The MSF Rocks - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

St0nkingByte · 07-20-2005, 11:50 AM

I almost bit it this morning, well maybe I wouldn't have bit it but I certainly wouldn't have made it to work on time.

Riding on a city street, I'm in the left lane doing about 30-35mph. To my left is a left turn lane with cars stopped in it, the right hand lane is solid cars moving at maybe 15mph. I'm always paranoid about lines of cars on either side not moving or moving much slower so I'm keeping an eye on these cagers when right in front of me on the right a guy in a 4 door sedan decides to cut over into the left lane, my lane. I was riding on the right side of the lane so as to be in people's mirrors just so they wouldn't do that but he did it anyway. I had some room so I keep the throttle steady and swerved to the left. As I swerved I looked down and to my right and kept an eye on his left front bumper so I could change direction back to the right/straight as soon as possible so I wouldn't swerve into the cars stopped on the left. He came half way into my lane before he realized I was there. When I was swerving I was literally looking down at his bumper, I think I missed him by 2 feet tops.

It happened so quickly I didn't have time to yell, get upset, hit my horn nothing. The dude came over so close I think the MSF just kicked in and I did the swerve straight out of the class. It was identical to the class excercise, push left, push right. Even the distances involved were about the same. When I took the class I always thought that swerve was a little tight and wouldn't resemble something you'd do on the road but this morning it was right on. The other interesting thing about this maneuver was I was in control the whole time, I didn't feel like I was going to lose it or like I was pressured I just did it.