Start the week topic

[guest7]

Some of the riders I know ride balls out every Sunday along A and B roads, often reaching speeds in excess of 140mph. I suspect that this is an adrenaline rush for them. It occured to me that perhaps we miss the point in trying to ride as fast as possible. Perhaps the desire to ride as stylishly as possible would be a better goal?

What I mean is the pursuit of a fast flowing ride in which all bends are taken as neatly as possible and with the requisite care. This is in contrast to my friends' approach which involves as much white-knuckle cornering and late-braking as they dare.

Which would be the more satisfying for you?

GC

[guest146]

You know when I joined this club I was a little supprised at the age of some of the bikes. Some of them make mine look quiet new new. The thing is you all ride many miles and you bike is not just for show like these nutters that ride only at weekends, have all the gear but no brains and cover about 2000 miles each year. I like to ride quiet quick but also like to think its all calculated and not  going round corners blind like some of these do.

My thoughts anyway

Ken

[turkeyuk]

i can understand the thrill, having owned and ridden an eclectic mix of bikes in my lifetime so far, some ridden at considerably faster than her majesty would like us to be traveling on the public highway.

I think a lot depends on the roads you choose to ride, up here in the lincolnshire wolds i prefer my lazy singles over a 4 cylinder road rocket anyday, most of the twisty bumpy & pot hole riddled back roads are best enjoyed on a little 500 as opposed to a screeming 4 cylinder with razor sharp handling, you just cant get over 60mph safely unless you want to end up in a ditch or a hedge.

Ive followed plenty of these guys in my car as they precariously sit on their planks trying to negotiate the craters as i lazily float along behind them (yawn) whats the point!

I also prefer the 'off the beaten track' approach to my riding these days as i think you discover more & enjoy the ride & scenery with no other traffic or overtaking to worry about. Just my opinion but each to their own.

[themoudie]

MMMmmmmm GC,

After receiving a soaking on the 15th July this year, earholing around any of the roads up here is asking for a rude awakening at best and as too many have found out this year already, a 'Goodnight All' trip in a black van!

'Bog off' pot holes, created by a 44 tonners hydraulic pressure on weakened tarmac. Tattie and carrot fields being washed across roads and Type1 infill from the side of roads being washed by flumes of water across roads are around every corner.

Whilst I'm not quick, I try to be smooth and make progress without causing myself or others angst. How successful I am is not for me to say!

Whether your into the St. Swithin or St. Christopher stuff is not for me to judge, I just wish the b****rs wouldn't set things up as a mutual benifit society!

Go canny and may your God go with you!

Aristotle!

[themoudie]

.........
I also prefer the 'off the beaten track' approach to my riding these days as i think you discover more & enjoy the ride & scenery with no other traffic or overtaking to worry about. Just my opinion but each to their own.

Exactly!

And with a good single, you can still indulge in a gallop, but believe you have some 'control'.

Gee up!

[Mark]

It occured to me that perhaps we miss the point in trying to ride as fast as possible. Perhaps the desire to ride as stylishly as possible would be a better goal.

GC

I do try to ride as fast as possible, it's just that it's 50mph slower leaving a bit of time to do it with a bit more style. The wonders of piloting an SRX. 

[guest18]

Depends on my mood, the older I get the more relaxed and flowing I think my riding is becoming  but then I'm not sure my point to point times have changed that much, they're just a lot more relaxed and an awful lot safer!
It does utterly bamboozle me that people can spend £9k on a motorcycle, probably another 2 or 3K on matching leathers helmet etc then not even run it in before selling it three years later (wander round a dealers and check the average mileage  )

I *enjoy* riding bikes, that's why I do it... seems daft not to take the opportunity to do it wherever possible when I've got a nice bike in the garage paid for fuelled up and ready to play? So then I use it like a car, wear it out, but have some lovely rides 

The other advantage of thumpers (as alluded to earlier) is I can actually ride it wide open at times without risking a prison sentence or a (minimum) years ban, something which would rather limit my ability to get to work and earn a living 

Oh and I can confirm Bills riding style is silky smooth and deceptively quick. (I always seem to get an extra 5 to 10mpg when I'm following him on a ride out  )

imho Most sportsbikes now have far too much power 1, for the average rider and 2, for the majority of UK roads.
Currently I'm reading up on economy/streamliners etc and very interesting it is too, since the 1957 FIM ban on "dustbin" fairings and other aerodynamic aids almost all motorcycles follow the FIM rules which were designed to make bikes less aerodynamic and slow them down, hence the almost imeasurably small improvement in performance /economy between a conventional faired bike and an unfaired bike with the rider crouching down.
It has been calculated that the motorcycle which won Craig Vetters 1985 fuel economy contest (averaging 60mph on public roads) was using just 3.3hp to do 60mph(!) and that with suitable streamlining 100mph is relatively achievable with 12hp....
So all you 35hp power mad gas guzzlers are killing the planet 

Getting very tempted to join the CG125 club but make it (more) efficient.....

