Well yes, this is a book about motorcycle riding, but in reality this is a post simply about reading in general and how it affects your ability to ride with better attention and perception.
Most people follow the logic of how reading a book about how to ride a motorcycle will help them ride better, but talk about reading in general and you'll get glazed looks.
Back in college I learned how reading helped my sight reading skills when it came to orchestra and other musical groups, but not until later did I find out why. It seems that conditioning your eyes to look ahead and scan while your mind comprehends what it is seeing and interprets the information not only works for a typed page but directly translates to anything else that requires a visual input to be identified, cataloged and then interpreted.
Written prose can be broken down into identifiable patterns, once those patterns are learned the mind will instanly identify that pattern in the future and predetermine an action or response. The more simular patterns are observed (or read) that have small fluctuations the better, as the mind gets better at anticipation and reaction. Whether the mind sees a phrase about what happened today in your city, or a car on the edge of the road ready to move, the more you use you visual to mental bridge the better your mind reasons.
And we all should understand that better reasoning skills applied to everyday roadway situations will yield more safety, as faster reasoning skills means more time to interpret and time and space are a motorcyclist most valuable resource.
There have been several studies regarding reading and its benefits, read up on them and you'll not only have better insight in the topic, but you'll get the added benefit the reading brings as well.
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elementary/?article=whateffectreadinghasonourminds
The next time someone asks what your reading, tell them you just practicing your skills.
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