A Self-fulfilling Prophecy?

I've been having some thoughts lately about innattentive/idiot cagers and their tendency to sometimes intrude into our lane while we're on our motorcycles.

You ride a motorcycle long enough and you will experience this sphincter-clench producing event...probably more than once specially if you ride in big city traffic!

So having either personally experienced such close calls, or read about them or heard about another motorcyclist's own experiences; one would tend to watch carefully and perhaps do the following (besides getting a louder horn):

When moving along on multi-lane roads, I try and maintain a safe following distance from the car ahead of me. This of course creates a tempting gap in my lane for some cager to move into said gap in their "me first, screw everyone else" attitude. Therefore I tend to also keep a close eye on the cagers in the lanes next to me, operating under the assumption that they will move into my lane at any time and cut me off.

I've notice as I ride and observe all this around me that I position myself short of the rear bumper of the car in the lane next to me, preparing for what I believe to be their likely moving over into my lane by the watched car, usually without warning or signals.

The trouble, you may already see with this tactic is that by anticipating being cut off, one can sometimes position oneself in the cager's blind spot! The cager can't see you in his/her mirrors, will probably not do a head check, and thinking they've got an open lane next to them, proceed to cut you off!

A self-fulfilling prophecy you see, and hence the title of this blog posting.

So, what am I trying to get across here? I think it is this: Not only do you have to maintain a safe following distance from the vehicle ahead of you to give you time to react to sudden stops on their part or road hazards; you have to balance the other variables such as the position of other vehicles in the lanes next to you. You may have to either lengthen the following distance (assuming the vehicle behind you is not too close) so that you're not in the adjoining vehicles blind spots or shorten up your following distance so that your more parallel to the adjoining vehicles and they're hopefully more likely to see you in the lane next to them.

Yeah, you may end up giving up some cushion in terms of distance from the vehicle in front of you but at least you lessen the chance of a cager's multi-ton vehicle trying to occupy the same physical space as you and your motorcycle!

Always position yourself to maximize the chances for the sometimes, ok most times, clueless cagers to see you. Don't put yourself and your motorcycle in a position to enable this self-fulfilling prophecy of a cager cutting you off!

Ride Safe.

JCW Trunk here and mounted

Actually, it got here two days ago, but I've spent some time since then "tweaking" it to my satisfaction.

Before I show you the pictures from the first time around (link), you'll have to keep in mind one of the "tweaks" I've done this time around. The first one, is the one that'll require some imagination on your part until I can get current pictures of Maria.

Tweak 1: The cheesy looking orange plastic on the leading edge of the case? Painted black, first with glossy black Krylon paint, then flat black paint yesterday.

Tweak 2: The really cheesy Iron Cross decal on top of the case, peeled off and gone. Replaced it with 2" convex mirror for now till inspiration strikes me or I find some suitable sticker to cover the small indentation the sticker hid before.

Tweak 3: Not visible, cut some steel bar to better fit the mounting kit to Maria's tail rack. Had to buy some 2.5" carriage bolts for the rear support bar which was the stock bar that came with the trunk. The forward support bar is the one I fabricated.

Tweak 4: Replaced "slightly shiny" white paper backing behind the red rear reflector panel with SOLAS tape. Much more reflective now when light hits it.

Tweak 5: On order, replacing cheap plastic/metal camlock with stainless steel tubular camlock.

Here's the pictures from the first go-around:

The Orange Section below, now flat Black

Here's updated pictures of Maria with the tweaked case mounted. You can clearly see where the paint went to hide the cheesy orange section.

Sometimes, the most extreme conspicuity is not enough

I spotted a posting on advrider.com about a motor officer in Idaho who was rear-ended on his police motorcycle while he had all its emergency lights going.

I mean, that's about as conspicuous as you can get on a motorcycle! Flashing blue and red lights, very bright lights designed to catch the eye.

Picture from Idaho Statesman News

The office is OK, thank goodness. The idiot cager's name has not been released but I hope the driver is prosecuted to the full extent of the law! Getting hit from the rear is high on my list of dangers I worry about while on the motorcycle. My main brake light flashes several times upon initial activation of the brakes, and I´ve got flashing Hyperlites LEDs as well that continue to blink so long as I hold down the brake lever. This incident kind of renders moot my measures to be visible though, just goes to show that sometimes no matter what you´ve done to prevent something, some inattentive idiot cager will come along and hit you.

The police officer was apparently riding behind a police cruiser, also with its strobe lights on, which was pushing some disable vehicle in front of it. The theory on advrider.com is that the motor officer had nowhere to go to avoid the oncoming idiot and got hit.

