The enjoyment of riding a motorcycle in a city is one of its best features. When it comes to riding a bike in the city, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. You can split lanes, see over automobiles, and simply get to where you need to go, probably a lot quicker than with any other mode of transportation, and you look pretty good doing it too.
Insurance is important – Motorbike insurance is as important as wearing a helmet.
There are several particular issues that are specific to the city and cannot be found elsewhere. Also, they are everywhere, watching you from every angle in an effort to ruin you. Thus, today we’re going to look at seven distinct risks that you and your motorcycle can encounter when riding in urban areas. While there are many small steps you may take to reduce these risks, carrying insurance is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Your motorcycle is your pride and joy, and if you have kids, I know you say to everyone that they are really what matter to you, but you don’t have to lie to yourself about that. Well, it’s your motorcycle. You take care of this item, clean its chain, and replace its oil. And you consider it to be quite cool.
You love it more than anything, but there’s a problem. Your bicycle is also regarded as cool by others. Parking downtown, especially on the weekends, exposes your motorcycle to a variety of strangers who could pass by and have a look at it; that’s fine, though. Usually, it’s just me or another motorcyclist passing by with good communication.
Occasionally, someone will request to ride your bike; this is sacrilege. The trouble is that they frequently are unaware that there is a problem. They simply sit on the bike, snap a cool photo on Instagram, and leave.
But what if that individual forgets which side the kickstand is on, drops it unintentionally, and then you, hipsters, leave the coffee shop with your vegan soy latte or whatever. And you look down to see your motorcycle lying on its side with bent levers, scratched bearings, and possibly other damage.
You gotta make sure that you’re taking care of your bike before you leave it alone. Make sure you park your motorcycle with other motorcycles and in a really well lit area, If you can find a spot underneath the security camera even better. These things aren’t going to stop damage from happening to your motorcycle, but they will act as a deterrent just in case somebody wants to come by and cause some mischief.
Not just people, but also cars, are out to get your bike. And in, you may actually park your bike between cars on the side of the road designated for parallel parking. The general rule is that you can park if you can fit the bike in.
If you’re lucky, the person will leave a note on your bike name and contact info so you can get in touch and deal with someone’s insurance and get your ride all fixed up. But oftentimes the driver won’t even know they hit your bike. Now, keep in mind guys, it may feel like a giant affront to you that someone has tipped over your motorcycle and hit it with their car, but most people are decent folks and they probably just made a really unfortunate mistake.
You guys gotta remember that cars are designed to be as smooth and as quiet as possible, and it can actually be easy to hit stuff in them nowadays. So here’s a few tips to keep your bike safe if you’re parking it downtown, number one park it close to other motorcycles and park it under some bright lights if you can find them.
And most important of all, don’t park right behind a big truck or an suv. You’re asking to get your bike hit at that point. Now look guys, whether some idiot walks up to your motorcycle and tips it over hoist trying to take a selfie, or if some soccer mom backs up into your ride and damages it, the most important thing you can do is carry insurance on your bike.
That means if you go down on your ride and you mess up your exhaust and you need a new helmet or a new jacket, insurance is gonna cover it. Remember guys, you can get roadside coverage on your motorcycle for as little as 12 bucks a year. So if that vendor bender of yours turned into a bigger problem, you’re gonna be covered.
Motorcycle theft is no joke. It happens all the time, including to yours. Let me set this scene for you. It’s the end of the day and you pull back into your apartment building. You don’t have your own garage, but you have an attached garage building with a bunch of parking spaces, but it’s behind a locked gate.
So assume you’re fine. You lock your forks, you grab your gear, and you go in for the night. But the next time you come out to ride your motorcycle, it’s gone. Look, I don’t wanna sit here in Fear Monger, but let me tell you another. When my motorcycle was stolen and we were able to recover it, it took the cops 30 minutes to get on site and help us with the recovery process.
My riding buddies were there in five minutes. Motorcycle theft is so common that the police just don’t respond quickly, and they’re certainly not gonna help you look for it. Now, all that being said, there are a few things that you can do to help protect your motorcycle from. The first thing you need to do is always lock your forks.
Yes, they can be easily bypassed on some motorcycles, but it’s one level of deterrent that’s gonna slow a thief down. Second, make sure that you have some sort of Im mobilizing device, something like a brake lock or a chain that you just gonna take a while for a thief to get through. Third, if you’re parking in the city a lot, you need to install a tracker on your motorcycle.
It’ll help you track it down, and yes, they really do work. Finally, make sure that you have insurance on your motorcycle, and this is where I need to say that liability will not help you. In the case of motorcycle theft, you need to have a comprehensive policy to make sure that you get money back. In the case of.
You’re not likely to encounter those out on the road, but you are likely to encounter the motorcycling equivalent, which are road hazards. You’re talking stuff like pothole, gravel, sand construction, debris, and any other kind of craziness you’ll find on city streets that can send you careening off your motorcycle.
Now, most potholes are not deep enough to really send you tumbling off your bike. Those are freak occurrences, but we’re gonna talk about some avoidance strategies to help stay you upright. Now, the first avoidance strategy you should employ when you’re looking at potholes or gravel or anything else on the road is to just simply try to avoid it, scan ahead as far as you can, and try to not hit those obstacles.
