Better Riding Advice: hazard avoidance – how to brake and swerve

In lesson 11 of BikeSocial's Better Riding series, Michael Mann and Mark McVeigh discuss straight line hazard avoidance. Mark shares a personal story from 40 years ago to illustrate the importance of quick reactions and practice. They delve into the three pillars of riding: Skill (counter-steering), Craft (vision and defensive riding), and Mind (growth mindset and continuous learning). Mark emphasises the need for riders to practice emergency braking and swerving simultaneously, using data from riders of varying skill levels to highlight the importance of proper technique. The lesson concludes with a detailed analysis of a crash video, underscoring the critical role of perception, reaction time, and preparedness. Read on for the full break down or watch the below video.

Better Riding – how to avoid a hazard (straight line)

Top riding tips from our Motorbike Coach on how to avoid hazards when riding in a straight line.

This Better Riding series is brought to you in association with Honda Motorcycles UK and MotorbikeCoach.com – a program of self-help videos as well as written content packed full of tips, advice and simple-but-useful exercises designed to help motorcycle riders of all experiences or ability to get more from their riding. It provides expert information and practice drills that help increase rider confidence and machine control skills that supplement traditional post-test training techniques.

The safety bubble example: red means danger, green means clear

Three pillars of riding: Skill, Craft and Mind 

Critical to any type of motorcycle riding and the associated skills, Mark bases his teachings on a riding system he calls ‘The three pillars of riding’, namely Skill, Craft and Mind. So, let’s break those down. What does each refer to and how can they benefit every rider?

Skill

Skill is defined as the ability to control the motorcycle, and in this particular lesson that focuses on counter-steering, with the importance of making the techniques behind counter-steering become natural to your riding arsenal; push left on the handlebar to go left. Push right to go right. This promotes quicker steering so when a rider needs to swerve to avoid a car, animal, pothole, etc. knowing how to react then training the brain to use the right skill can make all the difference when a bike can easily cover 30 metres every one single second. Mark’s data from his own school demonstrates how much quicker and with more force a more experience rider can react. That’s experienced with the correct methods of course.

The same SKILL techniques relate to understanding just how riders can grab your front brake lever, and yet the data shows us that when pulling as hard as possible on the brakes, many riders barely tickle it. Why? Because they’re not prepared, and they out of practice with emergency braking.

Craft

Craft is all about vision, riding defensively and having situational awareness. Vision involves looking far ahead to spot hazards to identify their threat level early and understanding/avoiding target fixation. Whereas defensive riding means adjusting speed to one where you can stop within the distance you can see, as well as maintaining a safety bubble around you and your bike.

Good situational awareness is defined as constantly scanning the environment, anticipating potential risks and being prepared to react quickly. The core principle of the Craft pillar is developing skills that help riders proactively manage risks and navigate potential dangers before they become immediate threats. It's about being smart, observant, and strategic in your riding approach, rather than just reacting to situations as they occur.

Mind

The final pillar, Mind, focuses on attitude and continuous learning, and can be split into three key elements: Attitude, Growth Mindset, and Continuous Self-Reflection. The core philosophy of the Mind pillar is that successful riding isn't just about technical skills, but about maintaining a proactive, learning-oriented mental approach. It's about being psychologically prepared, humble, and always willing to improve your riding capabilities.

Mark says that adopting a defensive riding mindset involves always expecting the unexpected on the road and accepting that motorcyclists are more vulnerable, even if an accident isn't their fault.

To be able to grow and develop as a motorcyclist is firstly by recognising that getting a license (typically 20 hours of training) is just the beginning, followed by understand that mastering motorcycle skills can take up to 10,000 hours. So, to be in the right frame of mind a rider needs to commit to continuous learning and improvement by being open to developing skills beyond basic licensing requirements. Continuous Self-Reflection might sound like a term reserved for HR Managers, but you can dedicate time to review every one of your rides by asking yourself: "What would I do differently next time?", or to identify close calls or moments you weren't comfortable with. Treat each ride as a learning opportunity.

The key is to approach riding with humility, awareness, and a commitment to ongoing skill development.

Four levels of experience show the different forces of braking and steering

What are the essential skills for avoiding a hazard?

Regardless of what speed you’re riding at, there’s always potential to be caught out by a hazard, so while there’s an opportunity to practice the hazard avoidance drills at any speed, it’s the muscle memory that you’ll be developing so should the occasion occur out in the real world then the practice you’ve put in could pay dividends in understanding the manoeuvre and how your bike will react. Think about coming up behind a parked car and waiting until the last moment to swerve out to avoid it – how late can you wait? What will happen if you’re too delicate on the front brake? Can you trust the tyre to grip enough?

Counter Steering

You simply do not know the answer to any of those questions without practicing. Use those three pillars, develop your knowledge of how hard you can pull that front brake lever, or how much dive there is on the suspension. Learn how to swerve to the right and then to the left while braking.

At Mark’s school in Australia, he took four different riders from learner to international racer and measured their brake and steering inputs with variations in speed. A spread of steering forces can be seen from the graphs. Mark explains it, “The force is tapering off with Don and we find that with all control inputs on bikes for an experienced riders they're a little bit tentative with throttle, brake and steering, and obviously, what if you’re counter steering and you’ve got a hazard, you really want to get this on point. And if we go to Taka, then you can see he’s pushing a little bit harder but it’s a similar sort of pattern that's a bit flatter. And then as this the ability goes up, the skill level goes up with more advanced riders able to use a higher force through the handlebars at higher speeds as well. So it's really important for riders to practice, and they'll surprise themselves how hard the handlebars can be pushed.”

Braking

By covering the front brake lever, with one or two fingers, allows a rider to be prepared to pull instead of using vital tenths of a second moving the fingers into position before pulling. At 60mph the bike is travelling at nearly 30 metres per second. The time taken between perception (actually registering the hazard) and deciding that action needs taken to the physical side of the brake lever being pulled can be two seconds. And the bike has now travelled half the length of a football pitch. So not only should a rider completely understand how powerful the brakes are, and how hard the lever can be pulled, but by covering the brake lever could save them that vital half-a-second. As Mark says, “Riders are very wary of the front brake. The bike has the stopping power of 1G (1 x force of gravity), yet we see all too often that riders cannot match that. Those perception and reaction times vary a lot. It depends on age and skill and situational awareness.”

The swerve drill layout and a rider practicing

Is there a drill can I practice?

Taking the above diagram, you can see the figure-of-eight layout, so beginning from the green start line at the top, follow the arrows around the cones before riding through the orange rectangle before swerving to avoid the black rectangle which is the hazard. Practice one when avoiding the hazard to the right, and one to the left, before increasing the speed each time. But assume the sides of the blue rectangle can’t be crossed. Then come to a stop before reaching the start line.

If you look at the mechanics of this drill, it’s tight. The technique is to be covering the brakes then throttle off and brake and swerve away from the hazard while looking for an escape route. It’s a drill that will teach the rider about the physics of the bike, how hard the brake lever can be used and how the bike will react when braking yet shifting from counter steering to the right and then to the left all at the same time.

We all want to be better at the passions or hobbies we spend our time and money on, so how about becoming a Better Rider? Those who play golf, ski, horse ride all practice to get better, but motorcyclists somehow just assume greatness. We don’t aspire to be safer riders so let’s rebrand that to become ‘better’ riders.

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