This morning on the way to work in my cage I was making a left turn to the West and had to look east to clear the road prior to the turn. I was therefore looking directly into the rising Sun. I was virtually blind in that direction, so I rolled down the right hand window to see if that would help. I could faintly pick up a headlight of a westbound motorcycle approaching out of the glare.
The couple of seconds it took for the window to lower is what allowed his relative position to change from directly in line with me and the Sun to just to the outside edge of it and thus become visible.
I followed the young man for several miles on the highway and tried to think of how he could have improved his chances of making me see him. I really didn’t come up with much. Just keep your escape routes open and bring the Sun angle (or Zn to any other old Navigator types out there) into consideration when evaluating the probability of a car pulling out in front of you.
I know I’ll never ride with the Sun directly at my back without thinking of this situation again.
Funny how you can learn things any time, I’ve been riding since 1966 and never thought about this.
Ride safe.
