The Intermediate Trap: Why Year Three Riders Are Most at Risk

The danger of intermediate knowledge is the illusion of mastery. Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll look at the intermediate trap. Riders who are in their third year of riding often are no longer a beginner, but they also aren't exactly an expert. They're in the perfect storm of more confidence, but incomplete skills and judgment and can often lead to the most dangerous time to ride. We'll cover many of the issues facing these riders, what to look out for, and how you can address them. So let's get started with probably one of the most foundational aspects of how you begin to ride on a motorcycle and how you sort of address yourself to the bike. And this has to do with your body position. And unfortunately, sometimes what we see is that there are some habits that you form with how you sit on the bike that continue on as you become more of an intermediate. And you're still new enough that you don't really realize these mistakes. Unfortunately, many of these are also holding back your riding. So the first one I want to talk about is a death grip on the handlebars. Now, you are a little bit more comfortable with riding, yet you still cling on to the handlebars like you're going to fly off the back of the Squeezing the handlebars too tightly actually transfers road bumps directly into your arms. And this can make the bike feel very nervous and almost like unresponsive because you aren't necessarily controlling it. It's just you're so rigid on the bike. You're not allowing the bike to kind of naturally kind of handle any of the undulations in the road where having a looser grip on the handlebars would do So having a looser grip onto the handlebars is really when you start to become a little bit more fluid and smoother in your riding. And the big thing is that while you have the foundations as an intermediate rider, you aren't necessarily the smoothest rider quite yet. And so removing that death grip is going to be one of the best things that you can do. And so really think about it the next time that you get on the bike, how are you actually holding the handlebars? What are you doing? And do you have this like really tight grip with your hands wrapped around those handle grips as tightly as you possibly can? Loosen those up a little bit. Just relax your wrists. Calm down a bit. Another problem that we see oftentimes is locked elbows. You'll see this very often if you have like ape hanger handlebars, because this force is more of a but it can happen with any sort of handlebars. You're, you're just reached all the way out. Your, elbows are perfectly straight. There is no bend whatsoever in them, which means you have no forgiveness. You have nothing that is going to handle and allow you to move very quickly. You've got this just rigid pole running from your shoulder to your wrist instead of having something that has a little bit of movement in it by having that slight bend in your elbows. And so you're tensing your upper body and this helps to restrict the motorcycle's natural self steering. Remember, if you actually let go of the handlebars of the motorcycle, the bike will generally try to self steer and going along on its own nice and smoothly. It doesn't necessarily need you to be holding it upright. It will try to hold itself upright. But when you're locked in there and you're holding these rigid bars from your shoulders to there, it's not going to work very easily. And it's accentuating kind of like what we talked about with the death grip on the handlebars is you're now creating an even larger arm and larger lever that is going to create this very tight feeling and a very know, nervous kind of a riding, not just in terms of that the rider is nervous, but more that the bike feels nervous. It feels like it's skittering all over the place. And the other thing that this does is this can actually start to create some very heavy steering. It can feel like it takes a lot more effort for you to turn the bike. And the reason is because you're actually having to turn at your shoulders rather than at your elbows. And so you've got to move your entire body. You're rotating your entire body, which makes it feel like the bike is much heavier for steering. And that can make you feel more fatigued much quicker. So if you just get that little bit of a bend in your elbows, now you have some movement that you can do just in your forearms to move that bike around versus having to rotate your entire body. So watch for those locked elbows. And you'll notice a little bit of a pattern here. We're going from the interface directly onto the bike your hands going into your elbows. And now we're going to get into those stiff shoulders. Again, this rigidity in the torso is preventing some of the smooth weight transfers and it limits your ability to lean fluidly with the machine. And what you really want to be able to do on a bike is you just want to be nice and loose on the bike. You want to have the bike move a little bit underneath you. It's going to move on its own, just natural balancing itself. But you also don't want to have being so rigid overall that this is going to become a problem. And that's why I start with the handlebars you have heavy, heavy on the handlebars and then you lock your elbows and then you've