"SENSE AND SENSIBILITY"

I have been riding motorcycles for many years. The last thing I will ever want to do is put my pride and joy down the road on its side. I know this sounds obvious, but on the last five rides with my club I have seen four bikes hit the tar. My philosophy has always been to never ride beyond my limits. I usually ride at 90 to 95 percent. My query is regarding the bike's limits. When I bought my Honda FireBlade (929) from the shop, the salesman gave me some advice. He Said, "If you ever come into a corner too fast, just hang your knee out and keep going". I assumed panicking and hitting the front brake wasn't a good option. I see the guys in the Australian Superbikes scraping their knees so now I think that provided there is no gravel or diesel on the road, my footpegs should touchdown long before there is any chance of my bike going down.

Now my friends think I ride too fast as I keep up with most riders on the road but this often takes me past my own safety limit. Do you think most sportsbikes are created equal as far as handling goes and does it all depend how far we are prepared to push our bikes without losing the plot? Ray Yuen.

Geeze, Ray, you're lifting the lid off Pandoras Box here. The advice you got at the shop was probably meant to encourage you to trust the Hondas handling, not to encourage you to regularly ride into corners too fast. It can be argued that the current crop of sportsbikes like the 'Blade are better than most of their riders and in day-to-day situations most riders only scratch the surface of the bikes performance potential. Matching your riding ability and the bikes potential is a constant learning process which is helped by advanced rider training and practice in a safe environment. For bikes capable of 270km/h, this means closed circuits, not public roads. Your claim that you usually ride to 90-odd percent of your ability is also a bit disturbing unless you're talking about concentration. If you're talking skill level you're definitely riding too fast.

Most riders know when they reach their limits because they start to feel uncomfortable in the riding environment in which they find themselves. If it's stressful keeping up with your mates it means you're trying to ride too fast. Stay comfortable and you'll be surprised at how small the time gap is between when they arrive at the destination and you do.

Regarding scraping the pegs on your 'Blade, most riders on public roads do it as part of the crashing process. What it means is you have no more options in terms of cornering clearance which I reckon is a dangerous situation to find yourself in on roads with other users. You can put your bike on its side long before the pegs get anywhere near the road. Can I get you to meditate on the following words from Mick Doohan in a booklet called 'The Right Line':

"I can ride around the Phillip Island GP circuit as fast as anyone.
The confidence I need to do this comes partly from skill and machine preparation,
but it also comes from knowing everyone else is riding in the same direction,
knowing whats around every corner, knowing the track condition
(and knowing it won't change suddenly)
and knowing that others in the race are highly skilled.
Its also nice to know that if I crash, I probably won't hit anything."

"When you're making a decision on how fast to ride on public roads,
ask yourself how many of these things apply in your situation.
The short answer is none.
Think about it!"

I include the above piece on this website because I am very concerned about the psychological position that is being "promoted" to motorcyclists nowadays. It seems as if it is held in high regard to ride like a nutter, on an insanely fast motorcycle. A number of opinions in bike magazines (particularly the pommie ones) and others found all over the web, condone the position that you should push your bike to the limit. Some offer the justification that it's because you really love life, etc... but this is really just stupidity dressed up as passion (as testified by Doohan in different words in the above quote). If you love living with a healthy body that's in one piece you'll value it enough to not take outlandish risks by making assumptions about complete unknowns--like the road surface around the next bend, for example.

Everybody who rides bikes knows the reason why they ride. Yes, it is one of the most exciting and rewarding things that you can do. However, whilst many people understand intellectually the risks that they take in doing so, it isn't the same in-depth, to-the-bones understanding that they would get if they took a trip to the hospital or morgue to see other riders who also thought that the worst would never happen to them.

I recently had this message reinforced to me when I was confronted by a guy in a shopping centre car park, who stated "be careful on your motorbike, mate". He had two walking sticks (the grey ones with plastic supports going up the forearm), a prosthetic leg, a swivel of his hips when he walked, and he spoke with a slur. I spoke to this guy and it turned out that some idiot in a car had collided with him whilst he was on a bike, and tragedy ensued. Indeed... idiots in cars are one of the unknowns that we face every day. We certainly don't need to compound that danger by matching wits with them.

A mate of mine recently dropped his CBR600F. He was going up a set of twisties that he does twice a day. He has been riding since the mid 1980s, and is an excellent rider. He was only doing about 50-60 km/hr when his rear wheel hit a section of that shiny black shit that they use to glue between road joints. A water main just above this black tarry stuff had leaked water all over the tar, and it was like black ice --just waiting for a bike to come along and hit it. Fortunately, he was unhurt (but shaken up) and with a few thousand dollars of damage to his uninsured bike. Witnesses to his spill couldn't believe he was OK. He said one minute he was fine, next minute the bike just whipped out from under him. Completely unpredictable, even on his bike... on this familiar road... on the surface that he knew so well.

You can easily do crazy things on an Across. It has enough power and capability to get you into trouble. But you can still have tons of fun on a bike without getting into stupidly risky situations. And you can have a lot more fun on bikes like the Across than all of the testosterone dripping posers that hang around at Stanwell Tops (or wherever) with their shiny gixxers, fireblade 954s, 998s, hayabusas and R1s. Because the riders of Acrosses, CBR-250s, NSR150s and Aprilia 125s are able to rev & wring their bikes out much more readily than those on big bikes, without getting dangerous so quickly. A big bikes performance ceiling is hard to even approach when it is used on public streets, unless you are truly deluded as to your ability to maintain safety.

But please, go through the list that Doohan gives above and consider the issues strongly when you ride,
and "keep the shiny side up, rubber side down".