COLUMN: Riding Better: Cache Back Scheme - Part 2

The last time around, we talked about the idea of fast-access memory, based on the book The Brain by David Eagleman (head here to read part 1). The short version is that your brain 'caches' things that you use often, and stores infrequently used things (data, processes, skills etc) in a larger but slower moving database. And riding motorcycles more can trick your brain into classifying the components of riding as the important things that need to be stored in the cache. A place that might have limited storage but fast access makes things easy to do, natural to execute. This is where the truly skilled manoeuvres come from. Your brain has a cache. And if we ride bikes more, then the skills and processes needed to do it become more and more important until the brain removes some other useless things from the cache and replaces them with motorcycle skills. That raises two questions.

What if the skills are wrong?
This is a valid concern. If your cache is full of erroneous instructions, then you'll automatically default to actions that lead to mistakes. And as you can see, this is a problem. Because it will feel natural and then you'll have a moment. You will wonder what happened. And if you're anything like the rest of us, you will blame an external influence -- the car driver, the idiot pedestrian. When your actions are automatic, it's hard to pinpoint them as the source of the problem.

So the next question naturally is, how common is this? It's the rule, not the exception. Say what? Well, think about how you learnt to ride motorcycles. Chances are a relative or a friend held your figurative hand through the process of learning the physical aspect of riding a motorcycle -- balance and the operation of the controls. The rest you learn over time. Things like speed sense (what's the right speed for the situation you are in right now), what the ground feels like when you hit it at 30kmph (hurts) and so forth.

The chances are good that you picked up bad habits along the way and if you ride often, you uploaded those bad instructions into your cache and that is why you keep having incidents and close calls. For example, you learn to panic and grab the brakes whenever something hazardous appears in your vision. The instructions are correct up to the point where your eyes report a problem and the brain registers the hazard. But at this point, instead of processing the nature of the hazard and choosing the next course of action, most riders default to the brakes. This upsets the chassis of the motorcycle, breaks the flow and often puts you in a situation where a collision will happen simply because swerving or accelerating away from the hazard is not part of the automatic instruction set for you.

The only way I know to fix this is to go to a school, ideally at a racetrack. Where instructors' job is to explain how to modify your instructions to the correct set. To switch from passive reactions to active actions as the default course of action. To update the cache with better programs. This is why motorcycle riding instruction is vital, because the correct method and what your brain tells you to do by default rarely coincide in the context of motorcycles.

What happens when you stop riding?
This is especially relevant in the current time, when you've been off motorcycle a lot more than usual. I recently returned to Pune from Mumbai after over a 100 days off the bike. I found the riding jerkier, less natural and more effort than I consider normal for myself. And remember, as a professional tester with 20 years of experience and at least 50,000km on bikes every year, my cache should be just brimming with smoothness, speed and hero-like riding.

But depending on how you and I spent the 100 days of lockdown, the brain might have moved things around in the cache. Do you see what I am getting at? If you spent the lockdown playing CounterStrike, there is a good chance that at some point, the brain decided that those skills were more important than riding skills (since you're not using them) and changed what's in the cache.

When you do get back on the bike, then, your skills are coming from a slower-access memory compartment and therefore, it takes you more effort and coordination to execute what used to be easy and natural. That's why the bike doesn't feel like an extension of you like it used to.

What should we do? Be aware of this. The brain is an adapting system. It learns constantly. And the easiest way to change what's in the cache is to ride more and force it to bring the skills back into the cache. Simple as pie. And given that you and I love motorcycles, fun too! One caveat though: don't be stupid about this. For the moment, COVID-19 terms and conditions apply.