Sunday 11thof April, it’s the start of the MotoGP season, the sun is shining, it’s nice and warm and I’m out on my bike enjoying a nice long ride in the country. Whizz, whizz, a couple of sports bikes blast past me on the straight. Knee out, bum out as they peel into the corner, no doubt thinking that they really showed the bloke on the GS how to ride fast. Halfway through the corner and I’m wondering why these speed merchants are going so slowly. Never mind, I’m happy enough just sitting there as the corner unfolds to reveal a nice long straight. The bloke at the back can’t resist a quick peek into his mirrors to see how much distance they have put between themselves and the lumbering GS and rather than seeing a rapidly receding dot, he gets the full blast of my gimlet eye staring right back at him. This is his cue to twist the throttle some more and he and his mate accelerate away.
On for a few miles and follow a Harley through a very pretty village. Nasty sharp corner right in the middle, but easy enough to negotiate when you know what you’re doing. This rider obviously doesn’t as he wobbles round the corner demonstrating a perfect example of a thruppeny bit line. At one point I thought he was going to come to a complete halt, but he managed to find some reserves of skill somewhere and eventually proceeded on his way.
Corners are like that and as these riders clearly demonstrated, they can be either too fast or too slow for the skills they have to hand. Thinking about it, the Harley probably represented an investment of about twelve grand and the R1’s not much less than that. I can’t for the life of me understand why someone would spend that much on a bike and not be bothered to learn how to ride it properly.
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