Jake
May 29th, 2003, 08:23 PM
I ride to work, I don't commute. The ride every day is a joy and a thrill I look forward to even when traffic is bumper to bumper backed up from freeway to every side road and driveway. Most say its crazy, dangerous. Crazy? No. Dangerous? You bet. I would not recommend it to anyone without years of riding experience, a sense of adventure, the ability to react effectively without panicking, and the ability to focus. When it comes to lane splitting, I am one of those that gets on a bike and enters a different state of conciousness in which the cars on the freeway become parts of a fluid-like substance that separates when I approach much like when Moses parted the sea.
I am not reckless. Far from it. I learned when I soared gliders that practice, experience, and focused, relaxed state can help you push margins beyond what others find incomprehensible. In my home-built 15 meter HP-18 glider, I used to practice formation flying, wingtip to wingtip in thermals and waves, double tows and high-speed over-the-deck fly-byes over the runway. On the bike, the mind-set and the dependence on your equipment is much the same.
First you must have the disposition and the mental confidence in yourself. Second, you have to have a bike that will do what you ask without failure. Brakes, tires, the works. For a complete package, you have to also dress knowing that its not a question of if you will ever fall, but when. In a glider, it means always wearing a parachute even if you are just taking your grandma for a joy flight. On a bike it means leather from head to toe. Boots, full-face helmet (not the brain-caps that some would-be cyclists wear), gloves. Road rash is the worst; jeans tear instantly. With leather you get up brush off the dust and walk away. But, equipment is not everything. Its also in your head. You have to be a student of the road and spend a lot of time observing and analyzing traffic flows and patterns, and get to know your felow vehicle operators.
Splitting lanes at 40 when the traffic is standing still, bumper to bumper is probabily a little on the crazy side. But I do it. So do a lot of other lane splitters who came to understand the essence. When the freeways back up all the way from the Bay Bridge down to Los Gatos, I rarely get off the white lines. I usually keep moving faster than the traffic up to about 60 after which I get back into the left lane. I absolutely hate the waves: you inch forward, accelerate to 30, stop, move again, etc. Splitting at 60 means you are passing through a wave that ranges between 30 and 55. I'm just smoothing it out. The rules are hard to qualify. The situation picks the rules. I can say that my rules have slowly gelled to a comfortable set of do's and dont's. I can say that with these I have around 30K miles of solid lane splitting and no spills. In total I have about 96K miles on four bikes, including the Honda Sabre V45. At the start of lane splitting I did loose two or three left mirrors due to clearance misjudgements. I rarely even think about the clearances now. The two inches between my mirror and the side of the truck does not appear itself anymore. I know I'm clear and that's it.
I try not to intimidate the hopelessly imprisoned natives in their four wheel beasts of burden. It only comes back to haunt you at a later time. I especially dislike the jacked up expensive all-wheel all-terain so called "urban professional" family trucks but that's another story. I give way when pressed and I don't show any signs of anger as I see some bikers do when some poor shmuck cuts them off. Doing so only breaks my concentration of being somewhere else, prehaps in an X-wing running the canyons on Luke's home planet. Besides, if some redneck wants to play, he'll most likely win at my expense. Anyway, before anyone knows it, I'm gone and they're stuck back in the jam poping arteries.
I started lane splitting on an old 755cc BMW K75RT with 68K miles on it. I put solid 18K miles onto it in rain and sun. It was a great bike to learn lane splitting on. Just enough power to get out of jams but not enough to get into trouble. While I had it, it has never failed to start on the first push of the starter. It handled better than anything else I've sat on, and if you didn't look too close you wouldn't be able to tell that it was going on nine years. I did, however, take off those gargantuan hard-case saddle bags. Most importantly, it got me out of some very close situations including one spill on a wet merge lane. I got up, drove home. The bike had barely a scratch on it. I changed the oil every 2500 miles, kept it in a garage every night and replaced the tires after 10K miles.
Early in 1999, I upgraded to a new 1999 BMW K1200RS. As much commuting as I do, I needed to let the old 75RT rest and move to higher performance. With the 130bhp, six gears and ABS, the RS is a superior lane splitter. This bike takes whatever you ask of it and always leaves room for more. But, back to lane splitting...
