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They're all out there, this weekend
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Just got back from spending Saturday night with The Doctor's ma, so in
the car.
And all the ropads are stuffed with bikes. They're all bright and shiny,
and unless someone's spent most of Easter cleaning them, this means
they've been tucked away since, oh, maybe October. Which isn't
necessarily a bad thing.
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After this winters experiment with riding, I most certainly won't repeat
it with a brand new supersports. I think I got off lightly with just
a 75 quid cleanup of the front brakes a few weeks ago.
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The triumpfs have been indoors most of the "winter" but the KTM was
exposed to the elephants. Took the KTM out yesterday to meet some other
lunatics and noticed how filthy it was. Later spent hours cleaning the
thing and it still looks rough.
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But the riders....
We were being tailed by a couple on a Tiger and a bloke, solo, on a
Monster. Headlights on, reflective gear, and content to trundle along
behind a line of cars at 55mph. They wouldn't overtake because they
never positioned themselves so they could see if it was clear enough to
do so.
And it was, many times. Not an overtake I'd have gone for in a car, but
on a bike, yes, every time. Plenty of road space, plenty of time to zap
quickly up the line of cars, picking them off one or two at a time, in
perfect safety
But these people don't, do they? They don't know how. Their frames of
reference are still made up of car driving experience and performance.
They're actually afraid to use the performance, and my guess is that
don't ride enough miles in a year to build up any useful experience.
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I don't think it's a bad thing to take it easy getting your "bike legs"
for the start of the season. You never know maybe they'd been hooning
around and were on the home stage nicely tired out and relaxed.
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This was 11am.
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I've come to appreciate that some people like to loon and some people
like to bimble. For me, it depends on the mood.
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Oh, I hoon and bimble as the spirit moves me.
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I can remember one of your hoon moods after coming off the ferry at
Calais. Nice little right hander to get one in the spirit :)
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Don't forget not everyone is a phenomenally-talented natural rider;
one man's hoon could well be another's bimble. I'm not exactly going
to trouble the FBC myself, but hopefully I wouldn't be completely left
behind.
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The couple on the Triumph had all the matching kit. Thick Cordura (or
similar) two-piece suits, and never mind that it's fabulous warm
weather. Later on there was some twonk on a CBR-RRRRR with matching
helmet, again, trundling along at 70 on a dual carriageway. Before him
it was some geezer on a ZZR-600, and I actually overtook him with the
cruise control on the car set at 75.
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you'd have probably overtaken me if you'd been down my way today. Spent
most of the afternoon dawdling along with the SO on the Trumpet waiting
for the BIL to catch up. Next time we go out I think we'll meet them there.
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Is this motorcycling? It isn't my idea of it. Is it pleasurable? For
these people, perhaps. It's fresh air and a bike on the road. Perhaps
they think they portray an image of dashing devil-may-care modernity:
this is risk-taking behaviour. But it isn't.
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Horses for courses etc. I still fancy a shot on a diesel enfield, just
to see what life in the slow lane is like.
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I thought you had a BMW K75 for that kind of thing, there's not much
difference.
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fx: pulls hook from cheek and spits out mouldy bait.
I am particlarly fond of the beemer, I like the noise of the fuel system
and the noise of it's exhaust.
Since I haven't dusted it off for over three years now, I guess I should
make an effort to punt it and admit I've gone over to the UJM side.
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I read things like this and think that maybe I'm not such a bad rider
after all. I'm not fast (I touch the ton occasionally on the Pan),
can't handle high winds and I'll never enter the knee-down Pantheon,
but I don't do 70 on motorways and I don't stay behind slow vehicles.
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What depresses me is that they hibernate all winter.From November to March
I've seen maybe 6 bikes a day on my commute to work , now all of a sudden
there's dozens of them.
Where do they all go? Join the daily queues in the car every day?
And don't get me started on the sportsbike riders who whizz past me on the
A3 only for me to overtake them again when we get to the filtery bits....
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I hibernate all winter and then reappear on a bike as soon as it warms
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Me too!
I did my thirty years of winter biking, and it only came to an end
when I discovered that giving up red meat in the diet meant one had to
burn one's own fat to stay warm, that is, it was frigging purgatory as
the body only does this reluctantly (as it thinks there might be a
famine out there so hangs on to what it's got).
During the winter of 1962/3 (snow on the ground for 70 days) the only
people to make it to the Amelia Coffee Lounge were pedestrians and
bikers. Parking in 3 feet of snow was fun (not), and merely riding a
500cc sports bike was...interesting. It was one of those very few
occasions when, on seeing a patch of wet road ahead, you could
actually open up.
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up so feel free to give me the finger if you happen to overtake me on
either a twisty road or if I slow you down when I'm filtering.
I generally reckon to need about 10 miles of riding to get to a level
where I'm feeling confident on a bike but as soon as the roads get
greasy in the autumn I just lose all interest in riding a bike. If
that makes me a lesser rider then I really don't care any more.
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I find the renaissance has three stages that take three miles to go
through: the first mile gets the machine control back in running order
after checking the various parts; the second loses the car habit of
focussing on the vehicle in front; the third gets road-surface sensing
and road positioning back. By then I've hit the start of the country
roads, the bike's warmed up, and a sunny day beckons....luvverly.
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This week, in the Times, there was a write-up on some transport report
that singled out motorcyclists as deliberate speeders, who habitually
broke speed limits. That's me, and lots of others here, I guess, but so
what?
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I hope they did the same article for car drivers. Pretty sure more car
drivers get points for speeding than bikes ;-).
Doubt if there any publicly available statistics that we could do a
proportional analysis.
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Being a habitual speeder is fine as long as you keep looking in your
mirrors and don't gas it too much trying to catch up with the faster
bike in front.
Riding back along the road to see where a missing rider has got to and
then riding back past them for a second time when they're sat in a cop
car isn't too clever when the rider in the car tells the questioning
plod that they do in fact know the rider on the bike that disappeared
into the distance.
Feel free to ask how I know these things.
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And then, just as I was feeling depressed, there was a rumble and some
bloke zoomed past on an Aprilia RSV. Head down, tucked in, black
leather, black helmet, doing an easy 90+ up the M23. And I cheered up.
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Motorway, who cares about motorways ?
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