Instructors ride through cones to demonstrate to students how a slalom should be ridden at Fleming College's M2 training course in 2019.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
In most of Canada, it’s that time when motorcyclists are getting back on the road, which makes this perhaps their most dangerous time of the year. After a winter of driving with four wheels, they’ve forgotten some of the basics of riding and their skills could use a refresher.
“The first thing you should do is go to a parking lot and practise, before you go out on any long rides,” says Sharron St-Croix, executive director of the Rider Training Institute in Toronto. She advises riders to take a refresher course because “like any sport, the more you practise, the better you’re going to get.”
This counts for everyone who rides a motorcycle, she says, because “no matter what your skill level is, or what you perceive it to be, you haven’t been on your bike in a number of months. Everybody always has something to learn.”
It is also more challenging to ride a motorcycle safely in the spring because the roads are strewn with sand and dirt left over from the winter’s snow. The sand tends to get pushed into the road’s corners and curves, and to pile up at junctions. These are the places where motorcycles are most vulnerable while leaning or braking.
“My bike is a large and heavy bike, so I don’t do much riding in the month of April,” says Michael Smith, a senior instructor with the Toronto-based Learning Curves Foundation, who rides a Victory Cross Country touring motorcycle. “I want there to have been a couple of good rainstorms. I want the roads to be cleaned up a bit before I take that bike onto the road. It’s sand I’m worried about, as well as the other drivers, and potholes too.”
At this time of the year, drivers are not used to seeing motorcycles and scooters on the road. Consequently, riders must be extra cautious.
“Keep your eyes looking far enough ahead and scanning ahead, being aware of your surroundings and the cars around you, and keep your eyes on your mirrors. The farther you look ahead, the safer you’ll be,” says Mike Tarsitano, an instructor at the Motorcycle Training Organization of Halton-Peel.
“It’s a little more important on a motorcycle, because [drivers] don’t see you – bikes are a little bit more invisible. You’ll have more time to react.”
He’s right. I’ve ridden every year for more than four decades and I’m always more cautious for the first few weeks on my motorcycle. This February, however, I started early and rented a bike when I went to visit friends in Guyana. The country is just north of the equator in South America, so I figured the challenges would be different.
My friends were horrified – “It’s suicide,” they said – and insisted I speak first with a rider who has experience on Guyanese roads. I met with Alassane Coulibaly, who rides a Yamaha XSR700 and is the head of security for the Canadian High Commission in Guyana. He warned me to watch out for drunk or high drivers, and animals of all sizes on the highway. The roads are often covered with sand or pitted with potholes. Maybe not so different from Canada after all.
The biggest danger, however, would be the drivers of the local minibuses, focused primarily on picking up passengers. There are official stops, but most passengers don’t bother to use them and drivers pick up anyone anywhere.
“The minibuses are our worst enemy. They don’t care,” Coulibaly said. “If somebody’s waiting for a bus beside the road, they’ll just stop, just like that. Watch out for them, and keep your distance.”
I was nervous when I first set out on the rented Suzuki V-Strom 650. Coulibaly wasn’t kidding about the minibuses. If somebody waved at them from the side of the road, they’d swerve to the curb and hit the brakes hard. I remembered the advice of Young Drivers of Canada, which tells its students to leave a large “envelope of safety” around them – space free of other traffic in which to brake or swerve if needed.
I allowed the minibus drivers to overtake if they wanted, and then backed off from their rear, only passing when they were pulled over at the side of the road. Above all, I tried to follow the two-second rule: Don’t get closer than two seconds behind the vehicle in front, which is the distance it takes to say “Only a fool breaks the two-second rule.” And I was fine.
In fact, the most dangerous vehicles on the Guyanese roads were the other motorcycles, which insist on pushing to the front and being ahead of all other traffic. Several times, another motorcycle buzzed through my envelope of safety, too close for comfort, and I needed to constantly watch for them in my mirrors to be prepared.
Mark Richardson takes a break while riding a rented motorcycle in Guyana.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
So none of this was much different from Canadian roads – just intensified.
Riding a motorcycle will always be dangerous – riders are 27 times more likely than car occupants to die in crashes, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – but riders will be safer if they ride defensively, keep a reasonable distance from other traffic to improve their reaction times, dress appropriately and focus on the road ahead. And once the roads are clear of snow and sand, find an empty parking lot to get some practice. It could be the smartest thing you do all year.
After all, says St-Croix, “there’s more to riding than just the operation of the motorcycle; it’s observation, skills and reflexes, too. Every year, we’re all a year older and we need to make sure everything is up to par.