Open your mind. How to see more and find confidence on a motorcycle.

I last rode the B6451 six years ago on a KTM 1290 but I can still remember every detail of every corner. So why do I still mess up all those corners?

What do you think about when riding a motorcycle?

Close your eyes and replay a mental blast down your favourite road. What are you seeing? I can visualise the geography, the lines, the road surfaces, even the smells of hundreds of different routes all over the UK and beyond.

Oddly, when I’m riding these roads, my conscious thoughts have no relation to any of that. Al that detail is processed by some kind of peripheral awareness.

When I used to do track days other riders would discuss apexes, corner speeds and when to get on the throttle. My memory of Oulton Park would be ‘Was that a chaffinch I saw while going through the chicane?’ I never made world champion.

But I can still replay a lap of Oulton Park’s 1997 track layout in my head like it was yesterday.

‘So, what’s the point here Rosie? You’ve rambled on for 135 words and I still don’t get it.’

The point is that when we ride, we use a lot more of our brain than we realise and much of what we do is unconscious, or perhaps subconscious (scientists say there’s an important difference).

We’ve seen them before, we know what they’re going to do and we slow down. All hazards can be this simple to manage once you spot them

How do I think differently on a motorcycle?

Most of the things we encounter – whether a driver on the wrong side of the road or a blind bend that tightens sharply – we have seen and survived before. So, our brain has a learned strategy to deal with them. It’s not just the physical process of riding the bike that involves unconscious muscle memory, but also the events that unfold in front of us.

And that’s the stuff that (thankfully) allows people like me to ponder a chaffinch at 40-degrees of lean and still make it home safely… I think.

So, the question might actually be, ‘What should you think about in your conscious mind while riding?’

Because for all that experience, I still make the same mistakes in a corner that I’ve made for years. I still have the same frustrations about turning-in to corners too early and even though I can visualise those roads in detail, I’ve yet to ride them as I’d really like to in four decades on a bike. I may have developed a strategy to deal with the hazard but that’s not the same as a program for how to improve.

The more riding skills you build to control the bike, the more headspace you have for roadcraft and spotting hazards

How to use mindset to be more confident riding a motorcycle

There’s a lot going on here, so I asked Mark McVeigh. Mark is BikeSocial’s Motorbike Coach. He’s a vastly experienced rider coach and ex-MotoGP engineer who’s run his own riding academy, motoDNA for more than20 years.

Mark tells me, “A lot of what we think about depends on our skill and experience. Riders who are still learning spend a lot of time thinking about how to control the bike, which leaves less headspace for roadcraft and risk assessment. Plus, they don’t have that archive of experience from previous riding, which makes riding feel very busy, intense and sometimes stressful. Even an experienced rider who doesn’t regularly practice their skills will find situations where they are focusing hard on things that other riders do intuitively.

“Mindset is an important part of riding. On a basic level that might be thinking ‘all drivers are distracted/incompetent/out to get me’ – as a defence mechanism, but there’s a lot of much more positive stuff too which has far more value. Developing a growth mindset helps you enjoy every ride more because you’ll focus on things that improve your skills and roadcraft. Even after 40 years riding, I still review my performance all the time. It’s like a game, I want to keep going up a level.

“I ask myself, what can I do better next time, what surprised me on that ride, did I hit my reference points and spot hazards early enough?”

So, what is the psychology of riding a motorcycle, Mark?

“Think about the right things while you ride. Build your skills by being aware and reviewing your riding as part of the conversation you have with yourself on the bike.

“My background in racing and rider coaching means I have a high level of machine control skills that are automatic and intuitive, so most of my headspace is used for roadcraft and risk assessment. I’m continually looking for information to make better decisions using a systematic search pattern with a mixture of direct focus and peripheral vision.

My focus on rural roads is the vanishing point – where am I going and what is the road doing ahead of me into the distance. Then I look to the sides and then in the mirrors. And of course, lifesavers before any manoeuvre. It is essential to be able to stop in the distance you can see.”

There are five key bits of information in this photo that you’ll spot in your peripheral vision. Can you see them all?*

Using peripheral vision allows faster reaction times

“Peripheral vision is important in risk assessment. When the car coming towards you drifts over the centre line you can see it faster in your peripheral vision. This is because peripheral vision doesn’t go through your brain’s main vision centre, but instead goes directly to the brain. Boxers don’t look directly at the fists of their opponents because the time taken to go through the vision centre is too slow. These are the senses that saved our forefathers being attacked by tigers and they can save us too.

“Peripheral vision allows faster reaction times. It also improves balance and co-ordination. Lifesavers are a good example of this. Much of what you see in a lifesaver is peripheral and it goes straight to your brain letting you process it quicker.

