I borrowed this from another forum that I am a member of and felt that with riding season being upon us it would do us all some good. Remember folk's we are the minority out there and people have gone the winter month's without seeing alot of motorcycles on the roads. STAY SAFE end ENJOY THE RIDE as we only get to live once.

We all tell folks to ride your own pace, this helps with why.

You slide in behind him or her and maybe they glide smoothly around in
front of you-and within a handful of corners you know there's
something special here. It's not their hardware, which might be
anything from Japanese Standard to the latest race-replica tackle. Nor
is it their clothing, which, if anything, probably carries a patina of
age-the leather or nylon faded from long miles in the sun and spotted
from uncounted bug-cleanings. Nor is it just that they're fast, though
they probably carry a pretty crisp pace. No, what instantly gets your
attention is the utter casualness-the sheer effortlessness-with which
they ride along the road, dispatching the curves like so many pieces
of candy. There's a relaxed assurance in their demeanor, a perfect
confidence in their swift cadence, which gives rise to a certainty of
what the next miles will bring. Their speed is just-so. We watch for a
while-assuming we're able to stay with him or her and in our heart of
hearts, where our desires stir and our egos live, we couch what we're
seeing in the same way we always do. We know some rider, maybe we know
lots of riders, buddies who are surely faster than Mr. Smooth and
Effortless. Hell, maybe we're faster. But even as we think these
things, salve for the ego, we can't escape the growing suspicion that
this rider in front of us is just playing. Not with us, but with the
road-probably the merest touch of a smile tugging at his lips as they
glide through the corners-even as our own heart hammers a staccato
beat as we're carried along in the rush behind them. Maybe it dawns on
us, in a moment of honesty, that they could just walk away if they
wanted. One of those things you just know. So why don't they? Why is
it that they seem content to just roll along, playing those curves in
the road like so many riffs drifting easily from a well-worn guitar?
We all talk about being good, about being smooth. Well, there they
are, right in front of you. The poster child.

In a sport whose very appeal is built around the merits of speed-a
sport where our greatest heroes are those who go the fastest, a sport
where even the most mundane machinery comes dripping with performance,
where even the clothes we wear are based upon the need to attenuate
the risk we perceive attendant to that speed-it's hard not to get
caught up in the notion that speed is the thing. It's both the
yardstick by which we measure ourselves and the mantle in which we
wish to be draped. Hell, who doesn't want to be fast?

The corollary, an article of faith repeated so often that it seems to
beg any argument, is that speed-too much of it at least is a bad
thing. It's the bogeyman waiting to catch us out any time we cross the
imaginary line of too much. Most of us nod our heads when we hear
that.

The thing is, that doesn't always jive with our experience. We see
riders all the time who manage to crash at quite modest speeds. And we
know some-admittedly a much smaller number-who ride really fast, and
have for a long time, but who never seem to crash. Not as in they
don't crash very often. As in they never crash.

We all undertake a modicum of risk every time we thumb the starter
it's just inherent to the sport. But those of us who choose to adopt a
faster pace deliberately assume more of that danger. We knowingly
engage the laws of probability in a game of chicken. You play it long
enough and you lose. That's what we've always been told, right?

Why is it, then, that such a select group of riders manages to ride at
an elevated pace over many miles, weekend after weekend, trip after
trip, year after year, with little in the way of mishap? Why are these
riders seemingly held apart, aloof, from the carnage which too-often
otherwise afflicts our sport? And how is it that so many other riders,
traveling at much lesser speeds, still manage to toss away their bikes
with such depressing frequency?

Well, maybe we've been looking in the wrong place all along. Maybe,
just maybe, it's not about speed after all-at least not in the way we
usually think of it. Maybe it's about something else, something as
simple as the degree of control we exercise over a span of road.

