Toad Talks: For Your Own Sake Please Don't Listen to This 'Advice'
Not everything you see on the internet is true, and in this case, it could be conceived as idiotically dangerous
There are millions of wannabe motorcycle gurus out there in the badlands of social media. Many of them I think are alright, most of them I’m fairly indifferent to, and in some cases (like this one) I just think they are complete numpties.
This video is a piece of riding ‘advice’ from a content creator called adobo_moto. I’m resenting giving this person any airtime but some of what he’s talking about in this video is complete twaddle, so it’s worth going over.
The video shows one of his riding buddies heading along a road at not very many miles per hour – somewhere between 45 and 50mph. His friend, who is riding pretty much bolt-upright through a very minor left-hand bend, all of a sudden gets spooked and runs wide. Fairly sensibly, the rider in question doesn’t panic, and just straightens the bike up and takes to the grass at the side of the road.
I have no problems here, we don’t know the circumstances of the rider in question, and they could have only been riding for a matter of days prior to the video being shot. What I have a bit of an issue with is some of the ‘advice’ that abodo dishes out to his followers.
The first thing he tells the camera if this happens is ‘don’t panic’, going on to say ‘people go wide riding on the streets all the time’. Okay, the first part is sound advice, staying calm will help you to figure out what to do and might prevent you from panic braking yourself into a more dangerous situation. The bit about people going wide all the time though, that’s a little more of an issue for me. Going wide at a corner and straying over the white line should never just be one of those things that happens ‘all the time’ or pretty soon your luck on the wrong side of the tracks will run out forever.
Wouldn’t it be better to not stray over the white line at all, or instead of doing it ‘all the time’ minimise the risk of hitting oncoming traffic by making it a ‘once in a blue moon’ thing? He doesn’t mention road position coming into a corner, slow in fast out, or how to gauge when to begin accelerating based on the vanishing point. Nope, instead it’s just; stay calm mate, shit happens. Errr, okay then.
His next piece of advice is also totally wacky. Should you find yourself on the wrong side of the road, adobo advocates staying there, rolling off the throttle, and then applying the front brake (!) and then the rear brake. Correct me if I’m wrong but if I’m going to be on the wrong side of the road, I’m going to be there for the shortest amount of time possible. I’m not going to sit there and continue on, unsure of whether or not a speeding motorist is going to appear around the next corner. You also don’t know if there is a driveway or junction that’s concealed, and in which there could be a car about to pull out, unaware of your cross-road migration.
Moreover, the advice regarding applying the front brake is complete tosh. This will stand the bike up, meaning if the rider is still carrying some lean angle while on the wrong side of the road, the front brake will send the bike in the direction of the kerb/ditch/cliff/oncoming car on the far side of the wrong carriageway - or vice versa. If anything, the rider should be rolling the throttle, feathering the back brake and moving the bike immediately back to the correct carriageway they were travelling in. And we've not even touched on the subject of grabbing the brake, with some lean angle, and potentially locking the front wheel - especially if it's wet, cold, or the bike doesn't have ABS...
His final point redeems the video slightly, in that he advises to look for an exit off the road and take it. It’s a small point but valid enough, even though I’d rather not be in that position in the first place.
One issue with social media is that likes, shares, and comments equal money. There’s a trend among influencers to post views on tried and tested (and most often proven) ways of doing things and arguing that people should be doing the total opposite. There is also a theme where people will be intentionally incorrect because people love nothing more than telling someone they’ve got something wrong when you have the entire internet there to witness it. Whatever the case, when it comes to riding advice, get some advanced training from a qualified instructor, not a dude in a baseball cap whose best mate can’t go around corners.
Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
