How to practice your riding skills during the winter

[Aprilian]

I thought it might be good to summarize some ways to work on your riding skills while driving in a car.

There are three categories of skills you can work on, Visual, Mental and Physical.

Visual Skills
Reading whether a curve is tightening or opening up – When going around corners, if you watch where both edges of the road converge, you will notice that the “vanishing point” will either move closer to you or move further away.  When the vanishing point moves further away, it means that the curve is opening up and if it moves closer, the radius is decreasing.
Looking far ahead vs. at front wheel track - I find that I have no trouble looking far ahead in a car, but occasionally realize that I am looking less far ahead on the bike.    Play with too far and not far enough and learn how the distance varies with speed of travel.
Head turns and looking through corners - practice varying how far you look ahead in the car and see if looking through the curve increases how precise you corner the car.
Scanning – I like the old mnemonic device SIPDE (Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide and Execute).   Far too many times I drive, I just watch in front of the car.  But occasionally I force myself to see 360 degrees and  know every other vehicle around me.   Just today I was doing this and a car was eratically merging onto 35E and I knew that no vehicles were in the lane to my left so I was able to prepare to move over without a last minute frantic glance.

Mental Skills
Visual commentary - while scanning start a verbal commentary.   Things like, “See that car accelerating next to you.   There is nowhere for them to go in that lane.  I better get ready in case they come over into my lane.”  And the ever popular. “Squirrel!!!”   I find that this habit is very useful when riding if I am finding my mind wandering to the past or the future.  Just a few minutes of commentary tends to pull me back to the present.

Physical Skills
Head checks - with both hands on wheel see how far behind you you can see without making a steering input.  Stretch your range of motion by looking as far as you can behind you each time.
Being super smooth on the controls
Throttle – add gas slowly and more importantly, never pull your foot off the gas suddenly.   Slowly remove pressure so the car slows imperceptibly.
Brakes – most people (my wife does this – aargh) take their foot off the brakes all at once.   That is very similar to accelerating roughly.   Practice slowly applying and slowly removing the pressure on the brakes.   Watch how the difference impacts the suspension of the car.
Steering – I try to limit all the hunting with the steering wheel and will often “set it and forget it” to see how long it will track within the lane.  This is particularly enlightening in circular freeway exits.   This equates to “holding your line” on the bike.   It is very interesting how long the car will follow the curve without needing constant input.
 
Go ahead and post up any I have missed and have fun polishing your skills for the spring!

Usual fine print;  I am not a driving instructor and these exercises should be used only on closed course or a completely empty road.

[carlson_mn]

Go ahead and post up any I have missed and have fun polishing your skills for the spring!

Or you can actually go for a ride like I did this weekend!

I don't think I followed any of those 'be smooth' points though lol.  I gotta work on those some more...

And here's a view of my butt.

Riding like an idiot on an FJR1300

good notes though especially the mental part.  People have been driving crazy on the after work commute.

[Tumbler]

Good points & great way to practice.  I do some of those things already but will try some of the other ones out.

[Deplorable, thank you!]

 Go out and ride on the cold roads. The less available traction and your body being colder and tense will get you some practice at "smooth" inputs.....Or head south or west and hit up an area where it is nice weather to ride......