got really tense shoulders. You are basically in a fully locked on position and it's going to be very, very difficult to control that bike. It's going to be very tiring. It's just not going to be a good experience for you. And it's going to make it much harder in the event that you need to do, let's say, an emergency maneuver and just do a quick sort of counter steer to be able to get around a pothole any sort of animal that gets in the Anything you need to do, this body position is really going to create a problem for you. and while a lot of the stuff that I've talked about with like, let's say the hands going to the elbows and to the shoulders is really about having almost a overly stiff or nervous and tight sort of feeling. Sometimes you see actually the opposite problem that happens with some riders, and you see this specifically happening onto the feet. And this is where they'll have a incorrect foot placement. And it might start off kind of innocently enough. You know, you rest your heels on the pegs just to get a bit of a change of position, you know, rest your legs a little bit. And you're so confident in your riding that you don't really think it's going to much matter. But the thing is that riding with feet where their arches or the heels are on the pegs really reduces how much active motorcycle control that you have. You really want to be riding on the balls of your feet, you know, just behind your toes. That's where you have the maximum amount of leverage. And remember, part of the thing with steering the bike, yes, you use the levers of the handlebar, but you can also add in pressure onto the foot pegs, which can help adjust the bike. It can change balance on the You can actually steer a bike completely from the foot pegs. It's not as fast, of course, but you can do as long as you have a loose grip on the handlebars or no grip on the handlebars. If you do a very tight grip, then, of course, you're going to be fighting And so having that sort of relaxed sort of foot placement does mean that you're losing out on the additional control surface of your foot pegs as being a way to modify how the bike is going through as you're riding. And I think for a lot of riders, they think of it like in a car. Because in a car, of course, the steering wheel is the only way in which you're able to actually steer the car. But on a motorcycle, on a balanced motorcycle, everything, your position on the bike, you can shift your weight, which is what you're doing with the foot pegs, can also affect how the bike is turning. And this is something that as you're maybe getting past the basics and getting into that intermediate, that a lot of people mistake. So really think about your position of your body position overall on the motorcycle. Think of your grip on the handlebars. Think about those locked elbows. Think about these stiff shoulders. And think about your position on the foot pegs. Now, this next group of some of the problems that I pretty endemic in a lot of intermediate riders really kind of, I sort of overall describe them as almost like vision and mental traps. And I don't mean that you have poor but I mean more of that how you're looking and what you're paying attention to affects what you do with the And of course, you've probably heard the adage that you look where you want to but sometimes the details of how that actually works and how we do that really matters. So one problem that I see very often with a lot of riders who are early in the riding career is I'll call it sort of a short sighted tracking. And what I mean by this is you're basically staring just in front of the front tire. So that you can avoid any bumps or tar snakes or other road obstacles, you're really paying attention and you're like, hey, if I'm looking right in front of this, then I can avoid everything. I can see exactly what's going on. But the problem with that is that it makes it for a very reactive and jerky sort of corrections. If you really want to make this nice and smooth, you want to look pretty far out. Get that head up. Get your eyes looking way ahead. So you see any of those obstacles or hazards well in advance. So when moving out of the way to get past you're doing that with plenty of room. So it doesn't have to be super jerky. It can be just a nice, smooth transition. It's like, oh, I'm just going to move over a little bit in the lane. Oh, and then I'll move get those eyes up. Look out a little bit further instead of staring right in front of the wheel. And I see this just so commonly. while we can do the mechanics and the basics of getting around, as you get a little bit further into your riding journey, you still have this problem is a lot of riders will still look too close directly in front of the front wheel. you can also run into a problem on the opposite end of the spectrum, which is where you look out far ahead. You're looking at what's ahead of you. And now you see this thing that you really desperately want to avoid. And this is where that adage that says, look where you want to go, really, really hits home. Or more to the point, maybe your bike isn't going to hit that thing that you're staring at. So when you're looking directly at a pothole or a guardrail, it pretty much guarantees that you will hit it. So force your eyes to scan the escape route You want to with