The lesson for all this? Keep enough distance at stops to be able to maneuver out of the way of some idiot who looks like he´s going to not stop safely behind you, keep the motorcycle in gear and a wary eye on your mirrors. I rarely, put my motorcycle into neutral at a stoplight, I am ever ready to move. If I do have to free up my clutch hand, I wait for the cage behind to come to a stop and then use it as a shield (hopefully) but this is a rare thing.

Be wary and careful, there´s limits to conspicuity.

LINK to the news article.

Tool Run and adding to my riding toolkit

Temperatures from mid40s in the early morning to low 50's. Felt much warmer by 1300, sunny.

I had spent some time last night surfing the motorcycling forums and came across a posting on advrider.com where toolkits and what they should be composed of were discussed. It got me to thinking that perhaps I should do a couple things re the tools I already carry on Maria when riding:

1. Ensure I've a tool for every type of fastener on Maria, it'd be pretty frustrating not being able to fix something because I could not loosen things to get at it!

2. Compare what I have vs what was recommended be carried for field repairs on one's motorcycle when nowhere near a mechanic.

After doing the above, I did about 30 miles of riding today to collect some tools I was missing or wanting. I went over Maria and tried the tools I already carried, made a list of tools I needed and off I went. Tried Home Depot, a couple of auto parts store, with not great results. Found some stuff at HarborFreight and ended up at Sears to get the remaining items I needed.

So here's my toolkit for field repairs:

In my tankbag or on my person, my cellphone and my trusty Leatherman Multi-tool.

In the compartment designed by BMW to house the radio, which I use as a lockable glove compartment:


The Altoids box contains: 6-12,14mm 1/4 inch drive sockets, T40 and T25 1/4 inch drive bits, a 1/4 inch drive adapter and a Kobalt reversing rachet. I also carry four spare tupperware screws and related donuts.


What I call the "Electrics Case" contains: Spare keys for the brake disk lock, spare bulbs, electrical connectors of various types, $20 cash, insurance info card and registration and lip balm. The case itself goes inside the radio compartment with the Altoid box above.


Here's the remaining contents of the radio compartment/glove box: Swiss Army pocket knife, radioshack multimeter, LED flashlight, Cruz Tools M14 Metric version, jumper cables, a tube of "quicksteel", spark plug remover tool and a few feet of 24gauge electrical wire.

More on the Cruz Tools M14 Metric Multitool:


14 tools - four hex keys (3,4,5 and 6mm), two screwdrivers, a socket driver 8,10 and 12mm sockets, 13 and 14mm open-end wrenches and three spoke wrenches - all in a nine ounce unit thats only 3.5" long.

The remainder of my tools I stashed in the tail compartment behind the passenger seat:


BMW Stock Tool Roll: Lug nut wrench, flattip/phillips combo screwdriver, sparkplug tool, 10,13,14mm open end box wrenches, T30+T45 torx wrenches and 3-6, 8mm allen wrenches. The 4 and 8mm allen wrenches are not standard BMW issue. Neither is the 14mm open end box wrench.


The Stop-n-Go Tire plugger kit I used to not only carry the stuff used for plugging tires but also a hemostat for picking up and holding stuff, and two larger allen wrenches: 10 and 12mm.

Finally, in a case of their own or in nooks and crannies in the tail compartment of Maria: A bundle of big and small zip ties, two types of mini vise grips, regular pliers and an adjustable wrench (21mm opening), siphoning tubing and the ever useful roll of duct tape. Not pictured is the wrench and feeler gauges I use for valve clearance checks.

I will endeavour to use only the above tools when doing services/repairs and such on my motorcycle even when at home in the garage, this is the only way to know for sure one has the right tools for whatever fixable things might happen on the road.

My wife and I joked that by doing this, I've practically ensured nothing will break since I am ready with the tools, hope we're right! : )

Oh, I also carry in terms of consumables:

Quart of oil, old alternator belt as spare, electrical fuses, rubber gloves both for working on the motorcycle and keeping hands dry in rain under riding gloves, lighter, colorado maps and bungie cords.

I'll carry more stuff for really long distance trips, the above is just every day carry. I hope this helps you in deciding what to carry for repairs on your motorcycle. Yeah, it's a lot to carry, but it beats walking and Maria is already a pretty heavy motorcycle, what's a few more pounds?

Correction: the jumper cables pictured above won't work for jump starting a motorcycle, they'll work to slowly charge another motorcycle using my motorcycle's power outlet. I carry also a set of mini-jumper cables, 18 gauge, for jumpstarting purposes.

Forgot to mention also, I carry a small 12 volt air compressor.