Key Elements Part VII: Mental Conditioning

Filed in archive Learning on February 15, 2007

Your mental attitude determines your riding style and helps you to realize your skills and limitations. It commands your ability to think rationally before and during your ride, and even if you ride at all. (Knowing when not to ride is just as important as knowing how to ride.)

Deciding not to get on your bike when you're intoxicated, when you're sick, when you're angry, when you're sad or when you're otherwise not in the proper mind-set or physical capacity to ride is very important. All the skill in the world cannot overcome emotion or physical debilities when we ride.

For the more experienced riders, this mental Conditioning tells us who is really responsible for our actions every time we get on the bike. It tells us when to slow down when we don't see an immediate threat. It tells us we're riding too fast for the conditions.

Mental conditioning is the ability to use our better judgment when we ride. It's the knowledge that everything we do on a bike has a consequence, and that we're not invincible if our judgment is wrong. Use your head when you ride.

Introduction
1. Acceleration and Braking
2. Turning
3. Grip
4. Dynamics
5. Assertive Predictability
6. Sudden Inputs
7. Mental Conditioning
8. Education