Follow Fixation

[erkishhorde]

Anybody got a good article to read that teaches about following?

I ask because 2 guys went down on a ride I took them on yesterday. The first guy was pushing it too hard on a dirty road. The 2nd guy went down because hes was following the guy in front, lane position, acceleration and everything. I tried to explain following without following but didn't do a very good job. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured but the 2nd guy had to get a tow home and we had to borrow someone's house phone to call the truck too. 

TIA

[EvilSteve]

What you're talking about is actually target fixation as it applies to group rides and just group riding as well. Check out this site, there are a lot of articles on here about riding, you may find what you're looking for there.

http://www.msgroup.org/articles.aspx

My basic answer to your question is that you should be riding as though no one was in front of you, looking up the road, the only difference being that you want to keep the rider in front of you in your peripheral vision.

This has happened to me before, I had someone crash in front of me on a group ride. I was looking up the road and not fixated on them so I didn't follow them off the road (he was basically fine).

[pennyrobber]

This was an obstacle I had to over come when I first started riding twisties in groups. I would from time to time find myself watching the bike up front rather than looking through the turn. As stated before, I just made a concious effort to look up the road and not fixate on the other bikes.

Its amazing how many youtube videos are out there showing a bike follow another right off of the road.

[Popeye the Sailor]

What kind of pace had you been setting, and had you ridden with these riders before?

[Spidey]

We enforce a minimum 2 second rule on group rides for two reasons.   First, it gives the riders behind enough time in case the person in front of them has an issue.  Second, it reduces the likelihood of target fixation.  If you force yourself to keep a gap in between yourself and the rider in front of you, it's a lot harder to get sucked into a crash after them.

[erkishhorde]

What kind of pace had you been setting, and had you ridden with these riders before?

Pace was mellow in my opinion. The other 2 riders are relatively new, less than 1 year experience but decent beginner riders that I had ridden with a few times before. We were on a rural, 1 lane road for about 20mi and we had just gotten onto a 2 lane road when the accident happened. I had been going  about 30mph through turns and 40 on straights, always riding down the right mid of the road and never apexing due to typical rural road conditions (random sand, gravel, potholes).

The turn was a constant radius left hander. It was the first turn that we could clearly see through and I think that's part of the reason why Jeff crashed. There is a side road that shoots off the right in the middle of the turn so the road road looks deceptively wide, about 20' for our lane alone (now 2 lanes, remember) but there is at least 5' of gravel on the "shoulder" of the road. I thought I had explained it pretty well prior to ride but Jeff didn't understand the concept of avoiding the edges of the road where cars and trucks don't go because it means more dirt and gravel. So he planned his apex too wide and when he was coming out of the turn he went into the gravel on the side of the road and then caused him to low side off the side of the road. Poor Will that was fixating on him panicked once he saw Jeff go down and laid on the brakes and went straight off the road head first into a berm, barely missing a small tree.

Jeff's excuse for crashing  was that the road was dirty. My answer: Duh.! We had already been on 20mi of 1 lane road that was dirtier than the road we were already on. Why would the road magically get better just because it was now a little wider? The whole time prior to the accident Jeff had been crop dusting  in the back, dropping back and then speeding up into the turns, so I was a bit worried about him the whole time. Will had been following me the whole time and fixating and copying my riding. Right before the accident, Will and Jeff switched spots so now Will was following Jeff and hence the 2 man crash.

[somegirl]

Next time put Will in front and you ride sweep.

[ducpainter]

What you're talking about is actually target fixation as it applies to group rides and just group riding as well. Check out this site, there are a lot of articles on here about riding, you may find what you're looking for there.

http://www.msgroup.org/articles.aspx

My basic answer to your question is that you should be riding as though no one was in front of you, looking up the road, the only difference being that you want to keep the rider in front of you in your peripheral vision.

This has happened to me before, I had someone crash in front of me on a group ride. I was looking up the road and not fixated on them so I didn't follow them off the road (he was basically fine).

+1

I had a student at a track day that couldn't keep up with the group...

unless he was leading. Then the group couldn't keep up with him.

Target fixation can be debilitating to a rider and is something we all need to be cognizant of.

[EvilSteve]

While remembering that "look and lean" as a recovery method when having cornering problems is actually using target fixation to your advantage.