One thing I find very amusing is the reaction I get from people when I discuss lane splitting. Almost exclusively I get the same first reply, almost as if its genetically inbread in everyone and they just know what to say without thinking (Ok, I know, people immediately recognize the risks, and can't deal with the fact someone actually wants to do it). Anyway, Spock was right. People are illogical. "Gee, what if I open my door on you". Someday I would like some psychoanalyst to explain that to me. My first reaction is equally illogical but what the hell. I am only human. "You jerk." I once said something very close to that to an AT&T Vice President after his reply to me; I told him where I live and how long it takes me to get to work on my bike. The point is, in all my life, I have seen only once someone open a door, on a congested freeway, during rush hour traffic. On the contrary, I bet that most vehicular occupants are sealed and locked in fear that some lower life scum flies in through the open window from the car in the next lane to rob them of their material acquisitions (actually, that does happen, but that is another story). Now if they said something like "hey, what if I switch lanes and wipe you out?" I could form a dialog. True, that happens. Not all that frequently. But it happens. Most of the time, the car blinks its turn signal and then slowly moves over. Slowly is a relative term here and by that I mean that from your elevated sense of risk aversion, you see it coming, defensively execute the proper maneuver and continue without breaking a sweat. Occasionally one of our more aggresive road rage drivers switches lanes as if all of a sudden their little brain said, "Hey, the road is clearer on the other side of the line so move your butt, NOW." These usually drive a jacked up chevy four wheeler with an empty gun rack in the window. I should know. I did live in Indiana. What saves me is the empty space in place they are trying to squeeze into. The maneuver is similar to formation flying. You follow. That's it. You drive on.
So why do I do this? I have a family, a career, a life. I could say that I do it because I can do the 32 miles from or to work in 40 minutes while it would take me 90 to 120 in my car. I could say that its because I don't want to contribute to the global warming process (eh, with gallon of gas now around $2.00 here in the Bay, my 35+ miles to a gallon is not bad); I could say that I save on gas. These and others are good reasons. However, I do it more as a statement on the life we all chose to lead, perhaps to give me a bit of escape from it, and most likely because I can. Either way, if you are on the freeway stuck in a jam, please look at your side mirrors and give me space. Its legal and if you do, I won't take off your side mirror. Worse yet, even though you did not ask me to do this, you may be the one that splatters my innards across four lanes of 880 and none of us would really want that, now would we.
Happy commuting.
p.s., and yes, I do have a big life insurance policy, just in case. For more information on lane splitting, check out the Lane Splitting FYI George Vanecek
I am not reckless. Far from it. I learned when I soared gliders that practice, experience, and focused, relaxed state can help you push margins beyond what others find incomprehensible. In my home-built 15 meter HP-18 glider, I used to practice formation flying, wingtip to wingtip in thermals and waves, double tows and high-speed over-the-deck fly-byes over the runway. On the bike, the mind-set and the dependence on your equipment is much the same.
First you must have the disposition and the mental confidence in yourself. Second, you have to have a bike that will do what you ask without failure. Brakes, tires, the works. For a complete package, you have to also dress knowing that its not a question of if you will ever fall, but when. In a glider, it means always wearing a parachute even if you are just taking your grandma for a joy flight. On a bike it means leather from head to toe. Boots, full-face helmet (not the brain-caps that some would-be cyclists wear), gloves. Road rash is the worst; jeans tear instantly. With leather you get up brush off the dust and walk away. But, equipment is not everything. Its also in your head. You have to be a student of the road and spend a lot of time observing and analyzing traffic flows and patterns, and get to know your felow vehicle operators.
Splitting lanes at 40 when the traffic is standing still, bumper to bumper is probabily a little on the crazy side. But I do it. So do a lot of other lane splitters who came to understand the essence. When the freeways back up all the way from the Bay Bridge down to Los Gatos, I rarely get off the white lines. I usually keep moving faster than the traffic up to about 60 after which I get back into the left lane. I absolutely hate the waves: you inch forward, accelerate to 30, stop, move again, etc. Splitting at 60 means you are passing through a wave that ranges between 30 and 55. I'm just smoothing it out. The rules are hard to qualify. The situation picks the rules. I can say that my rules have slowly gelled to a comfortable set of do's and dont's. I can say that with these I have around 30K miles of solid lane splitting and no spills. In total I have about 96K miles on four bikes, including the Honda Sabre V45. At the start of lane splitting I did loose two or three left mirrors due to clearance misjudgements. I rarely even think about the clearances now. The two inches between my mirror and the side of the truck does not appear itself anymore. I know I'm clear and that's it.