the bike where you want the bike to go, not what you want to not hit. Because if you do stare at the thing that is really not what you want to hit, the odds are that you're going to hit it. there's a really sort of sad story that I have from when I was riding with a large group. We were going up from New York City up to Vermont for a nice long weekend and had a buddy of ours who had ridden with us for some day rides. But he'd really never done a longer trip, certainly not an overnight trip. So first time he had, you know, panniers on his bike, he was going for this long ride. And he wasn't used to riding for a longer extended period of time. We'd been probably riding maybe three hours at this point without a stop. So probably longer than I think we should have, but in any case, it was a bit of a long ride. And we're up in northern Massachusetts at this point. You know, we've been doing a lot of back roads, kind of fun. And we're on this nice, curvy, twisty road, really farm road, beautiful. you know, my friend who's riding with us, he's behind me and in front of another friend his. And we're riding along and he basically looked at this tree that was on the side of the road and just kept staring at it and crashed directly into the tree, full on. And we, you know, I hear from my other buddy because we're on the comms together. He's like, hey, Mickey just crashed. Mickey just crashed. And we run over, go take a look and see what happened. And sure enough, he hits this tree. And here's the stupid thing about it. This was one tree. If he had moved three feet to either side, he had a completely open field. There was nothing in the way. There wasn't a fence or anything. He just literally hit that one tree that was on the side of the road. And it's target fixation. If he had just moved a couple of feet on either side, he would have been completely fine. So you really need to be careful with this because if he had just literally said, well, where do I want to go? Not what do I not want to hit? He would have been absolutely fine, even if he missed the turn, which is really what that was about. just staring at the tree was the problem. And then another problem that sort of fits into this sort of, you know, mental or vision sort of issue is what I'll call like a lazy scanning. And is really common for people who maybe they're doing a daily commute on their motorcycle and you become overly comfortable with this route that you take. And so you end up developing these almost lazy scanning habits. And this complacency, it directly delays your hazard recognition and your response times. And this can happen along roads that you're very familiar with, but it can also happen along new roads. Sometimes the lazy scanning is a result of some fatigue. So try to be aware that you're not paying as much attention as you should. And it might be time for a break So look, you're an intermediate rider and you are beginning to enjoy a lot of the wonderful aspects of riding. And perhaps you're even going out on to some of those really fun twisty roads, they're one of the best experiences to do with a motorcycle. And even if you really mostly stick to highways, you know, you might be ill prepared for when you do get onto those back roads, once you leave the highway, because the reality is anytime you're journeying from one place to another, even if you're mostly going to take the highway, you still have to get on the back roads to get to your final destination. Usually it's not right on the highway and certainly your house isn't right on the highway. So you've got to get a little bit onto this. And so some of the problems that happen as you get into some of these back roads, we're going to talk a little bit about those because this is something that happens with a lot of intermediate riders. So you're going to talk a little bit. And for that matter, even some riders who've been riding a longer And while I think of an intermediate rider is usually around like year three, typically, you could be year 10 or year 15 and still be an intermediate rider because you had one year of report repeated over 10 times. And that's not really a variety of experience. So think of, it's not just the years, but it's breadth of So as you're coming in and you're thinking of, you're going through all these corners, a really common problem that you'll see with a lot of riders who are in intermediate phase is these mid-corner corrections. And they're usually going to be very abrupt. So they might like chop the throttle right in the middle of the corner or fistful of front brake right in the middle of the turn. And this upsets the And this panic reaction dangerously widens your cornering line. So you really have to be careful of, you want to be smooth. And that's, that I think is the, the real takeaway that I hope that you get out of this episode is when you are moving from the beginning mode, you're going to be jerky. That's just part of it. Cause you don't really know the controls yet. You're still figuring it all out. But as you're trying to get into that intermediate, what you're really trying to hone is being smooth, trying to make it so every control action is nice and smooth, nice and gentle, because you don't then upset the chassis unnecessarily and you allow the bike to then settle into what it needs to. And you're