One of the most frightening things that can happen to you while driving a vehicle is being partway down a long, steep mountain road with switchbacks and realizing that you can't slow down.

I mean, that would be terrifying in a car or truck.

They've got four wheels, a seatbelt, and a cage around you, and airbags. Now put yourself on a

motorcycle in that situation, a rented motorcycle in a foreign country. It isn't your bike. You don't

know the bike as well as you know your own bike that controls the way it feels and there you

are hands gripped on the handlebars tightening ever so tight the road is dropping away in front of you

the surface is loose the corners are blind and the bike is literally running away with you your speed

keeps building and your options quickly disappear and at that point you're not thinking about riding anymore.

You're looking ahead trying to figure out how much longer you could hold on

while you search for some way, some place, some idea to get the thing stopped.

But as the speed increases, this question changes again.

Suddenly, you know you're not going to stop it. There is no safe way to bring

this motorcycle to a stop. You are going to crash. So where can you crash and have the best chance?

That is where Seth Cooper found himself in Costa Rica. Now, he's an experienced rider.

Grew up riding the dirt, he knows motorcycles.

But on this day, on a rented bike, on a steep mountain road with switchbacks,

things narrowed down until there were no good choices left.

That's what makes this such an interesting deep trouble episode.

The story matters because of how Seth got there,

because of the small things that we can accept without realizing what they add up to in the end.

I'm Jim Martin. This is Adventure Rider Radio. Not a Lee schoolmaker.

Samanagan.

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