Controlled Recklessness

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I recently had a discussion about motorcycling with a coworker. He said that he now rides a cruiser because he found sportbikes too dangerous and didn't think he could control himself enough to justify owning one. Now my bike isn't necessarily a sportbike, but it's definitely close. I told him that I use "controlled recklessness" when riding a motorcycle that has the ability to put me in especially dangerous situations.

What is controlled recklessness? It's strategically picking the places and times that you decide to do things that some may consider reckless. An example of this would be trying to wheelie your bike in an empty parking lot instead of in the middle of a bustling downtown area. This may seem like common sense, but you'd be surprised how many riders don't follow this practice.

One great example of me using controlled recklessness is the my choice of roads when I decide to ride at excessive speed. There is a stretch of road not far from my house that is flat, clean, and in the country. If conditions are acceptable (daylight, little to no wind, and high visibility) I'll open up the throttle a little. Is this still dangerous? Absolutely! However, I make sure that other unnecessary variables aren't also working against me.

Another instance of controlled recklessness was the time I did a stoppie in my driveway. A stoppie, for those that don't know, is when a rider brakes aggressively while shifting his or her weight forward, causing the motorcycle's rear wheel to come off of the ground. There were no other vehicles around and I knew my driveway was debris free. Again this is a dangerous thing to do, but I knew this would be a relatively safe location to do it. Actually, in this case, I was showing off to my son who was watching me from the porch. I know this is setting a bad example, but hopefully I can teach him the lesson of controlled recklessness when he gets old enough to ride his own motorcycle.

If your reading this and thinking that I'm condoning reckless behavior, I guess you're right. I look at it this way, people who own sportbikes tend to buy them to be a little reckless anyway (notice that I said TEND, there are exceptions, so don't get defensive if you're the exception). Hopefully, they read this and at least try to pick the proper moments to be a little reckless. I wish I had taken this advice when I was a young rider.

"We pushed to the edge of recklessness, yet I felt safe." - Ruat Sepetys