[themoudie]

Thank you for your compliments Smudge, not sure it's that smooth!

As for the 125's in a bubble, MMMmmmmm Need to go to sheet alley and sleep on it!

Toodle pip, Bill.

[guest18]

No problem Bill, I have just got Mr Vetters' dvd of his presentation on fuel economy, streamlining and his competition (won at 470 US mpg or about 550(!)imperial MPG  ), and very interesting it is too  If you'd like a look at it sometime drop me a pm 

[Andy M]

I just don't get the sportsbike thing. You spend £7000 on something that literally a PITA, useless round town, eats tyres like they are going out of fashion and needs it's demonic valves adjusting every 300 yards. To do this you have to spend another grand on leathers etc. For this huge outlay and hassle you get to either use half it's available performance or risk life, limb, job and liberty for a bit of a rush on sunny Sundays. I don't get it.

Now a track bike, I sort of get. OK the scenery is repetative, but you get to use the performance you paid and the only risk is injury. That said, I think I'd get more fun long term out of a 250, classic or Supermoto than a Fireplace with slicks. Any fool can do 140 mph in a straightline, so what's the challenge?

Using a lower performance bike on the road, the challenge is to get it to work as you know it can. I get pleasure out of knowing I can get 400 miles in a day on a Bullet or taking corners on the outfit without slowing the traffic down. OK, you are using the public road as a playground, but your activities are trying to make it work better rather than bucking the system.

Do we not think the UK sportsbike thing is a result of rather limited thinking or ambition? Out of maybe half a dozen riders my age here abouts I'm the only one who was riding before I was 20. I came the route of having the bike as my only transport and was limited by insurance etc. to 650cc for the first few years. I have the experience of a 650 single keeping up with 900cc sports bikes except on long straights and arriving seconds behind them. My 650 could go to Morocco or the North Cape, the sportsbikes would struggle. The other riders all started later with the specific aim of getting sports bikes and they have a totally fixed view that simply agrees with anything the magazines say. They went straight to a 600 then a 900 as soon as they could because a CBR600 is a training machine according the mags. They really can't see any purpose to their bikes except repeating the same routes to the same cafe's over and over again as fast as they can. (The one exception was Stuart who went from that to track racing). While they have the soap opera mentality of wanting the same repeatable ride, there is then the Top Trumps element that leads to new bikes every 2 years/4000 miles because the new one is 3 grammes lighter and has a carbon fibre key fob.

I'm happy for these guys to do whatever they like. It annoys me when their crashes put my insurance up, but that's life.

Andy

[squirrelciv]

GC need you ask as you can leave me behind when riding your Combo

Yep, I'm firmly in the poddle club enjoying smooth over speed any day. Greatest pleasure for me (and most of my journeys ambition) is to arrive wherever with the least amount of brake use possible. This is not totally driven by my miserly attitude to brake pads but more my admiration of Bills smooth style observed on my 'end 2 end' run (I had to ask if his tail light worked... I thought the bulb had blown!)

Far greater pleasure in gliding through a series of bends and moving through the traffic, using the gears to keep things right than cacking yourself hurtling along at warp speed IMHO.

I don't suppose I go much faster on motorways than I do on A roads aiming for around 65mph.

[themoudie]

GC need you ask as you can leave me behind when riding your Combo

Yep, I'm firmly in the poddle club enjoying smooth over speed any day. Greatest pleasure for me (and most of my journeys ambition) is to arrive wherever with the least amount of brake use possible. This is not totally driven by my miserly attitude to brake pads but more my admiration of Bills smooth style observed on my 'end 2 end' run (I had to ask if his tail light worked... I thought the bulb had blown!)

Far greater pleasure in gliding through a series of bends and moving through the traffic, using the gears to keep things right than cacking yourself hurtling along at warp speed IMHO.

