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Comment: 18 December 2006
 Last Chance for Xmas CDROMs and Gift Vouchers
If you're still looking for a last minute present, don't forget the CDROMs and Gift Vouchers - we can accept electronic payment and with a special download option for Christmas, you can buy a
CDROM or Gift Voucher as late as Christmas Eve and still have it in time for Santa to pop in the stocking.
So, what's stopping you??
Comment: 18 December 2006
Merry Christmas to all our readers
Astonishingly, Christmas is just around the corner and it's time to dust off the ornaments and polish up the tree for another round of
festivities. It still doesn't feel particularly winter like here in Kent - the last two mornings have seen a frost, but there was still a butterfly in the garden as late as last weekend.
I'll get one more update in before the end of the year, but it'll be a quickie as I take a few days off.
Comment: 18 December 2006
Ashes to ashes
Well, I turned the TV this morning on to catch up with the overnight action from Australia, and not surprisingly, Australia have regained the Ashes at the first available opportunity by winning the
third test of five to make it 3:0.
I don't think anyone could argue that in the first three tests of the series England have been out-played, out-thought and out-managed. And by a hefty margin too.
The debacle of the first test put England firmly on the back foot. Whether they were underprepared and playing the wrong kind of cricket is a moot point, and I don't think there is any argument
that Monty Panesar should have played from the start, but in my opinion, the decision that threw away the series was the early declaration in the second test.
Batting on in the final session and into the next morning, perhaps adding another 100+ runs which didn't look inconceivable the way England were going, would have made the follow on target 450+.
From that position, the Aussies would have been fighting to save the game.
650, 700 would have put the game out of sight of the Australians and left only two possible outcomes - draw or England win. Even another 50 runs and an hour at the crease would have made a big
difference to the potential outcomes.
551 is a good score, but it wasn't out of sight - it didn't just give Australia a wide open chance of saving the game, it gave them more than a sniff of winning!
To my mind, the other miscalculation was that with only 350-odd required to avoid the follow on, it put the onus on England's misfiring bowlers not only to take wickets but keep the score and
run rate down at the same time, a double task they were unlikely to be able to do. It's easy to be an armchair critic, but given the way England had garnered runs, it doesn't seem to me that it
should have been difficult to predict that the Aussie batsmen would easily beat that unexacting total.
Showing confidence in your players is one thing, but putting them under pressure is another. Another 100 runs and with no way to lose would have meant that wickets taken column would have been
morale-boosting rather than runs conceded column confidence-sapping.
Worse than that, and probably crucially in a series which is won as much in the head as it is on the pitch, the declaration took the pressure off at a time when the Australian bowlers, particularly
McGrath and Warne, were wilting against a torrent of runs, whilst at the same time denying Flintoff and the tail some vital confidence-building batting practice against tired bowlers and missing an
opportunity for England's batsmen to say "whatever you can do, we can do better" by exceeding Australia's big score in the first test.
In the event, as the Aussies batted, the pommie bowlers aside from Hoggard toiled, the Australians virtually matched England's first innings total with relative ease, and with the best part of four
sessions left, the Aussies had saved the game and re-established their mental superiority.
Throwing away that chance for a bigger lead and the opportunity of being able to pressure Australia almost to the end, meant the pendulum had swung back to Australia.
By now, there was only one team who could lose; England. And pressure was back on the England batsmen to re-establish command of the game against a rested and rejuvenated Warne and McGrath.
The rest, as they say is history. England's batting collapsed and with Australian confidence sky high, it left enough time for a quick-fire assault on the England bowlers - and this time Hoggard
couldn't keep the runs down.
Comment: 1 December 2006
All quiet on the Eastern Front
Just a quick update to let you all know that Survival Skills IS still around. I've had some family health problems over the last few weeks which have taken up a lot of my time, so there's not been
an update to the website and some of the date specific offers in the side bars are now looking a bit tired! Suffice to say, I will get the site fully updated in the next few weeks and we WILL be
around and raring to go next year. Scheduled courses will resume in March 07.
