Elbows on asphalt

[Noel]

James Hillier during practice at The Bungalow, big cajones:

(pic John Keogh)

 

[gregmcateer]

What a soft lad - no Sparks!!

No, just joking. Max respect to anyone who is prepared to do that, especially on a normal road!!

 

[sunnybob]

he'd he brave if he was wearing flip flops, shorts and a T shirt, like all the local riders here.

 

[Noel]

he'd he brave if he was wearing flip flops, shorts and a T shirt, like all the local riders here.

At 190 MPH? Suppose so.

 

[sunnybob]

Noel, the bike of choice out here is a hyabusa on steroids. They all have extended swing arms and a lot have turbo's. I think there are more turbos than crash hats on the roads.
Weirdly, none of the big bikes have number plates, and the police never stop any bikes. I think they just hope the loonies will kill themselves off. The only motorcycle insurance available is third party only.
I bought my bike out when I moved here, but its a scary place to be on a bike. There are roadside tombstones everywhere. In the 9 years I've lived here I have personally known 4 killed, all of them through being "brave".

 

[Jonzjob]

I used to do that in SWMBO's 2CV, and before that in my Citroën Diane. I had the GT fit on that though, casters on the door handles. It cut thew drag down on the corners :shock:

Sod doing it on a moto though :x :x

 

[sunnybob]

I was a wild biker of the 60's, by the 70's i had realised i was on borrowed time. By the 90's i was "just cruising" (but still pretty quick in a straight line on a good road), buy the 10's I was too scared to do this any more. So I took up playing with violent wood chewing machinery instead. (lol)

 

[Robbo3]

When I first read the subject line I thought you had watched the same programme as me, on the building of the Severn Bridge.

It showed a line of men on their hands & knees, leveling the road surface with wooden floats.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

My wife, at one time a nurse, used to refer to them as mobile kidney donors. This is wrong of course - they are also a source of corneas, hearts, livers etc etc.

Aside from occasional moped excursions as a teenager I have never ridden a large capacity bike, preferring four wheels to two. But I do watch super bikes and the TT. Very brave or very stupid - but demonstrates a massive level of skill and control. Also produces competitive close races that are good to watch.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I loved my 1900cc Yamaha.

 

[sunnybob]

Terry, yes. On the word SKILL we can definitely agree. Brave and stupid are almost interchangeable though when it comes to bike riding. The "organ doner" thing was attributed to any big bike that was being discussed at the time.

I had a friend who was also into bikes, and rode mainly mid sized commuter bikes. he got made redundant and decided to buy himself a go faster one. He took the yamaha R! out for a test ride. He came back with a HUGE smile on his face and said "I LOVE it!" But then he went inside the shop and bought the baby R6 version because he said he knew if he bought the R1 he would be dead before xmas.

I rode big bikes for 52 years before arthritic hands made it too dangerous any more. My first was a Velocette 350 cc when i was thirteen. The biggest was a kawasaki 1500, my last was a 400 cc kawasaki when I was 65. i cant easily count the number in between. Loved every minute of them, even when i was laying on the ground saying "wha happen?", and that was more than a dozen times. I was lucky, got a few scars and dodgy joints and some very big bruises but never broke a bone.

Phil... Just for you....

 

[Glynne]

My wife, at one time a nurse, used to refer to them as mobile kidney donors. This is wrong of course - they are also a source of corneas, hearts, livers etc etc.

Unfortunately the events of this years TT confirm this.

 

[John Brown]

When I first read the subject line I thought you had watched the same programme as me, on the building of the Severn Bridge.

It showed a line of men on their hands & knees, leveling the road surface with wooden floats.

I was expecting whiskers on kittens next.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Sunnybob - the one bit of pee poor design on that was that the indicator warning light was on the bottom right of the clock - you couldn't see it in a full face helmet without dipping your head. I had a buzzer fitted on mine which saved me more than one accident. Not the fastest - red lined at 5000rpm, which would give you 125mph. Mind if you dropped the throttle off at that speed it would nearly throw you over the screen.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

For a big cruiser it handled quite well - I remember one sunny day sitting in a long slow bend on the A30 when I heard ding, ding, ding, ding and instinctively lifting my foot off the footplate as it folded - I glanced down and I doing just short of the ton. :lol:

 

[sunnybob]

My kawasaki vulcan nomad was the same as far as indicator light, but it had a really cool self cancelling system that actually counted time AND distance travelled.