- Keep a set of dark glasses for bright sunlight and clear one’s for night riding handy. Bright sunlight, especially when reflected off sand or snow can really harm the eyes, both for short and long term. And night riding might preclude the use of the helmet visor. Your only fall-back would be a pair of clear glasses.
- If you wear prescription glasses for vision correction, keep an extra pair with you for the long ride. You might lose or break the set you’re using and riding without them will not just be a pain but can also be dangerous. Good vision is primary to motorcycling safety.
- Early morning departures give you lots of advantages for a long motorcycle ride. 1) Mornings are freshness personified. You feel invigorated just by being awake and riding early 2) there’s very little traffic even in congested cities so early in the day 3) you have plenty of daylight at hand for any contingency that delays you on the highway. Moreover, the sight of a new day breaking is best seen from the saddle of a bike.
- When riding in the cold, take frequent breaks for warm food and drinks. Do not keep riding until you get numb. You could be closer to hypothermia than you realize and could crash from delayed reactions.
- The wind is always thirsty for moisture and slowly suck out water from your body, via your skin and breath, as you ride. So make it a point to drink lots of water on the way. In cold weather, tea and coffee are good substitutes but for the frequent toilet breaks, since both of these are diuretics.
- Maintaining a fuel log, something as simple as a four column chart that tells you the distance travelled between fuel top-ups and the fuel taken each time will let you maintain a good estimate of your bike’s range. In areas where fuel stations are far and apart, you can easily assess whether you can make the distance or not.
- During regular use of the bike, see how accurate or inaccurate the fuel gauge Keep a tab on mileage not just with the point of saving money but also to be aware how far you can get on a tank full.
- Re-fuel before you actually reach the edge of ‘reserve’. Fill her up while there’s a petrol pump on your side of the highway and you’ll need to tank up in another 50kms anyway. Slowing down later to look for a petrol pump and possibly having to do a short detour to get to it would be silly considering that most bikes sold in our country can do more than 350kms on a tank full at the very least.
- Keep time, speed and distance in perspective. This is about avoiding unnecessary speeding in the guise of covering distance quickly. A 10 kph difference in average speed over 8 hours gets you there early by half an hour or so. This in simple terms means that doing 100 kph instead of 80 kph will get you quicker to your destination 400 kms away by 30 mins. Think if the associated strain on both you and the bike along-with the higher risk at higher speeds is worth it.
- But in case you plan to make time, then stick to the plan. Combine your stoppages. For example, use the re-fuel stop to go to the loo, take a drink of water or maybe grab a quick bite from one of the many food counters at petrol pumps nowadays. Ride at speeds that allow you to do long and continuous stretches relatively stress-free. Less stops can increase your day’s average speed by some 10 kph without the need to speed.
- When you are out riding long distance on a motorcycle, the best is to make it a holiday ride. Do it with a laid-back attitude. And the best plan to enjoy a holiday ride to the hilt is by not keeping a destination as the goal for the end of the stay. At least a destination that requires fast day-long riding. Relax and stop wherever your aesthetic impulse compels you to. Take pictures, enjoy a beautiful scene, talk to some locals or eat food at leisure, savoring both local taste and company. Usually towns and cities occur on most highways at short enough intervals for you to be able to look around a bit for a place to spend the night. Its only popular hill-stations/pilgrim places at peak season that make finding accommodation a problem.
- Wrap sandwiches or paranthas in aluminum foil and clamp it somewhere on the engine casing. You get hot food whenever you stop for a tea break! A real treat in those chilling winter rides.
- Avoid stuffing yourself with food during the ride. Overeating will make you sluggish, sleepy (the digestion takes the lion’s share of the body’s blood circulation and while riding you can’t just afford that) and sitting crouched on a sporty bike becomes rather uncomfortable with an over-filled stomach.
- Ride on your side of the road when you ride the twisties. Keeping to your side gives you lots of margin for safety and others lots of margins for errors. People can do stupid things like overtaking on blind curves and your safety here is in direct proportion to the amount of road you leave with them to lay their stupidity on.
- When in the hills in winter, during frosting conditions, watch out for the treacherous ‘black ice’. Water or even moisture on the road gets frozen into clear ice and it is very-very slippery. This happens even on a bright sunny afternoon on the shady side of the mountain.
- If there’s a stream flowing across the road, watch for slippery moss covered rocks underneath. Especially streams that are exposed to sunlight sometime during the day. Remember plants need sunlight to make food. Keep the bike upright and avoid sudden direction changes.
- Night riding in the hills is, in a sense, safer than during daytime. You can see the approaching vehicle’s lights beyond a curve. Also, you are more focused since all you can see is what gets lit up by the headlight. There are no distracting views to see around.
- Prefer a headlamp that gives a wide beam spread as it enables you to see which way the road goes beyond a curve. A narrow focus beam lets you see straight ahead but not where the road is heading beyond the turn.
- Night riding in the plains is a different ball-game. Follow a fast 4 wheeler at a safe distance and use its lights to see ahead. A bike is not the king of the road at night.
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