Decrease Reaction Time On Your Harley Davidson Motorcycle

You can decrease your reaction time when you are riding your Harley Davidson motorcycle with this one simple trick.

Join me on my Street Glide Special as I discuss the difference between reflex and reaction, how reactions work and last but not least a simple way to improve reaction time on your motorcycle - that may save your life.

Difference between Reactions and Reflexes

Your reaction to something is a voluntary response but reflexes are involuntary or unintentional. Both reflexes and reactions happen as a result of a stimulus. In other words something happens first.

A reflex is like when you hear a car horn really close you might turn your head immediately - automatically.

If you roar past a car and you are really close you might notice the driver instinctively look or recoil – perhaps swerve away a little.

A reaction is the way you assess and then act on this assessment - it’s still seriously fast but it’s based on your voluntary response and slower than a reflex action.

Sometimes when I am driving my car and I am reacting to a serious situation my wife sitting next me might scream and reflex will involuntarily kick in – and I will look to her direction momentarily - without wanting to – reflex makes me do this.

This slows my reaction to the actual dangerous event - because I now need to react to two simultaneous events. This has happened often now so I have trained my reflex to not respond to this event - the scream.

So you can influence your reflex but when it happens I can feel my reflex wanting to move my head. We could argue – I don’t know how to measure it – that this still negatively impacts my reaction to the actual danger on the road.

Reaction = Perception & Action

The process of reacting requires you to first perceive what’s happening and then act on it. So reaction is in two parts.

Perception and then action.

Perception time is dependent on your assessment and understanding of the situation and this is influenced by experience. This can be as long as ¾ of a second even more if you are an in experienced rider.

Some one new to riding will take a lot longer to assess the situation in front of them. They may not even know what to do because they have never experienced anything like this before.

An experienced rider will perceive the situation much faster.

If you are used to high pressure fast reaction situations this does actually translate – in part – to motorcycling because reaction time can be improved with practice.

Any physical activity where you respond with action to a stimulus will help reaction time, including playing sports, computer games and the martial arts.

I know when I took up boxing as a young dude my reaction time dropped dramatically – I tested it regularly because I was absolutely fascinated with this - it was like having a new brain.

Lol maybe this was eventually cancelled out by getting punched in the head a lot?

After you perceive – you then have to act. This also takes time. You have to change your grip to squeeze the front brake. You have to move your foot onto the brake pedal and then press it.

This is why covering the brake in certain situations is ideal because it lessens the time it takes to “ACT”

Watch the You Tube Video to learn more about this important topic - how to decrease reaction time on your Harley Davidson Motorcycle