Risks in a nutshell

Also, a habit I picked up from 24 years in the Army, conducting risk management as part of trip planning. Basically you go through your plan and look for hazards, try and start with the most obvious, determine what the initial risk is: Low Medium, High (catastrophic); then identify how you’re going to reduce or mitigate that risk, and who is responsible for enforcing the mitigation effort, then determine what the residual risk remains after applying the mitigation/control. Ask yourself of your willing to accept the remaining risk, if not apply more controls until you can live with the residual risk. The goal is to have fun, but put in a deliberate plan to reduce risk, so that we can ride again another day.