It might happen on any ride, on any Sunday. We head out with some
buddies, or maybe we hook up with that group of riders we were talking
to down at the gas station, or maybe that devil on our shoulder is
simply a little more vigorous in his exhortations this day. However it
happens, we soon get to the road. The good one. The one that brought
us out here in the first place. And there, in that mix of camaraderie
and good tarmac and adrenaline-laced delight, we find ourselves giving
away that which we had sworn to hold tight to-our judgment. It doesn't
happen all at once. We give it away a little click here, a little
click there, like a ratcheting cord. Soon, rolling through the curves
faster and faster and laughing under our helmets all the while, we
enter a new realm.

We've all been there. We instantly know we're in a new place because
it's suddenly different. Our lines are no longer quite so clean. We're
on the brakes more, and we're making little mistakes in our timing.
And instead of that Zen-like rush through the corners we enjoyed just
moments ago-the state of grace that is the prize of this sport-we're
now caught up in the brief slivers of time between corners trying to
fix those mistakes. They seem to be coming faster now-both the corners
and the mistakes-and there doesn't seem to be quite enough time to do
what we need to do, the errors piling up in an increasingly dissonant
heap. Our normally smooth riding is suddenly ragged, with an edgy and
anxious quality. Inside our helmets the laughter mutes and then is
gone altogether, replaced by a grim determination to stay on pace. We
start to mutter little self-reproaches with each newborn error.

Soon enough we'll blow it. We'll get into one particular corner too
hot-realization and regret crystallizing in a single hot moment-and
from that instant until whatever's going to happen does, we're just
along for the ride. It will be what it will be. With a touch of luck
we'll come away with nothing more than a nervous laugh and a promise
to ourselves not to do that again. That and maybe one more little debt
to pay. You know, the one we just made to God-if he would please just
get us out of this mess we'd gotten ourselves into. Just this one last
time, promise.

Just one of those moments, huh?

It has to do with choices. When we ride a challenging road-at whatever
speed-there is an observable, knowable degree of control that we
exhibit. Not just over one corner. Not even over just one section. But
over the entire road. On some days our mastery is complete-we've
chosen to stay well within our own personal skill envelope. On other
days-well, on other days maybe we choose to push toward the edge of
that envelope. To a place where our mastery begins to diminish. To a
place where the degree of control we exhibit gradually decreases.
Ultimately, to the tipping point-where all our skills seem to go to
hell and gone in one big hurry.

There's a predictability to it. A good rider, riding within his proper
envelope, will have none of those moments. There will be no spikes in
their heart rate. No sudden bursts of adrenaline. Nothing but a
smooth, flowing movement across the road. They will be this side of
the tipping point-the tipping point for them. It'll be different for
each of us. And it'll vary from day to day, maybe even hour to hour,
depending upon how we feel. Sometimes we're in the groove and
sometimes we're not. But I think the key is that as long as the rider
stays this side of the tipping point, they can probably ride a
surprisingly long time without ill effect.

And that's the message. The predictor of bad stuff, the closest thing
we have to a crystal ball, are those moments. They are part of the
landscape, part of the sport. And they happen to all of us. But for
any given rider, they need to be very rare. If they happen with any
frequency at all, I'd say the tipping point is at hand. And if that's
a place you choose to hang around much, there's probably something
very ugly waiting for you not too far down the road.

Think about all those riders who've ever impressed us, like our rider
at the beginning of this story. They all seem to have a smooth, fluid,
easy quality about them, an assurance which belies any stress or fear.
They're always balanced, always in control. I suspect somewhere along
the line they've acquired a germ of wisdom, hard-won over many miles,
which has given them an appreciation of their own limits. They know
where that tipping point is-where their mastery of their bike, the
road and the environment begins to slip away-and they long ago made
the decision to stay this side of it.

When you do find them testing their limits-surely there's an argument
to be made for exploring the edges of one's ability-it's likely to be
at a time and place of very careful choosing, and it probably involves
a racetrack. Much of wisdom involves simply knowing when and where to
lose those impulses that we all carry.

So maybe it's never been about speed after all. Maybe that's why such
a small, select group of people are able to ride for years and years
without crashing-the fact that they ride fast is secondary to the fact
that they're always in control. They know their own limits.