accelerating down pretty quick. The problem was still that damn lean. The instructors figured out what I was doing wrong before I did, and pretty soon with every turn they were shouting “Press harder!” or “Lean more!” as I zipped by.

Finally I decided to hell with it: I would lean over and if I fall, I fall. We weren’t going all that fast, but f I get hurt, I get hurt. I had a helmet and gloves, and if the instructors freaked I could just say “See that! Fat guys don’t lean!” I rolled through the straight, slowed a bit for the turn, looked at my target, hit the throttle, and leaned.

The bike rolled through a tight, graceful turn and right into the next straight.

Eureka! I don’t know how it looked from the outside, but it sure felt good on the inside. Two or three more like that and the instructors were giving me the thumbs up. I figured they may as well put that motorcycle endorsement on my license now, because this is easy.

Then on Wednesday we learned about swerving…