going to have a much better riding experience. Now, another problem that you'll see with a lot of intermediate riders as they're going through a corner is they're not really looking through the corner. And this is a fundamental problem. They're just looking again. It's almost related to that looking directly in front of the wheel, but you've got to get your head up of not just looking at where you're heading in the corner, but look at it through the furthest point in the corner that you can. And the reason is, is that oftentimes a corner is blind or at least partially blind. So it might be that there's trees, there could be a hill that's blocking the view. And that's why there's a corner that you're going around. Maybe there's buildings in the way, whatever it is, it's harder for you to see through that corner. So you do need to try as much as possible to look through it. Maybe there's a traffic jam halfway through the corner, but because you weren't looking ahead, you didn't know. Maybe there's a jackknife tractor trailer right after the corner. Now an important corollary to this is, it's not just you looking through the corner, but it's you having enough of a buffer that you can react to what you see in the corner. And so you really do need to adjust your speed according to how far you can see into the corner. So as I said, if corner has like hills or a hill that's completely blocking your view, you have to make the assumption that there will be something in the middle of the corner right past where you can't see. So slow down a little bit more. Have your hands ready to react. You're covering that brake. You're covering that clutch so that you can react as quickly as possible in the event that you need to. And remember, when you're in a corner, you're going to want to be able to then stand the bike up to be vertical so that you're focusing all of your tire traction on braking if you need to rather than on turning because your bike can't do both at the same time effectively. And so if there's one phrase that I would sort of encourage you as a takeaway for this is, don't ride faster than you can see. Now the next issue that you'll see with this sort of cornering and braking is really an over-reliance on the rear brake. And this is the one that can even affect really long-term riders. And some of these riders might even offer helpful advice to beginners to never use the front brake because of that one time they grabbed too much while turning at low speed and the bike fell over. And the problem is that was just poor braking technique. It's not that you used the front brake. The reality is that if you're failing to properly load the front tire, you're sacrificing stopping power. The front brake provides the vast majority of your stopping capability. And roughly it's like 70% of your braking force is on the front tire. And when you brake before a turn, this also helps weight the front tire, giving you more traction up front. So there is weight transfer that's going to occur that is going to get you the traction that you need to help you turn. And if you don't really do that, if you rely on the back, you're going to have a little bit of problem because when you stick with the rear, you can't slow down as quickly. You're more likely to lock up the rear tire, resulting in a loss of control. And the other thing is, and maybe even go into a straight line and even give this a test. If you hit the rear brake, what happens is that the rear of the bike tends to squat and the front of the bike raises up. So it's almost a counter weight transfer. You're getting into that corner, you're hitting the rear brake. And now that front end is lifting up. Well, what does that mean? That means that there's less weight on the front tire, which means you have less turning capability. So the thing is that you're then not even able to go through the corner as quickly as you could. You don't have as much traction in the front as you would otherwise. And this is the complete opposite of what you want to have happen before you get into a turn. the rear brake is good as a augmentation to that front brake. But the front brake is the vast majority of your braking power. Now, when you're doing slow speed maneuvers, yeah, like if you're trying to do like very tight corners with cones and stuff in practice, yeah, you're going to use rear brake a lot because it's you're just trying to settle the bike down. You're trying to squat it down. So it's a different thing than when you're riding into a corner at a normal road speed. So try to break yourself of the habit of relying excessively on the rear brake. I still always encourage, because a lot of bikes nowadays actually have linked braking. So if you hit the front brake, it will actually also activate the rear brake. So if you are going to rely on only using a one brake at any time, I would really still encourage you to use the front brake as that because it is giving you the vast majority of your braking just be careful also with when you're, how much force you're applying. So if you're applying a lot of force in slow speed maneuvering and you jam that front brake, yes, that can become a problem. But if you're nice and gentle with it's completely fine. You're not going to have an issue or adjust and be like, hey, if I'm going really slow speed and trying to