On a recent journey I departed from one of the guiding principles of safe long-distance riding in that I decided for no particularly good reason to abandon my plan and ride a different route home. With hindsight that should have been my "first sign of tiredness" triggering another principle "When you're tired, stop". I carried on making poor decisions for a while until, finally, I pulled into the motorway services 250 miles from home.
So, as there was a Days Inn onsite, clearly the right thing, the 'gold standard' thing, to do would be to take a room and sleep for a few hours, right? That's not what I did but I believe that my subsequent actions were the real right ones.
Riding a motorcycle is tiring, both physically and mentally, and when the threshold is reached the necessary action is to stop (cease, quit). Taking a room isn't "stopping", it's taking a new course of action. Taking a room entails deciding to abort the journey, checking in to the Inn, alerting others to the plan deviation, consciously going to sleep, etc. Those are all positive actions and they might not be simple ones either. What if there is no room at the Inn? or the roomrate is £250 for the night? or your card declines? or, having checked in, you just can't get to sleep?
Stop as far as I'm concerned means just that, stop. My body is tired, my brain is tired. Taking a room for the night entails exercising my tired brain. What I actually did was empty my bladder, always a pressing need for anyone over 50 riding any distance, then buy a coffee and sit in the far corner of the rest area. To be clear, I didn't need the coffee, that was just a hat tip to the commercial interests providing the rest area.
My strategy at that point was to simply rest, possibly sleep, until I felt better enough to decide what to do. On other rides I have done the same thing in lay-bys, carparks, under bridges and other "wild camping" or "Iron Butt Motel" locations but if an armchair in a warm dry coffee shop is available, why wouldn't I use that? Stop means stop, no plan, no time limit, just stop.
Having rested for a while (I can't remember whether I slept or not) I decided that I could continue riding. I didn't know whether I could ride all the way home or indeed any particular distance at all but I felt good enough to get on my bike and continue the journey. I called my wife to tell her of the delay and assure her that I would be safe although late (don't wait up) then remounted and rejoined the motorway.
I made two further such stops before finally reaching home around 1am. My original plan would have had me home around 9pm. My route deviation added about 60-90 minutes so I spent between 2-3 hours "stopped".
If you're reading this and thinking about how unsafe it is to be falling asleep in public places let me assure you that I've done it all over Britain, France, Germany, Hungary and several other "unsafe" places for many years now without incident. Perhaps I'm just lucky.
So, as there was a Days Inn onsite, clearly the right thing, the 'gold standard' thing, to do would be to take a room and sleep for a few hours, right? That's not what I did but I believe that my subsequent actions were the real right ones.
Riding a motorcycle is tiring, both physically and mentally, and when the threshold is reached the necessary action is to stop (cease, quit). Taking a room isn't "stopping", it's taking a new course of action. Taking a room entails deciding to abort the journey, checking in to the Inn, alerting others to the plan deviation, consciously going to sleep, etc. Those are all positive actions and they might not be simple ones either. What if there is no room at the Inn? or the roomrate is £250 for the night? or your card declines? or, having checked in, you just can't get to sleep?
Stop as far as I'm concerned means just that, stop. My body is tired, my brain is tired. Taking a room for the night entails exercising my tired brain. What I actually did was empty my bladder, always a pressing need for anyone over 50 riding any distance, then buy a coffee and sit in the far corner of the rest area. To be clear, I didn't need the coffee, that was just a hat tip to the commercial interests providing the rest area.
My strategy at that point was to simply rest, possibly sleep, until I felt better enough to decide what to do. On other rides I have done the same thing in lay-bys, carparks, under bridges and other "wild camping" or "Iron Butt Motel" locations but if an armchair in a warm dry coffee shop is available, why wouldn't I use that? Stop means stop, no plan, no time limit, just stop.
Having rested for a while (I can't remember whether I slept or not) I decided that I could continue riding. I didn't know whether I could ride all the way home or indeed any particular distance at all but I felt good enough to get on my bike and continue the journey. I called my wife to tell her of the delay and assure her that I would be safe although late (don't wait up) then remounted and rejoined the motorway.
I made two further such stops before finally reaching home around 1am. My original plan would have had me home around 9pm. My route deviation added about 60-90 minutes so I spent between 2-3 hours "stopped".
If you're reading this and thinking about how unsafe it is to be falling asleep in public places let me assure you that I've done it all over Britain, France, Germany, Hungary and several other "unsafe" places for many years now without incident. Perhaps I'm just lucky.
