Muscle memory

One of the joys of greeting a new day is a cup of freshly made coffee from my espresso machine. One medium black coffee, then off to work (in the old days of course!). At the station, I'd wonder - did I switch the espresso machine off...? If not, the thing spends all day using electricity heating itself, and if the water level is low... I dread to think. Fortunately, I have long since learned how to avoid this anxiety - by switching it off with the mains switch at the back, rather than with the chromed knob on the front which merely cuts off the flow of coffee into the cup. As the cup nears full, my right hand darts round to the back of the machine and flicks the switch. Muscle memory. It's the only way I ever switch off the machine, and one of several hacks I have instigated to ensure I've not overlooked something.

Another is the gas cooker. When a pan is taken off the stove, the gas is turned off, and then a plate or bowl is placed on the still-hot ring. This has two functions. One is to warm the bowl and keep my food warm for longer - the other is to ensure I don't place a plate or bowl onto a gas flame. This muscle-memory habit ensures I'm never worried about "did I leave the gas on when I left home".

Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. I'm using it now in touch-typing, something I learned on my postgraduate journalism course at the City University in London 40 years ago. 

It is something that I'm developing but have not yet perfected while riding my motorbikes. Each is slightly different, but the principles are the same - namely changing gear and remembering to cancel the indicators! I started to ride motorbikes six years ago, and since then I have limited my riding to warm, sunny days. I also avoid as far as possible riding in or through big cities, and it his here that one acquires the muscle memory needed for motorcycling the fastest. All those stop/starts at traffic lights, all those cars to contend with.

In total, in those six years, I've covered a mere 18,400km on motorbike, slightly more than the average car-driver would do in one year, the vast majority of it on quiet, country roads on sunny days between late-April and mid-October.

Decades' worth of muscle memory on show here.

In the same way that riding a bicycle or driving a car (with manual gears) is about muscle memory, learning to ride a motorbike is moving from the stage of unconscious incompetence (you don't even know what you don't know), to conscious incompetence (you are very much aware of the skills you don't have) to conscious competence (you are doing it right, but having to think about it), to unconscious competence (when you're just doing it automatically, right every time).

I've yet to get to that stage. Many's still the time when I give a friendly left-handed salute to a fellow motorcyclist coming the other way to be greeting by a more frantic hand-waving - which I then realise to have meant that my indicators have been flashing right for the past two kilometres. Or when I look down at my instruments and see that green light blinking, meaning the same thing.

Worse is when I change down gears as I approach a junction, and as I see all's clear, I rev the throttle to zoom into a gap in the traffic - only to discover I'm in neutral. There is no substitute for getting kilometres under the belt, getting good habits ingrained as muscle memory, so after a winter's break from riding, they come back naturally the next spring as unconscious competence.

The hardest part of learning to ride a motorbike - as with driving a manual-gearbox car - is clutch control - feeling the biting point, coordinating right hand (clutch release), right foot (gear selection) and left hand (throttle). There's nothing more embarrassing on a motorbike than letting the clutch lever go too early and jerking forward suddenly (often on rear wheel, though this is impossible on a cruiser). You can also embarrass yourself all too easily at traffic lights by attempting to start in second gear having failed to put it in neutral as you stopped.

One major muscle-memory trick I have acquired from my nine years of cycling in Central London has been the habit of looking into side-roads for traffic. Approaching a junction, my head involuntarily swivels left or right; something that can be a real life-saver.

As one grows older, so forgetfulness can creep up. It is therefore worth working on those mind-hacks that prevent accidents - caused by leaving appliances switched on, and muscle memory can make up for shortcomings in the mind. We are always tiptoeing on the edge of chaos - getting older, one becomes naturally more careful, more risk-averse - but on the other hand, the rim is getting narrower, the precipice steeper.

This time three years ago:
The journey there, and the journey back again

This time four years ago:
Sandomierz - another outstanding Polish town to see

This time six years ago:
Food hygiene and lies as Russian foreign policy tools

This time seven years ago:
Asphalt for ul. Poloneza (to Krasnowolska at least)

This time eight years ago:
A welcome splash of colour to a drab car park 

This time nine years ago:
To Hel and back in 36 hours

This time 11 years ago:
Honing the Art of the Written Word

This time 12 years ago:
Of castles, dams and brass bands