Motorcycle Pro-Ride Course 2 Months Later

Today's weather: n  High = 27 Low = 21

Partly cloudy

 

As predicted, many of the skills I learned during the training course in July back in Vancouver don't apply in the Shanghai context now that I'm riding here again.   Dominant lane positions?  Forget it, the cagers will do anything to get past you, including very dangerous and aggressive moves.  Shoulder checks?  Also forget it.  In the Shanghai context, you have to focus on multiple things ahead of you, and also use your peripheral vision.  When it gets very busy, such as in rush hour, you can be keeping track of 5-6 objects simultaneously and avoiding collision courses.

 

Riding in Shanghai is a skill that is just like air traffic control!  You're watching for multiple things and you are responsible to avoid the accidents.

 

In this sense, shoulder checking is useless because it is a habit designed to look out for *single* hazards.  During that split second you're turning your head to look at a potential hazard, you are not focusing on the other 6 hazards that you need to keep your head straight in order to see them all.  Back in Vancouver where the population is sparse and you have the space to focus on one thing at a time, then shoulder checking works.  Here in densely populated Shanghai that habit is actually very dangerous.

 

On the other hand, there are transferable skills, and I don't regret the Pro-Ride course at all.  The two most useful skills are emergency braking drills, and braking in a curve.   The mantra they taught us of 'look straight to brake' applies well here, and I routinely practice this drill in the parking lot as they told us to. 

 

I got a chance to apply this today when some dumb-fangled moron riding an electric bike proceeded to do a wide turn in front of me during rush hour, and go straight on a collision course.  Like a flash I did my emergency braking drill as I learned during the course, and missed this idiot within inches.  He took off, my bike stalled out.  Then I proceeded to give him the finger and yell at the top of my lungs, but he was gone like the wind.