I try not to intimidate the hopelessly imprisoned natives in their four wheel beasts of burden. It only comes back to haunt you at a later time. I especially dislike the jacked up expensive all-wheel all-terain so called "urban professional" family trucks but that's another story. I give way when pressed and I don't show any signs of anger as I see some bikers do when some poor shmuck cuts them off. Doing so only breaks my concentration of being somewhere else, prehaps in an X-wing running the canyons on Luke's home planet. Besides, if some redneck wants to play, he'll most likely win at my expense. Anyway, before anyone knows it, I'm gone and they're stuck back in the jam poping arteries.
I started lane splitting on an old 755cc BMW K75RT with 68K miles on it. I put solid 18K miles onto it in rain and sun. It was a great bike to learn lane splitting on. Just enough power to get out of jams but not enough to get into trouble. While I had it, it has never failed to start on the first push of the starter. It handled better than anything else I've sat on, and if you didn't look too close you wouldn't be able to tell that it was going on nine years. I did, however, take off those gargantuan hard-case saddle bags. Most importantly, it got me out of some very close situations including one spill on a wet merge lane. I got up, drove home. The bike had barely a scratch on it. I changed the oil every 2500 miles, kept it in a garage every night and replaced the tires after 10K miles.
Early in 1999, I upgraded to a new 1999 BMW K1200RS. As much commuting as I do, I needed to let the old 75RT rest and move to higher performance. With the 130bhp, six gears and ABS, the RS is a superior lane splitter. This bike takes whatever you ask of it and always leaves room for more. But, back to lane splitting...
One thing I find very amusing is the reaction I get from people when I discuss lane splitting. Almost exclusively I get the same first reply, almost as if its genetically inbread in everyone and they just know what to say without thinking (Ok, I know, people immediately recognize the risks, and can't deal with the fact someone actually wants to do it). Anyway, Spock was right. People are illogical. "Gee, what if I open my door on you". Someday I would like some psychoanalyst to explain that to me. My first reaction is equally illogical but what the hell. I am only human. "You jerk." I once said something very close to that to an AT&T Vice President after his reply to me; I told him where I live and how long it takes me to get to work on my bike. The point is, in all my life, I have seen only once someone open a door, on a congested freeway, during rush hour traffic. On the contrary, I bet that most vehicular occupants are sealed and locked in fear that some lower life scum flies in through the open window from the car in the next lane to rob them of their material acquisitions (actually, that does happen, but that is another story). Now if they said something like "hey, what if I switch lanes and wipe you out?" I could form a dialog. True, that happens. Not all that frequently. But it happens. Most of the time, the car blinks its turn signal and then slowly moves over. Slowly is a relative term here and by that I mean that from your elevated sense of risk aversion, you see it coming, defensively execute the proper maneuver and continue without breaking a sweat. Occasionally one of our more aggresive road rage drivers switches lanes as if all of a sudden their little brain said, "Hey, the road is clearer on the other side of the line so move your butt, NOW." These usually drive a jacked up chevy four wheeler with an empty gun rack in the window. I should know. I did live in Indiana. What saves me is the empty space in place they are trying to squeeze into. The maneuver is similar to formation flying. You follow. That's it. You drive on.
So why do I do this? I have a family, a career, a life. I could say that I do it because I can do the 32 miles from or to work in 40 minutes while it would take me 90 to 120 in my car. I could say that its because I don't want to contribute to the global warming process (eh, with gallon of gas now around $2.00 here in the Bay, my 35+ miles to a gallon is not bad); I could say that I save on gas. These and others are good reasons. However, I do it more as a statement on the life we all chose to lead, perhaps to give me a bit of escape from it, and most likely because I can. Either way, if you are on the freeway stuck in a jam, please look at your side mirrors and give me space. Its legal and if you do, I won't take off your side mirror. Worse yet, even though you did not ask me to do this, you may be the one that splatters my innards across four lanes of 880 and none of us would really want that, now would we.
Happy commuting.
p.s., and yes, I do have a big life insurance policy, just in case. For more information on lane splitting, check out the Lane Splitting FYI George Vanecek