Riding and attitude Changes

[Skub]

Thinking aloud for a moment.

I mostly ride early in the morning primarily to have the world to myself,as a consequence I'm no longer around other riders very much.

Sundays especially around here are to be avoided as the roads are chocker with cars,cyclists,campervans and other motorcycles. This was thrown into sharp relief when coming home today just before 10am,a bit later than usual for this particular road.

I always heed the 30 and 40 limits not only out of respect for residents,but because I don't want a ticket for carrying a big number when there's no fun in it anyway.
Every time I slowed for the limit,bikes flew by me at least double the speed,one chap on a GSXR had it nailed to the limiter in at least two gears in a 30...then when the road opens up for the cool parts their general lack of the 'flow' gets in my way.They ride in a frantic manner,it's all very stop/start and braking in the wrong places.

It used to be that was game on for me,but now I either take a different road,or slow until they fuck off a bit further. Musing on this I realised there have been big changes in the way I ride in the last years,some of the contributing factors could be..

I'm old.

I'm slower and shittier.

Change of bike.

Or maybe it has taken me all these years to learn to ride for purely selfish reasons and not the expectations of others with regard to specific bike models.

The end of this month will be my first year with the Z1000,I've just turned 7k miles today and I've enjoyed riding more than I have done in a long,long time.

I think I'm liking the new slow me.

[Yorick]

I only ride on weekdays now. Less filthio and fewer bikes.

[Potter]

Same as Skub really, I enjoy going slower these days in places where I used to ride faster.
Then when I'm in places where I know I can push it a bit I will but (mostly) not to any sort of risk of license busting or crashing.

Newer bikes are really fast on straights, but I often find they hold me up going slow through the twisties when I'm on one of my two strokes. The lads I used to ride with enjoy this and go out hunting big bikes, but it's a full on race every time we go out, so I stopped going.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I long ago realised that being part of someone else's accident is a mug's game. I never ride with anyone else unless its a speed I want to ride at anyway.

TBF I seldom break the speed limit on a bike these days and I can't remember the last time I went past 100mph. Thats mostly cause I value my licence too much though, if I lost that I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage or feed my family!

[Rockburner]

I still love riding with other bikes at similar pace, when it happens, but it happens very very seldom these days, most of my mates have lives now.

I've noticed this propensity for 'fast on the straight, slow in corners' as well - it's everywhere. I think the reasons are long, complicated, and controversial (and discussed to death on here anyway).

[Noggin]

I used to ride too fast with my riding buddy. But in general he was a lot faster on the straights than me - but I got more pleasure from doing corners really fast than being fast in a straight line! He was always quicker than me

After he'd gone, I found I bimbled more but when I did meet other bikes, I could out ride almost all through corners but they generally caught me on the straights! (Most didn't overtake as there were corners coming up!! LOL)

Nowadays I'll get back to riding like Miss Daisy - but I suspect I'll relearn to have fun too! I did find I had the most fun ever on the road on the 390 Duke, so I suspect an old 600 will be more fun than a fast litre engine for me now - but I am a bit broken and feel a bit old!!

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

My top speed is now considerably less but I'm probably getting from A to B quicker because I'm I longer trying to do 140+ on the straights.

I think my FZ may have a fuel starvation issue at over 130 mph, I found this out yesterday, I've owned the bike 4 years, I don't care as it doesn't affect my normal riding, and I can't be arsed to do 130 again to see if it does it.

[v8-powered]

I'm quite happy wobbling along on my Sprint 1050 these days. Looked at the dash doo-dah yesterday and my max speed recorded was 97mph over the last year, pretty much sums up my riding these days.

[Mr Moofo]

I do pick my times to go out - and areas. Try not to venture into the Brighton conurbation, because they hate vehicles and as a result never really try and drive properly. And if you do drive the amount of spliff being smoked whilst driving is very worrying ...
Then we have weekend holiday makers with 17 screaming kids in the car - so the rules of road , esp parking, don't apply to them. This that been compounded by the lockdown / staycations.
so weekday mornings or evenings are the time of choice for me

[Horse]

Let alone losing the stupidity of youth and gaining the realism of experience (own and others') ...

Roads have changed too. A road that I used regularly when I started riding that was 30, then 5 miles of NSL, is now 30 40 50 NSL 40 NSL. Along with that has come a massive increase in traffic, etc.

[Whysub]

When I had the time, I used to ride home from work in London via Abridge, the Ongars, the Rodings and Dunmow. Mostly on the 1000cc sportbikes that work made available to me.

Plenty of times through the villages with 30 mph limits, bikes would overtake me at 50 to 60 mph, only for me to catch them through the many bends.

Didn't even have to go above 80 mph, as in the main, they could not hold any speed through the bends. Once, when riding my 125cc Yamaha twist 'n go, I was held up on the bends by a bloke on a CB500, who would open up on the straights, then almost slow to a crawl through the twisty bits.

Roads are far less busy in Spain, especially during the week between 2pm to 4pm (siesta time). Weekends are busier on some of the routes across the mountains, but hardly busy by UK biking road standards. Long may that remain.

[Supermofo]

I only ride on weekdays now. Less filthio and fewer bikes.

