Dusk Dip and Sand: Setting Entry Speed With a Passenger Aboard
At 8:40 p.m. on a late-October Saturday you are leading two other riders north on a two-lane county road posted at 55 mph. The sun set at 6:50, the western sky is still faintly gray, and you are holding a two-second gap behind a flatbed truck hauling loose pallets; one pallet has already bounced onto the shoulder. Ahead the road drops into a blind dip and then bends right. A yellow diamond sign marks the curve with a 35 mph advisory plate. At the bottom of the dip the asphalt is patched, and a band of sand from a gravel driveway crosses your lane. Your passenger has about 400 miles of experience and is holding the grab rail. Your low beam is on. The rider directly behind you is tailgating the third rider and drifting toward the centerline.
1. Where do you place the motorcycle and how fast do you take the dip-and-curve combination? Explain the reasoning behind each choice.
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Speed. Get the speed down before the dip, not in it. A dip unweights the front tire and compresses the suspension on the far side, so braking at the bottom gives you a light front contact patch exactly when you need grip. Also, from the bottom of a dip your low beam will not light the exit of the curve, so you must be able to stop within the distance you can actually see, not within the distance the sign allows. The 35 mph advisory assumes a clean, dry surface and daylight; with sand crossing the lane at dusk, aim for roughly 28–30 mph at the bottom and be willing to go slower.
Position. Enter from the left third of the lane - the outside of a right-hand bend - for the widest sight line and the latest turn-in. But do not commit to that line blindly: driveway sand usually washes across the whole lane and piles at both edges, and the center of a lane carries oil drip. Scan the sand band as you approach, pick the cleanest strip, and accept a less-than-ideal line rather than ride through grit leaned over.
Eyes. Turn your head to the exit of the curve and keep it there. Do not fixate on the truck's taillights or on the sand itself.
2. The truck's brake lights flare and it swerves slightly onto the shoulder. Walk through your braking and the passenger-related decisions.
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Squeeze both brakes progressively, front doing most of the work, while the bike is still straight up and down; a grab on sand or patches will lock the front and put you down. Because the surface is mixed, keep the bike vertical longer than usual and give yourself more room before you begin to lean.
With a passenger aboard, braking distance is longer and the rear tire is more heavily loaded, so the rear brake deserves more than its usual share. Your passenger's weight also pitches forward under hard braking; she should brace against the grab rail or backrest rather than grab you, and she must keep her feet on the pegs until you tell her otherwise - a foot going down early can be caught between the peg and the road.
Stop where you have an escape (offset slightly left of the truck's line), tap the brake light to warn the riders behind, and once stopped check the mirrors immediately, because the tailgating rider is your real problem. If a swerve is needed instead of a stop, decide early: braking and swerving at the same time on a contaminated surface is how single-vehicle crashes happen.
3. What do you do about the tailgating rider behind you tonight, and what do you say at the next stop?
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Do not brake-check him. Instead, open the gap ahead of you by easing off the throttle slightly rather than abruptly, so his closing speed bleeds off over a longer distance and no one has to react suddenly. If he persists, at the first safe, well-lit pull-off, signal and stop the group.
As the lead rider you own the group's spacing. Say three concrete things: (1) at night the following distance grows - two seconds is a dry-daylight minimum, and dusk with deer and sand means three or more; (2) in a group, ride staggered, not three abreast and not in a single-file conga line that rubber-bands on every curve; (3) each rider keeps a two-second bubble in front that no one else enters. Point out that his drift toward the centerline puts him on the oil strip and in the oncoming sight line. If the group cannot hold spacing, split up - a ride that ends separately is better than a ride that ends in a pile.