like, you know, navigate around a parking lot sort of thing, then yeah, then you can switch to using the rear brake. But most of the time when you're riding, you're using the front brake. So this next group is really, and it comes down to what we talked about in the opening, which is you aren't a beginner anymore, but you also aren't an expert and you've had fewer experiences in a variety of situations to know how to handle them. And the problem that happens is that this, almost, you have an overestimation of your abilities and this can get you into a lot of problems. So the first one that I'd say is you have to really pay attention, not just to what you were doing, but pay attention to the condition of the road or of the weather and adjust your pace accordingly. Most of the time when people have an overconfidence in their ability, they tend to ride a little bit faster. They tend to maybe not pay as much attention because they feel, Oh no, I can do it. when it gets a little colder, your tires have less grip than they would when it's warm. And while you might've bombed through a corner at a given speed, when it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, what happens when it's like 50 or even 40 degrees Fahrenheit? You don't want to be going through that corner quite as quickly because your tires are not going to have the same level of grip that they did at 80 degrees. And so if you're still going at the same pace as you did in the middle of the hot summer, you are going to have a bit of a problem. Now, it's not just the colder temps, but it's also when the wet weather hits. And remember, wet weather is going to reduce the grip even more clearly to you than the temperature. And at the same time, it also reduces your visibility. You've got the raindrops that are falling on top of your helmet's visor. You've got to clear them periodically. The rain itself is creating a little bit of obfuscation of what you're seeing ahead of you. It might make it harder to make out that that's a car in front of you. Maybe not everyone has their lights on. All of these things are adding into reduced visibility. And remember that visibility is not just what you can see, but it's that others can see you. Remember, motorcycles are hard to see. They're very narrow vehicles, and it's very easy in rain for someone completely bypass the motorcycle as they're doing their scan. And remember, too, that your braking distances increase in the wet. And if you don't have ABS, you have to be careful with how much brake pressure you apply when you grab the brakes. And it's better to be less aggressive both in braking and in acceleration when it's wet. Because you could have the same problem on the opposite end, which is you give it way too much throttle to start off. Your rear tire spins and the bike slides out to one side or the other based on whatever way you're slightly leaning. So just take it a little bit softer as you're getting into this. And I don't mean this to dissuade you from riding in the wet or riding when it's cooler temperatures. I'm just saying that you want to be adjusting the pace at which you are riding for those kind of conditions. And I still would encourage you to get comfortable with riding in them. So part of an intermediate is you're really still learning. So you do want to have a breadth of experiences. Another thing to watch out for really poor quality pavement, and we all love that fresh ribbon of pavement, it's smooth and enjoyable, but over time the road does deteriorate, and it has a number of cracks might form, it might even get some bumps in it, and this is especially an issue in the corners. These bumps and cracks can upset the suspension, which will reduce your traction at the time you need it the most. So adjust your pace based on the road and the road conditions. Remember that a cracked and bumpy paved road will start to behave more like a dirt road, and you'll lose a lot of traction. And also watch for things on top of the road that can affect traction, like oil from a leaky truck in front of you, or a bunch of gravel that was pushed into the curve, or even just some cut grass. These aren't things that should terrify you, but you should just be aware that you're going to have less traction, so again, bring that pace down a little bit. You know, the arrogance that we get as an intermediate rider, a feeling that we can ride much faster because we're no longer a beginner. You still need to temper it based on the conditions of what you're riding in. And this next one that I want to talk about is something that you probably don't think about when you're used to driving in a car, because you're in effectively a completely climate-controlled environment inside of your car. You don't really experience any variation in what you're riding through. Whereas on a motorcycle, you absolutely do. And you might have left your house, and the weather was 70 degrees Fahrenheit, it was perfect riding weather, so you point the front wheel towards some of favorite you know, the ones that go over a mountain or near that river. And these are great roads with plenty of curves to help keep you interested, without a doubt. But the weather at your house, and the weather at each of these places, isn't the same. Temps will drop as you climb up a mountain, which is going to affect your