Quick Stops

After bragging yesterday to my hubby how well I executed a quick stop at a light, this morning on the way to work, I wasn't so successful. :-( It was quite dramatic actually, squealing tires and lots of smoke and a big ol' pick up truck behind me who fortunately was paying attention. I wasn't. That's why I had to quick stop. It was basically the same scenario as yesterday's successful one - I'd turned my head to look at something and when I looked back the light was yellow. Yesterday was very smooth and no witnesses. There wasn't any traffic behind me or around me. No squealing tires. No locked brakes. This morning, well, it was my own fault really. I did several things that I shouldn't have. I was behind a large delivery truck although not too close behind or so I thought. I was starting to think about backing off more because the lanes went from two to one. I knew there was a vehicle behind me but I wasn't paying very close attention to it. We were also coming to an intersection were there has been some construction and the lights are positioned differently because of that. Right when I was thinking I was too close to the truck in front to see the lights clearly, I also looked away, probably at some bird or something, and when I looked back the truck was already passing through the intersection cleanly giving me a clear view of the yellow light. I couldn't really tell where I was in the intersection, because of the construction there are no lines painted there at the moment. There was a car in the on coming turning lane and another preparing to move through from my right side. I had enough time to see them but not enough to see if they were all stopping so I just hit the brakes. And I hit them much too hard. Rear tire locked, loud squealing, lots of smoke, a little sliding, but I remained under control and didn't drop it. And I managed to stop before entering the intersection. It wasn't until I stopped completely that I looked in my mirror (at the smoke) and saw the pick up behind me. Yikes! Thank you pick up truck driver for paying attention to me.

I need to practice those quick stops.

Sigh. Gotta stay focused too and pay attention to everything. I find that I fixate on a problem instead of scanning for everything. For example, the other day, well ahead of me, a fox ran across the road. So, I've been scanning the grass for foxes and in the process not seeing all the cars around me. I'm not sure how to correct that. I'll have to check the Proficient Motorcycling books and maybe do some of the practice exercises in there. Maybe I should vary my route to work more too. I'm starting to get too comfortable and anticipating good rides (instead of preparing for the unexpected) since I've been so fortunate in my riding. If I take a different route it will make me look for those unexpected things.