My wife skipped town with a couple of her girlfriends for a short vacation last week. I guess she got sick of me. She left me with five days of unsupervised bachelorhood. I finally had the time to prepare delicious gourmet meals that I otherwise wouldn't be able to make. My favorite -- Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch and Cocoa Puffs. Forget Wheaties. This recipe is the breakfast of champions.

Her trip also left me with an open map to head out on a ride. Paralysis by analysis had me spending more time looking at routes than actually riding. That, and my brother came to visit, and he isn't a motorcyclist.

I kept looking at all the possible routes, but I couldn't make up my mind. It was ridiculous. What kind of wonderful problem is that? Sure beats living in a flat-as-a-pancake Plains state, no offense.

Fueled up from my unholy matrimony of General Mills and Quaker cereals, I decided on a quick burst up Flesher Pass. Bad idea. Some cobbled-together rattletrap puked a 100-foot long oil slick on the south lane. I don't know how I missed it going up. On the way back, it sure gave me a scare.

We've all been there -- you get a burst of dread in your chest, your eyes lock on the hazard ahead and your brain shuts down. Panic. The easiest way to avoid it is to ride in a manner where you have enough in reserve to never lose control. Easier said than done, especially coming from a know-it-all amateur such as myself, eh?

Had I been not paying attention, that split-second burst of terror could have been much worse. I gave myself a self-congratulatory back pat for dealing with the situation with little drama.

How did I do that, you ask?

I ride at The Pace. That's capital letters for a reason, folks. This concept is so ubiquitous in motorcylce circles, it is street riding for most who have read it. If you consider yourself a responsible rider, but have never read the "The Pace," take the time to immediately familiarize yourself with it.

I'm usually not one for stealing from other people's ideas -- inspiration is the industry euphemism we use -- but there is no way I could come up with an idea such as this, or even describe it well enough to do it justice.

Motojournalist Nick Ienatsch's standard of street riding is required reading. It will take some homework on your part, you'll need to look it up on the Web, or follow the links provided in this story online, but it will be well worth it.

Ienatsch first wrote the article in the early 1990s for Motorcyclist Magazine, with a revised version popping up a few years later. I stumbled upon it many years later after it trickled its way through motorcycle forums on the Web.

Which forum I saw it on first, I can't remember, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it explains street riding in its purest form.

Briefly, in Ienatsch's own word's, "The Pace is a street riding technique that not only keeps street riders alive, but thoroughly entertained as well. ... The Pace focuses on bike control and de-emphasizes outright speed. Full-throttle acceleration and last minute braking aren't part of the program, effectively eliminating the two most common single-bike accident scenarios in sport riding."

The rest is for you to read, and again, it is well worth it. I promise.

Riding this way is how I avoided catastrophe on the pass. This isn't to say there is not a time and place for testing your limits; there is. But it is up to individual riders when and where to do that. The street is not the best place.

For the alpha-male wannabes, spec-sheet racers and egomaniacs, it may take extra mental effort to adopt a street-riding strategy focused on preservation of your noggin, but it will definitely make you a better, safer rider.

Humbling self-awareness is not always synonymous with adrenaline-fueled individuals, but checking your ego is the first step toward street-riding enlightenment.

Give it a try; you might be surprised to find out that safety and boredom don't have to go hand in hand.

There's a reason this column has focused on safety the past two weeks -- because nothing else matters when it fails -- so take a safe step and don't just read "The Pace," grok it.

-- Editor's note: Minutes before press time, I've been informed by the cereal connoisseurs in the office that there is a Reese's Puffs cereal.

Click here to read The Pace published in Motorcyclist magazine.

Click here to read The Pace published in Sport Rider magazine.

Pete Nowakowski: 447-4073 or pete.nowakowski@helenair.com.