Soon as I retire that'll be me too. Love a mid week ride

[Supermofo]

Yup my riding has changed. I'm lucky as yesterday went out with my brother and his 2 mates. I know them well and trust their riding. We did 160 miles at a nice lick but nothing too naughty, reasonable pace in the turns but no silly speeds (not that I can on the kids bike ) reckon we might have got near 90 once or twice most of the time below 80 on twisty b roads.

On my own which is my preferred riding I have my pace which I'm happy with. Never speed through villages as its a mugs game and there are miles and miles of empty b roads to hoon around without needing to be a dick in town.

I often find I blitz passed a car doing 40-45 in a NSL b road only to find them up my arse in a 30 through a village a mile or so yup the road. Out of the village I'm off and they are stuck at their 40-45. No awareness at all.

Having said all that I cringe a bit thinking of when I got my TZR 250 and doing 90 up and down, up and down a set of residential streets over and over again. Pinned throttle passed all the parked cars, houses etc but I guess your only 19 once and I've made it to 44 so far

[KungFooBob]

I struggled to wheelie my carb'ed Blade in the Alps.

Mate on an efi z1000 was fine.

Oh, attitude.

[asmethurst99]

I went down the a12 to Romford this morning 40 and 50 limits to fill the blade with petrol and also for an early morning spin at at 0930 - a young chap came past me in tracksuit bottoms and t shirt on a R 6 at max revs
Loads of traffic on the way back cars esp - 2 had come together at some lights and quite a lot of damage done.
I’ll go out tomorrow morning for a few hours .
Weekdays for me -

[Scootabout]

Perhaps we should all watch out a bit for over-exuberant drivers/riders on 'freedom day' tomorrow. I'll be heading for the west country for a mini tour with tent, so I'll need to take my own advice on that, too.

[Bigyin]

Funnily enough i used to ride a lot during the week just for fun but since i started doing the instructing thing i ride now mainly for work and get through about 180 miles a week riding to the base, riding round behind L platers then riding home again on the Fazer so even with lockdowns and being closed for months its done about 10000 miles since i bought it.

I have recently kicked myself up the arse and now set aside at least one or two days a week i take the Ducati out to play and just ride for me

[ZRX61]

I was dawdling along the freeway today at around 95 & two sportbikes of some sort passed me at 160+, probably closer to 180. First one scared the piss out of me, saw the second one in the mirror though. Quick glance at the mirror, looked ahead again & the first bike was already out of sight. I think I got it on video.

As for playing silly fuckers myself...
There's a long straight where I usually blow the cobwebs out at 130-140 & slow to 120 for the curve at the top of the hill. This morning I'd jumped off the freeway just before this to sort out the vents on my jacket & got back on the freeway at the bottom of the hill where the CHP sometimes sit.
For some reason I didn't wring it out & arrived at the top of the hill going around 90, rolled it into the curve & saw the CHP Charger sitting there, managed to slow to about 75 or so as I passed him. If I'd have been my usual self he'd have got me at 120, maybe a tad faster.

There was also a strange deal on Mulholland. Came up behind a Shelby Mustang, a Glorified Volkswagen (GT3 I think) & a new Corvette. Ahead of this group was a minivan. I'm getting ready for a pass on at least the GT3 & the Mustang & the minivan pulled over. Great! methinks, now we can play. Except the GT3, Vette & Mustang all pulled over as well. Bugger! No fun

Passed a BMW SUV in the Playground & he wanted to play, but he ran out of talent & traction at the second bend & decided to slow the hell down.

[The Spin Doctor]

Funnily enough i used to ride a lot during the week just for fun but since i started doing the instructing thing i ride now mainly for work and get through about 180 miles a week riding to the base, riding round behind L platers then riding home again on the Fazer so even with lockdowns and being closed for months its done about 10000 miles since i bought it.

I have recently kicked myself up the arse and now set aside at least one or two days a week i take the Ducati out to play and just ride for me

Only 180? I was doing almost a thousand a week, split half / half between to and from the school, and doing the DAS courses, six days a week. It wasn't very often I went out for a fun ride.

[The Spin Doctor]

I'm probably quicker in places than I was in my 20s and 30s, but definitely more cautious in others. It's not just attitude, it's learning too, often the hard way. I had some lucky escapes - more than half a million miles of courier work tends to expose you to quite a bit of risk, and you either learned quickly, or you didn't.

Bikes have changed a lot too. My first big (well, it was at the time) bike was a 400-F and that was quick enough to scare me a few times. For quite a few years, my despatch bike of choice was Honda's CB250RSA - top speed just over 80 mph. I did around 250,000 miles on those, so mostly I rode at around 60. The XBR I had next was quite a bit quicker, so I definitely rode that faster on twisty roads. The GS500s (another top despatch bike - I put something over 300,000 miles on those) were a tad quicker than the XBR but handled and stopped better, so my speed went up another notch. The next work bike was the Hornet which I used for instructing, which I probably rode a little quicker still. I probably keep the same pace on the XJ6. Oddly, I didn't really ride the FZ750 or the GSX-R750 any quicker - well, not in the UK anyway.