I Understand Why People In Duluth Area Quit Riding Motorcycles

My truck has been in the shop for a couple of days and that means my only mode of travel is the motorcycle, a big bummer, I know. As much as I like riding my bike, the last two days have been a true test of my riding skills.

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I would say at best I'm an average rider, I didn't grow up riding dirt bikes and took a course to learn to ride many years ago. One thing I am pretty good at is paying attention to my surroundings which in itself is a big part of riding.

In my two days cruising around town from place to place that I needed to be at, I had six decently close calls that involved me hammering the brakes, swerving to another lane, or using the horn and pipes to ward off car drivers. In reality this was only over the course of about fifty miles, if that. That's insane!

Two of those really close calls were me getting onto the Blatnik Bridge with it's lane closure. I purposely take the route no requiring me to yield to traffic and many merging on required to yield just don't care. Another two involved people in cars on their mobile phones, and the last were just completely oblivious to any other traffic individuals.

I'm not saying I'll be quitting riding because of this, but I can certainly understand why some people have in recent years. More and more often I run into people who gave it up because of other drivers and in particular because of mobile phone use. It's the around town riding that will get you as we had half of the close call situations all the way out to Colorado and back last year.

Since we still have some decent months of riding in our area check out these motorcycle riding tips even if you are a decently seasoned rider. It's always good to refresh some of those skills.