If you are in a situation where you’re gonna hit one, the first thing you can do, especially for potholes, is just stand up on your bike a little bit. That’ll allow your suspension travel to work and you don’t have to get absorbed by that impact. It gets less input on the bars, and that’s the second thing you can employ as well.
Be light on the bars and let the bike move around. If you’re gonna hit something like gravel or sand or something like that, your bike’s not gonna immediately tuck the front and crash if you stay nice and light on it. However, that’s not the only road hazard you’re likely to encounter.
How many times has this happened to you? You’re running down your favorite city road, whistling a nice tune in your head, 90, your own business, and all of a sudden pedestrian walks out right in front of you. You think they’d cross at a crosswalk, but you guys know pedestrians, they tend to love the jaywalk.
Why cross at a crosswalk? You can just walk across the street. It’s like you’re playing some kind of carnival shooting game with them, except in this game, you get points for not hitting. Now honestly, if someone wants to step out in front of your motorcycle, there’s basically nothing you can really do.
Short of having a super loud exhaust and maybe they hear you coming down the road, but honestly, between me and you, I don’t wanna ride a bike around that can wake the dead every time I roll down my local street. So the best thing you can do in this case is avoid them.
The first thing you’ll wanna do is to ride on the left hand side of the lane. That way you have as much space as possible. If a pedestrian does try to run out in front of your ride. The second thing you’ll wanna do is be ready to react. So cover your front brake while you’re riding in the city. That way if something does happen, you’re ready to pump on it and be ready to stop.
The third thing you wanna do is. Scan ahead as far as possible. See if any pedestrians are idling and trying to jump in front of the road in front of you. You can look to see if any cars that are parked have their wheels turned and ready to jump in the lane in front of you. It’s always active when you’re riding in the city.
Be scanning and looking ahead as far as you can.
Our last two dangers have to deal with intersections and while you’ve got intersections out in the sticks, Downtown, they pose a completely different kind of threat. And the first thing that we’re gonna talk about are left turning cars. Now, when a left turning car passes through an intersection, that means that there’s a split second where there’s a wall right in front of you.
Now it makes it even harder when in busy downtown roadways, you’re on an easy to miss motorcycle. You might have a car just pop out in front of you outta nowhere. Some things you can do to protect yourself when you’re going through an intersection is first to cover your front. That is gonna reduce your reaction time in the case that you need to come to a panic stop, quick, fast, and in a hurry because you don’t want to use that car to drag you to a stop cuz you’re gonna go sailing right through a pane of glass.
The second thing you can do is make sure you’re looking as far ahead as possible. Look into the driver’s side window of that car that’s trying to turn left, even if they don’t have their blinkers on. Because if you lock eyes with that, Chances are they’re gonna see you. You never know though, because you are on a motorcycle and you can be tough to spot.
Lastly, approach intersections slowly. There’s no point in racing through an intersection just to hit a car. You just wanna let them go and go nice and slow, and make sure you get to your destination in one piece. Now, assuming all that didn’t work and you still find yourself getting into an accident in an intersection, the first and most important thing you gotta do is get your butt up out of the road as quickly as possible.
You don’t want to get hit by a car after you’ve already hit a car. Don’t worry about your motorcycle because chances are there’s another car in the intersection blocking traffic for you, so you can just leave it there. Normally, it’s pretty cut and dry when it comes to fault. If a car pulls out in front, Assuming you weren’t trying to race that yellow light, just sit back, let insurance do all this stuff for you.
Make sure you get yourself taken care of.
Last up for today, it’s running red lights. I’m sure you can imagine how this would be a problem, but I’m gonna paint the scenario for you. Imagine you’re sitting through cycles of lights trying to get through this city traffic. You come across a light, the light is yellow, it’s about to turn red. You drop the hammer and you accelerate and you just blast through.
Most of the times this isn’t a big problem because the other cars and vehicles are waiting their turn to go through the light, but sometimes this can cause a very big incident. Now sometimes if you’re the motorcyclist sitting on that other end of the red light and you’re waiting your turn, you’re right at the front of the line.
Let’s say you filter to the front. Even if you get started normally, as soon as the light turns green because you’re on a lighter and quicker vehicle, you’ll make it through that intersection pretty quickly. If that other person’s barreling through the intersection, you’re about to get T-bone, and that’s bad for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which you might get seriously injured.
So let’s talk. The first strategy you can implement to avoid the situation is to simply watch the crossing traffic. Most of the times, if you keep an eye on who’s coming and who’s going, you can see who’s got their phones down in their car, who’s going a little too fast, and who might actually pass through that red light.
It’s the best thing you can do When the light turns green, give yourself a moment to actually go through the light. Just because you have the right of way doesn’t mean you’re protected from everything and it’s not gonna cost you anything to just wait there for an extra second or two to make sure the coast is clear.
Remember guys, it’s better to be late than it is to be right and to be dead because you got T-Bone at an intersection. And remember to keep all your insurance information on you as well, just in case. Those are just some of the strategies you can employ to keep yourself safe when you’re riding in the city.