traction. be covered by trees, making it harder to see the road surface, And that nearby river also has a cooling effect on the air, thus reducing traction. Not to mention, you might also get into an area where, hey, it was clear and sunny where you are, but now you get to where the fun roads are, and you've got a little bit of a rainstorm comes in. So adjust your pace as you experience the conditions through which you're not the same pace that you do in ideal conditions. You have to learn how to do this, because that's the real thing of, that's where you're learning is in intermediate. It's not just the basic controls of the bike, but adapting to the environment and the conditions through which you're riding. So we talked a little bit about how you have to adjust your pace based on the road or the weather conditions, but it's also important to adjust your pace based on your bike's condition. Now, if your tires are nearly at the wear indicators, or if your bike is low on oil, or the brake pads are close to needing to be replaced, you probably should also adjust your pace. And if your bike has a weird wobble at higher speeds, you really can't hit those speeds. And you should probably figure out what the cause of it is and get it addressed. a common issue that you see with people is that they're riding at 100% as soon as they leave the garage. And it takes a little while for the engine to warm up. It takes a little while for the tires to warm up. But you're asking everything of them before they're even ready. you're trusting your bike with your life. So don't push it if the bike isn't up to snuff. Really pay attention. This is why I like doing essentially a before every single ride. Go through the bike. Look over everything. Make sure everything is what you expect it to be. Are your tires in good condition? Are they properly inflated? Do you have any sort of weird wear patterns that are on there? Do you have any sort of patches where maybe you picked up a nail and you didn't notice it when you came home from the last ride? But now you notice it before you go out for the next one. Or are your brake pads way too low? Really pay attention and look over the bike. Check out everything before you even pull it out of the garage. So you're aware and then you're going to adjust your pace accordingly. Ideally, even start to pay attention to, well, you know, I can now start to feel that that bike is having an issue or the tires aren't as much grip as they had when they were new. You'll start to get a feel for it and then you know it without even having to look at the tires. And this is something that will develop over time for you. But you really do need to pay attention and adjust your pace based on the condition of the bike. Now this next one is going to feel a little weird because, you know, when you were a beginner, you probably limited yourself to what, like maybe 30 minutes of riding at a stretch. And while you probably can ride a little bit longer than you could when you were a beginner, it's important to be able to pay attention to and recognize signs of fatigue or bodily impacts that will still affect your ability to successfully navigate your bike. And if you push yourself too much, you can run into problems. So a good example of this is that, you know, we talked about maybe weather gets into a point where it's colder or it's going to become more wet. Well, it can also go in the opposite direction. It might have been nice and cool where you are, and now it's going to get super Well, now you're going to start to feel dehydrated. You're really, you know, sweating so much. And you're going to start thinking, oh, I've only been riding for an hour. I can keep going. Meanwhile, you're getting really thirsty. It's harder for you to focus on the road. You're starting to find your eyes are blinking more. Your head's starting to feel a little foggy. And the thing is, this is going create perfect condition for you to have an accident. And that's why this intermediate rider trap is so constant. And that the number of accidents people will have as they get into that third is increasing and it's because they have the arrogance, but they haven't gotten the judgment quite yet. And don't conflate confidence and arrogance, because the problem is arrogance is where you are ignorant of your limitations. Confidence is you're confident in what you can do, but you also know what you can't do. And I'd really encourage you to think more of that as you're riding. a common sort of thing that you're going to see for a lot of riders is, you know what? I'm going to ride until I am almost out of gas before I take a break. Now this can feel like an achievement, but what if you get so fatigued that you don't pay enough attention and you run wide and turn right in front of a Mack truck? Well, that's not going to really help you get to the next gas station. It's going to be a really painful experience. So make sure that you're paying attention to the signs from your body. You need to pay attention to the signals that your body is sending you, that it might be fatigued, it might be thirsty. Maybe you aren't paying attention as much. Maybe you're kind of getting into that lazy kind of ride along and you're just kind of like, la-da-da-da-da. You're not really paying attention. Well, or maybe you're feeling