nev..
Terrarist
Not a post really specific to the TR650, but being that TR650 riders will often find themselves off the beaten track I thought I'd share some thoughts about a recent experience I had.
I was on a group ride, out of the city, only about 150km from home, but not in an area that I was familiar with and I was following the bikes ahead, vaguely keeping track of our route on my GPS but mostly just enjoying the ride and the new roads....
...and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of an emergency situation. There were a dozen or more bikes in the group and the rider 4th from last missed a corner and hit a tree at 100kph. Noone ahead of him knew what had happened, so it was just the 3 riders following him who stopped. This was a deserted country road, with no traffic. In fact in the following 2 hours only 1 passing vehicle came up that road (aside from police and ambulances).
Fortunately for me I had mobile phone coverage, so I was able to call an ambulance and speak to an emergency paramedic on the phone. Being able to call the ambulance is good, but getting them to where they are required is another matter when you don't even know where you are yourself.
My Garmin GPS has a screen called "where am I". It shows current GPS location coordinates as well as the road I was on, the nearest cross street and the locality. Knowing exactly where to get this information saved a lot of time because they were able to dispatch an ambulance within a few minutes of the accident occurring. Unfortunately, in this instance even having that information close at hand didn't improve the outcome because the rider passed away before the paramedics arrived and couldn't be resuscitated.
So the point for my post is just to raise awareness of what can happen and get other riders to make a conscious effort to think.. if I came around a corner and found myself facing such a situation, do I have the tools to determine where I am, and can I use them.
Lots of riders have GPS, but do you know how to get the coords off the GPS. Often in high stress situations people can forget simple stuff, which is why people like pilots and skydivers practice their emergency procedures often, so that they are second nature should an actual emergency arise, and they can make rational decisions and take the correct action when every second counts.
So I'm not advocating everyone buy a GPS or anything, just that people think about the tools which you have at their disposal, be that a GPS or a smartphone or a paper map, or a SPOT or EPIRB and think about how they would be able to identify their location precisely enough for the emergency services to be able to locate you. It's definitely not something I had actually thought about before, however I had played around with my GPS enough to remember that the screen was there how to find the info.
I was on a group ride, out of the city, only about 150km from home, but not in an area that I was familiar with and I was following the bikes ahead, vaguely keeping track of our route on my GPS but mostly just enjoying the ride and the new roads....
...and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of an emergency situation. There were a dozen or more bikes in the group and the rider 4th from last missed a corner and hit a tree at 100kph. Noone ahead of him knew what had happened, so it was just the 3 riders following him who stopped. This was a deserted country road, with no traffic. In fact in the following 2 hours only 1 passing vehicle came up that road (aside from police and ambulances).
Fortunately for me I had mobile phone coverage, so I was able to call an ambulance and speak to an emergency paramedic on the phone. Being able to call the ambulance is good, but getting them to where they are required is another matter when you don't even know where you are yourself.
My Garmin GPS has a screen called "where am I". It shows current GPS location coordinates as well as the road I was on, the nearest cross street and the locality. Knowing exactly where to get this information saved a lot of time because they were able to dispatch an ambulance within a few minutes of the accident occurring. Unfortunately, in this instance even having that information close at hand didn't improve the outcome because the rider passed away before the paramedics arrived and couldn't be resuscitated.
So the point for my post is just to raise awareness of what can happen and get other riders to make a conscious effort to think.. if I came around a corner and found myself facing such a situation, do I have the tools to determine where I am, and can I use them.
Lots of riders have GPS, but do you know how to get the coords off the GPS. Often in high stress situations people can forget simple stuff, which is why people like pilots and skydivers practice their emergency procedures often, so that they are second nature should an actual emergency arise, and they can make rational decisions and take the correct action when every second counts.
So I'm not advocating everyone buy a GPS or anything, just that people think about the tools which you have at their disposal, be that a GPS or a smartphone or a paper map, or a SPOT or EPIRB and think about how they would be able to identify their location precisely enough for the emergency services to be able to locate you. It's definitely not something I had actually thought about before, however I had played around with my GPS enough to remember that the screen was there how to find the info.
