It seems to me that motorcycling’s going to split into two camps, with little in between. Commuting and sporting bikes. The former will be far removed from the current dross and the latter will become so extreme that only the rich will be able to afford to both buy and run them. The only good thing about these changing times, that the secondhand market will take a decade or so before it dies from lack of rideable machinery. You have been warned.
The current crop of commuters are pathetic. Expensive to buy, they don’t even offer decent economy. Their build quality is so poor that after an English winter they begin to look worn out. The suspension is so lowly specified that the first time the novice commuter rides over a potholed road he'll probably have a heart attack. The tyres are low grade rubbish that react to greasy roads by sliding wildly. They can’t even build bikes with proper mudguards!
In almost every other engineering sphere, designs have improved, longevity has increased and prices have fallen. In the commuter game, the same old gunge is churned out year after year, with the same marginal performance, pathetic economy with designs that hark back to the fifties and make an Ariel Leader look innovative. A plethora of different models with only one thing in common - an absurd price that would have most punters shaking their heads in disgust and looking for a nice, used car - just serve to show that no-one selling motorcycles has the slightest idea of what they’re doing.
And yet, the roads are actually becoming safer for motorcycles. This isn’t due to any great foresight on the part of the government or even local councils. Quite the reverse. As major cities assume grid-locked status, as cars become so stuck in ever lengthening traffic jams that it’s quicker to walk, traffic speed has been so significantly reduced that it’s much easier to avoid the machinations of bored, frustrated cagers as they try to avoid heart attacks by venting their angst.
Even some inherently dangerous, cheaply produced commuter can be whipped around the barely moving cars without too much trauma, at least by those who have a little motorcycle experience. Those who don't know what they’re doing, or who have just done the bare minimum on hired motorcycles to pass the test, will be in for a shock when they find their glorious commuter barely adequate to the task of staying upright in a straight line on one of the rare decent bits of tarmac.
In terms of road safely, there’s little difference between buying a fifty quid sixties hack and a £1500 (gulp!) new commuter. The only way that the manufacturers will get ahead of the game, and start selling hundreds of thousands rather than thousands of bikes, is by combining modern design with practicality. The former means the use of plastic for the whole chassis, direct injection stroker engines which can be tiny yet powerful and frugal, and a simplicity of the whole in terms of the number of parts and integration of the design. Practicality in the commuter market means a windscreen, roof and built in roll-cage (in plastic). Forget dual seats, add economy of more than 200mpg and a price that makes them look attractive.
The sporting side of motorcycling is well served by some fantastic engines and brilliant chassis. All it really needs is a bit of attention to ergonomics because people are just not going to keep on spending 5000 quid upwards for machines that leave them screaming in agony after ten minutes in town. Their purchase price is about 30% too high and the running costs between two and four times over the odds. For the moment, the experience offered by a couple of models is so good that they can survive on the back of that. They really do push the rider’s senses to the limit.
One of the more interesting elements of motorcycle racing, to which a lot of these big bikes bear an unfortunate resemblance, is the knowledge, occasionally revealed in the more intimate of interviews with racers, that the way they avoid cataclysmic crashes when things go seriously amiss is by reacting in a different time frame. Everything slows down, the instant between certain demise and crafty reaction appears to extend long enough for what, to mere mortals, seem miraculous acts of savage survival. The same thing happens to fighters in the ring when the going gets really tough.
Unfortunately, the ability to throw one’s brain into this mode is not easily won, is, indeed, the exact reversal of the normal trend to waste hours, days, months even years in mediocre toil. Various religious creeds and philosophies touch on such subjects, but few people have the time, energy and patience to even read deeply into such matters let alone become involved in the tedious business of mastering their intricacies. Racers, like other athletes, undergo massive physical and mental training to get away with their antics on the track.
Only rarely when others ride a motorcycle in the danger zone does such a direct connection between brain and reality occur, for most people reaction to imminent demise are somewhere between subconscious survival instincts and blind panic that leads to frozen immobility.
Personally, I rely on the subconscious to a dangerous degree. I know that some people ride along continually assaulted by an excess of stimuli, valiantly assessing road risks and taking the necessary avoidance actions. This all seems like a lot of hard work to me, when the good old subconscious is able to resolve situations before I've realised they have occurred (perhaps I just think very slowly). On the race track the truly great riders doubtless combine both traits to an extreme extent, although the directness of reaction of racing bikes obviously helps.
Often I've found myself braking, running down through the box and changing direction just before I've realised what was going down. Had I been relying on mere observation I probably would've fallen off or been crushed to death, or worse still ended up as a vegetable, by the actions of some inconsiderate cager. On other occasions I've floated through gaps in potential accidents, that had I been a split second later or sooner would've seen the painful end of moi. Only realising my timing after the event. Readers who doubt the veracity of such laid back techniques should realise that in the past twenty years I've only fallen off a few times; believe me, I hate the pain resultant from tender flesh meeting harsh tarmac.
Pain is another barrier that racers can breach. Famous riders racing long distances in apparent top form with injuries to wrists, fingers, ankles, legs or shoulders, that would have most people running around in an hysterical screaming fit. The actual act of riding at ten-tenths putting horrendous pressure on the injured part of the body. Pain killers, in such circumstances, are not a viable option as they dull the mind just when it needs to be at its sharpest. I don't know quite how they overcome the pain, the most obvious answer being that the massive act of concentration needed for racing pushes the distress to the back of the mind. Whole religions have been founded on the ability to withstand massive, brutal pain. The illusion of such avid devotion as disturbing as being on a ferry full of football supporters.
My own observations would differ, not from racing but by being cursed with quick rotting teeth and a fear of dentists that went beyond the mere pathological according to some (but always seemed entirely sane and sensible to myself). Used to be that I would only cross the threshold of a dentist’s surgery when afflicted with so much pain that I could barely resist total mental disintegration. On one occasion, rather than trying to distract myself from the pain I concentrated, focused upon it until it intensified to a point where I thought my head was going to split in two... and then the agony just vanished.
Quite what trick I played on my mind I wouldn't like to say, but the pain relief lasted for days rather than minutes. Whilst I've found it impossible to repeat this trick (perhaps I wasn’t in enough pain), it conceivably explains how people can withstand horrendous torture and how racers can keep going when by any sane account they should be rendered caterwauling cripples. Racers being one of the most competitive breeds, they but rarely reveal even the most minor of tricks that keep them ahead of the pack.
Certainly, overcoming pain and skill barriers is a character building business that need not be limited to race track excesses, can be equally well tested on the daily trudge to work on just about any motorcycle that can still turn a wheel. In many ways an old hack is a better means of chancing one's luck than a pristine race replica, at least it’s possible to test the machine's limits without coming to the attention of the excess of police patrol cars and loitering helicopters wasting huge sums of public money laying in wait for speeding vehicles.
Funny things begin to happen when fear, pain or even paranoia is faced and overcome. If that can be done on the mere trip to work it even makes some sense out of the rotten design of motorcycles off-loaded as adequate commuters or high tech race replicas; perhaps the modern biker should revel in the dangers and deficiencies of their machines.
Bill Fowler
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