this tingling in your butt, your hands or your feet from the vibrations of the bike. maybe you're starting to yawn in your helmet. These are all signs that you probably need to take a bit of a break. And especially if you park your bike in the winter months. This is another common problem is that you get out on your first ride of the warmer weather and it's all too easy to push yourself before you're ready. And the thing is, is that if you don't ride year-round, the stamina that one has for being able to ride for a longer period of time falls away from not riding because you're using muscles that you don't use sitting in a car. You're having to hold yourself up. You're balancing. You're using a lot of your back muscles just to keep yourself upright. So a lot of muscles that we're using, a lot of the focus that we have to do when we're riding a bike, you get out of practice with it if you've not been riding for a period of time. getting back into riding, don't jump right into, hey, I'm going to ride for three hours straight. It's like, go for that 30-minute ride. Break into it. Yes, you could probably ride longer when you're back in the groove, but you're not in the groove yet. So one thing I really encourage people to think of is think less about the maximum riding time or distance per day and more about the maximum time between breaks. So you might be fine with a 300-mile day, but that doesn't mean that you do all 300 miles without a break. You know, I've been riding for nearly 30 years, and my rule of thumb is a break every two hours or 100 miles, whichever comes first. And that rule is a hard stop. It's not a guideline. It's not a minimum. It's not gonna like, oh, I'm gonna ride for two hours and then I'll stop. It's like, no, once I two hours, I'm stopping no matter And if I'm feeling tired after 45 minutes of riding, I'm gonna pull over and take a Even if I'm not feeling fatigued, I still stop after that two hours or 100 miles. Because the odds are, once I switch the ignition off and I get off the bike, take my helmet the fatigue will hit me and I'll be glad that I stopped. So, come up with a rule of thumb that works for you. And it doesn't mean you have to match mine. It doesn't have to be two hours and 100 miles. It might be an hour and 50 miles. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. This is just your personal guideline for where your maximum would So, set up what is a good guideline for you. Something that's going to work for where you know you're going to be okay if you take that break that often. And quite frankly, if you're riding along and you hit that time or you hit that mileage, and maybe you're not near a gas station or something else that you would want to stop at. Maybe you're in the middle of the backwoods somewhere. Well, find a little pull off to the side of the road. Just pull off, get off the stretch for a little bit, take a little bit of a even if you're not doing a full stop But just to take that sort of mental break for a moment So when you do take a break, try to address any biological needs. You know, use the bathroom, grab a drink, grab a snack. You know, you've been pushing yourself. You know, you've been riding in whatever weather conditions you have. Maybe it's wet. Maybe it's hot. Probably using a lot of fluids and energy. So you want to the gas tank of your And part of why I use this two-hour, 100-mile as a guideline for all of my bikes is all of my bikes generally can make it to at least 100 miles between fuel stops. So oftentimes my breaks are also my fuel stops. And I refuel the bike and myself. So look for a gas station with a convenience mart where you can grab a drink and a snack and hopefully use the restroom. Try to make it where this is not just pulling off to the side of the road. It's like, I would still do that if you're in the middle of nowhere, just to get the mental break, even if you don't get the biological needs. But just take that break. And ideally, if you can, even pack like a bit of a drink of water or if you have a hydration pack on your backpack, that's going to help you keep hydrated while you're riding. Stick some snacks into a tank bag or a pannier or whatever it is. So even if you do have to stop in the middle of nowhere, you have something that can refill and satiate yourself. just going to really help you as you're continuing with your and hopefully make it out of this intermediate section of your riding history. So let's wrap up. We talked about some of the issues with body position, like locked elbows or death grips on the handlebars. We also covered the vision and mental traps that affect intermediate riders, like target fixation and lazy scanning. And we covered issues with cornering and braking, like overly relying on the rear brake, failing to look through a corner, and these harsh mid-corner adjustments. And finally, we looked at how intermediate riders often overestimate their abilities. They don't adjust pace based on the weather or road conditions, or even the conditions of the bike. And they often fail to take enough breaks, pushing that fatigue to the breaking point. So my question for you this week is, what is something you find yourself doing on your bike that you know is wrong? Share your thoughts through the text the show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.