I don't suppose I go much faster on motorways than I do on A roads aiming for around 65mph.

Thank you for your compliment Pat.    I'm still poddling about! Sally is getting a rebuild at the moment and should be ready for the road later in August.

My regards, Bill.

[guest24]

Plodding everytime. Though having said that, it was very much good fun riding down from Kates Cottage to Creg Ny Ba with the throttle wound to the stop with 100mph showing on my SRX400. I had hit the magical ton and knew it! Getting to the edge of the performance envelope and being in control is very satisfying. Never achieved that really on my CBR600 as it was, dare I say it, better than me?! I once rode a CBR1000 that lunged from 60 to 120mph when I cracked the throttle in 3rd. To be honest, I didn't enjoy that experience. Everything too easy and too damned sudden.

Riding my YBR125 is very pleasant. There have been occasions that I have been pootling along and felt like I was sat on a chair floating above the road. Is that synergetic riding in IAM speak? Who cares, it was a pleasant experience. The YBR can never be considered fast; I have hit 54mph a couple of times across Mitcham Common.

I like my SRX, it wiffles along nicely and returns good mpg. On the run to Isle of Mann I was getting 96mpg as we took it easy. Such a very pleasant way to start a weeks holiday. I'll just point out that we went after the TT had finished as we deemed it to be safer then!! There is no way I could have coped with the nutty speeds and riding you see during practice week and mad Sunday etc.

[guest27]

Thoughts in no particular order.

The late John Robinson was rated by his fellow MM and PB jurnos as one of the fastest, safest and smoothest riders having seen him keeping up in the wet on a knackered BMW R100 whilst following Mark Forsyth on a SS stage 3 RD500 I can attest to that.  On MIRA's handling track in the wet BTW.

Smooth and fast are not mutually exclusive, just look at Mr Rossi on a sunday

 It is now common place but there used to be a French riding school that encouraged you to ride as fast as possible round the track with out touching the brakes they had a good record of people at the end of a days training being able to lap faster with no brakes than they could at the start of the day - brakes and all.

Also used to get riders braking hard front only on wet grass - apparently you do not fall off if you brake properly.

Fast riders not being that far ahead on a trip.  It is realy had to get point to point averages consistently over 50 mph on non-motorway.  You are part of a system and there is a point where the system not you sets the average speed - loon on RD50o zings past and 5 mins later you pull up behind im at some lights. DAMHIKOJD    Some research a friend did with Northants Police indicated that trying harder would make less than 5% difference to your average speed - which fits in well with Demings theories on systems, that te people in the system will make less than 5% difference to performance by trying harder, so you must be some sort of dolt to focus on them rather than changeing the system.  There will come a point where the increasing power of your bike will make arginal differences to the point to point speed.  Better riding rater than trying harder may well amkes a difference.  Used to train with a copper who had a BMW what ever police bike, panniers, lights 50mm auto cannon and the like.  He used to bust the lads on the 350LCs who could not out run him, or at least give him a good run for their money.  He was smooth and we all had troubles keeping up with him when he took us out (I had a 350LC at the time so stood no chance  ).  On a similar note rode with the Northants AIM for a while - a bunch of twats in the main - but there was a coper with them who used to come on a Benley (200?) to keep it interesting.  Again I had no problems out running him on the fast straights and sweeping bends, but throw in a real nadgery road like that from the Queen Elanor to Newport Pagnell and he would have the thing two wheel drifting on the bends and would be stuck to the back of you like glue.  Was a lot embarrassing at first, but realy instructive later.

PB did a whole oad of features on streamlining and how it was more than possible to get 100mph and 100mpg from the same machine with a proper fairing - tail more important than front.  FIM have a lot to answer for.

Blather mode switched to pause.

R

[guest7]

All interesting stuff. I was pondering why, even though I enjoy riding the full IAM 'making progress' way, why I still feel the need to get through every corner as fast as I can. I suspect that knocking only 5-10mph off my corner speed would, in most cases (on fast A-roads) be a Good Thing. The trouble is, I still want to go that little bit faster.

Part of what I'm asking is, why can't I ride a little bit slower and take pleasure in the smoothness and style of my riding? I'm not looking to open up the numpty sportsbikers debate again, but my smooth riding is generally a few mph faster than their balls out riding so I'm not talking about becoming the biking version of a B-road caravanner.

Steve H's smooth riding is actually about 20mph faster than mine 

GC