“Training your peripheral vision should be a part of every ride. On urban roads there’s a lot more to take in. That red blur to your far left is a Transit van. The blue blur to your right is a taxi turning right from a junction. There’s a mother in a green coat with a blue pram on the pavement etc. Actively working on this and talking out loud as a commentary is a good way to improve peripheral performance.

“There’s less to see on a country road but peripheral vision is also great for coordination and judging your bike position. You’ll be surprised how accurately you can position your bike without directly looking at reference points like kerbs, turn-in and apex. And again, this frees up headspace to concentrate on reading the road and controlling the bike.”

Thanks Mark. I think I have a better idea now of what a commentary looks like. When I’ve tried it before I’ve never been sure if I’m taking note of the right things. I get hung up on how the GSX-R1000 coming towards me has the wrong colours for a 2006 bike. Or the name of the business on the van I just passed was missing an apostrophe. I used to think that stuff was unimportant but now I see that it might just be training my peripheral vision.

Which is reassuring because it appears that I’m doing some of the right things, but I’m curious to see if I can formalise the process and turn it into self-coaching. As Mark says…often. “You can’t develop a learning mindset if you don’t know what to learn.”

*The five key bits of information spotted in your peripheral vision approaching the road in the image above are:

1. There’s a right hand turn ahead and the recommended speed for the turn drops from 60mph (the speed limit on this road) to 20mph, so it’s a sharp one

2. The Chevron sign straight ahead is damaged indicating that some people don’t make the turn

3. There’s a further chevron just visible above the hedge so I can see this is a 90-degree bend

4. And there’s a house just around the bend meaning there’s probably a hidden driveway too

5. The gap in the hedge to the left of the van suggests there’s a side road going off the corner

It’s a lot easier to see the vanishing point when the fog lifts.

How to practice thinking differently on a motorcycle

So, I went out and tried doing commentary again while actively thinking about peripheral vision (something I haven’t done since a training course in 2008). I also try reviewing my riding as I process lines of queuing traffic and the twists and turns of some local back roads.

It felt clumsy at first – like every time I’ve tried it before. And it takes a lot of concentration. But this time I had some guidance and more of a purpose than previously and, by the time I got home it was becoming more apparent what works and what doesn’t.

Cornering is a good example of this. If we don’t know what to practice in a corner, we make the same mistakes over and over. Practice only makes perfect if you practice the right things. Which is why, if you don’t actively practice the right things corners are as difficult now as they were last year.

I’m ok at cornering – I’ve done a lot of training and have a reasonable amount of confidence, but there are things I want to do better. I choose a good line, but I tend to turn in too early, a common survival reaction that makes us run wider on the exit and compromises the line I chose because I don’t get maximum visibility before turning.

Letting my peripheral vision take care of the distance between me and kerb allows more focus on the vanishing point so I can be more decisive on when to start turning. Doing it once is an eye-opener, but encouraging myself to do it through every corner and reviewing my riding is where the discipline comes in.

What begins as a challenge starts to become a habit. Mostly because I have more confidence in my peripheral vision to manage the risk of where the kerb is.

I try different ways of talking myself through a corner. ‘Where am I looking, where’s the vanishing point, how far can I see round the corner, what’s the safe position in regard to oncoming traffic? When should I brake, is the road surface ok, when do I turn, how sharply do I turn?’

It sounds like a lot when written down but it’s what I’ve been doing subconsciously for years. The difference is that I’m vocalising it, reviewing my actions.

The lightbulb moment is that for someone with 40 years’ riding under his wheels much of this isn’t new. And although I have a lot of skills built through experience and practice, I also have bad habits. Practicing the wrong things makes bad habits permanent.

That simple idea of reviewing the ride and actions required in real time is easy and brings focus to the ride. Rediscovering the power of peripheral vision and actively practicing it sharpened existing skills too and allowed my inner geek to enjoy the chaffinches, missing apostrophes and GSX-R anomalies.

For me, the takeaway from this was that knowing we have some skills isn’t enough. Actively practicing them and reviewing your ride in real time makes a huge difference to how we enjoy the ride.

So…What should you think about if you want to enjoy your riding more? The answer, unsurprisingly is (drum roll…) Your riding.

One of these objects has more processing power and safety aids than NASA (probably), the other has 40 years riding experience and a desire to be a better rider.

Mark McVeigh is BikeSocial’s Motorbike Coach. A vastly experienced rider coach, ex-MotoGP engineer and riding academy owner for over 20 years, Mark is also the inventor of motoDNA rider training technology. 

@Motorbike_Coach

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