Being a Killjoy Is a Good Thing for Motorcycling

DanF9 | Feb 9, 2026 — We all know this type of rider. The one who starts acting like your parents in the middle of a group ride, or right before you inevitably do something stupid.

To be honest, I kind of appreciate the idea behind it. Maybe not so much the way the advice is typically given (e.g. when it's condescending and patronizing), but what it seeks to warn against, and how that's usually tied to first-hand experience.

Fortunately or sadly, I've become this kind of rider myself. I frequently notice all the sketchy things other riders get involved in (on or off the road), and try to carefully broach the subject of dialling it back.

The Myth of Icarus & Daedalus

Bolstered in his enthusiasm and by the confidence of youth, Icarus flew too close to the sun and fell tragically. The detail is that he was warned about the exact thing that would happen, by his father Daedalus. Still, he threw himself into danger anyway.

This myth translates well to everyday life. Some older family member tries to give you advice, and even if you typically listen to what they're saying, it almost never registers in practice. Usually, the things that actually change your behaviour are lived through, or lived by actually witnessing them. Suddenly, life reminds you how real things can get and you then decide it's best to take it easy in some respect.

Why must we wait for tragedy or near-tragic events to "wake up" to realities that were always there to begin with? How is it possible to accept prudent advice and incorporate it into your riding routine, without having to fly too close to the sun yourself?

A Possible Solution

The above questions that still preoccupy me to this day, and I have a sneaky suspicion the answer lies in examining the way we internalize and accept new information. If someone tells you to be careful for some reason or another, the tendency is to treat the info as anecdotal at best, applicable to the person in front of you but not necessarily to you. After all, the situation described doesn't sound like something you've lived, and it's easy to place it in some "might happen, might not" folder in your head.

Listening to someone without first bringing a degree of seriousness to your own attention has the immediate effect of trivializing someone else's lived experience. It's perfectly normal, and it's a practical way for your brain to filter out things that are irrelevant to its current way of life.

For example:

• Someone tells you a story about their near-death encounter with a cobra.
• Context: you live in the Arctic.
• Outcome? You don't really care about the advice, since you're never going to be in a situation where it matters.

This is a caricature, an extreme if you will. But the same kind of logic applies if we identify the "cobra" as a far-off event or outcome in the future. See, we tend to listen to first-hand experience and easily categorize it as contextual, relevant to a specific someone in a specific time. This specificity immediately distances the dangerous event from us, and our lived experience.

Dangerous Encounters Also Have a Universal Application

You might not get clipped by that semi in the same way, but wouldn't you know it, that dicey intersection you were warned about spawned a pickup turning left opposite from you.

I'll let you in on a little secret that has saved my hide more than once:

Distill pieces of advice into their more abstract form. Instead of listening to an anecdote, try to discern the principle behind it.

It's not always there, but for the important ones, it most definitely is. The cool thing about this is that you trick your brain into paying attention. The advice is no longer contextual, it contains a rule you can apply like a tenet.

This doesn't mean you have to apply it, but you will remember it. Enough to recognize it in practice, and determine its efficacy.

Applying the Trick

If I'm losing you, let me tie my point to another example. Let's say your riding buddy has noticed that you're always pulling the trigger on new pieces of gear, on new bikes, and that you're chasing your own tail, season after season. At some point, he tells you:

Jimbo, I know you love the smell of new gear and the power delivery of the next best thing, but when I used to do this in my early years of riding, I had a pile of debt and it got to the point where I was riding differently, being too scared of scratching my new bike.

Unsolicited advice, some would say. Others might be eye-rolling already. But let's apply the trick. What our friend is trying to say is that chasing your own desire for thrills and empty vanity might divert your attention from your own safety and financial well-being. That's not a crazy inference, either.

So, you think about it. You look at your bank account. You apply the tenet and start noticing that your riding isn't as safe as it used to be, that you're quickly moving towards the metaphorical sun Daedalus warned Icarus about.

Then, you take a step in the other direction, just to see. You notice that you're calmer, more in control of your impulses, and your overall quality of life improves. Hey, turns out that applying a principle you extrapolated from an anecdote did something to you, and it's all because you were actively listening.

Listening to People’s Stories Is a Lost Art

That could be because there's a lot of people spewing BS out there. But if you can just learn to discern those universally applicable concepts, you're already poised to ride safer, and know your own limits just that much more.

Sharing a conversation with a killjoy won't kill your own joy. In the right circumstance, it'll just show you what part of your enthusiasm is overreaching in its arrogance, and you'll have the choice to adjust, for the better.

I extend my sincerest thanks to all the instructors and experienced riders that taught me how to ride safely. It was always my road to explore, but that never meant I was alone. —DanF9

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Author's Note

In my own personal experience, I find that new riders get so enthused with the sport they do one (or many) of the following things: buy a ton of gear along with a new bike, are eager to ride fast, start chasing bigger and bigger thrills, try to prove themselves in groups, ride past their comfort zone [insert any justifcation here], get involved with the wrong crew... The list goes on. With all these enticing options in existence, and with fast bikes being so accessible nowadays, I do think it's very important to leave some room for a couple of killjoy buddies or mentors. I'm not saying "kill the fun before it ever begins," I'm saying "notice this dangerous tendency you are likely to get involved in, and try to value things that promote a touch of safety and pragmatism." This kind of lesson should be taught at any decent riding school, but it should also be repeated outside of this environment, as it tends to be forgotten as fast as that first bike purchase.

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