Other Plans for 2007
The new Advanced Instructors' Register is due to be launched next year. Having had a look at the scheme, I have to say that I'm less than impressed with it in many ways, not least the cost to me of
actually joining and subsequently renewing my membership to be on the register. Particularly galling is that having been an "early adopter" of a proper training qualification via my BTEC, I'm actually
now penalised because it's dated outside the cut-off and I'll have to re-satisfy the panel, whilst Johnny Come Lately's with less experience can walk straight in. Happy? Not exactly.
Aside from the training courses, I have a bunch of new projects to fill what spare time I am likely to have over the next few weeks, including migrating the site to new host - I've just about run out of
space on the old web host servers! I don't think I ever envisaged the site growing to this size when I started writing a few tips for people on the web!
The existing 75+ articles in the Riding Skills section have been put together into e-book format and I plan to make these available for free download when I transfer to the new host.
I've also got plans for some cheap downloadable e-guides to specific topics - slow control and cornering technique are two of the topics planned.
Watch this space for news as it develops!
Tarmac Tactics update
Meanwhile, there are some people out there wondering what happened to the "late October" delivery of the new 'Tarmac Tactics' CDROM after they pre-ordered the CDROM.
Well, as in the last installment, there was a bit of a delay due to a bad cold and subsequent chest infection that sent me to bed back in October, and then unfortunately the family problems have taken
a big chunk of my time last month.
But, aside with the excuses, the writing has gone on where possible and the good news is that it is FINISHED! I'm just tidying up a few rough edges as I write and v1.0 WILL be shipping by the
end of next week! So if you are still looking for an Xmas gift for your riding partner or best buddy, do them a favour and give them a CD on top biking skills. There's plenty of reading in there - about
200 pages if it were a paperback plus dozens of on-bike still photos - to keep you busy over the holidays and the winter when riding is not so high on the agenda.
Gift Vouchers
And lastly, don't forget the Gift Vouchers - there's a strictly limited quantity of the full course price vouchers with discounts and they are going fast - when the stack in the corner of the office has
gone, they've gone.
France Training
Having run a number of training courses in France in the second half of this year, as soon as the weather warms up, and the clocks do their spring forward adjustment and we move into the longer
evenings again, we'll be back over there for more courses.
I've found an excellent gite not too far from the coast, at a perfect distance for 2 days steady riding, and I can't emphasise how good the riding is over there, compared with the south of England, even
given the effort I've put into finding empty and challenging roads in the UK. I've found a route with a dozen hairpin bends so if you've never ridden abroad and are planning a trip to the Alps, Pyrenees
or any of the other mountainous bits of Europe, a 1 day 'Bends' course, or the 2 dayer with the overnight stop at the gite would be an excellent way of warming up for the longer event, not least as I
clearly explain the french Priority to the Right system, something few people (including the motoring organisations in this country) seem to fully understand.
The gite is run by a anglo-french woman and her italian husband, a couple who ran a restaurant in Brussels for 20 years, so I can promise you the home cooking for our evening meal is a treat. On
our trip down there in September, the home made bread and goat's cheese starter was matched perfectly by the main dish of fresh fish from the quayside, and the zabaglione made whilst we sat and
and chatted over a couple of bottles of wine.
With Eurotunnel still doing crossings for under £30, it's an excellent way to spend a couple of days riding.
Survival Skills on Tour 2007
Finally, keep your eye open for the annual 'Survival Skills on Tour' dates as we travel around the country. As has become usual over the last few years, we'll be visiting Montgomery in mid-Wales,
Grassington in Yorkshire and Dartmouth in Devon.
In the meantime, if I don't manage another update between now and the festive season which is looming ever closer, I'd just like to wish all visitors to this site as well as all the folk who have taken
courses over the last 10 years a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Comment: 3 November 2006
Autumn Arrives, Hayden survives (just)
I don't know what the weather has been like in your part of the country, but down here in Kent, aside from three days which would have had Noah rubbing his hands enthusiastically together, we've
had a cracking month of October, with the warm weather extending right to the end of the month.
Indeed, as I had a (fairly rare) weekend off last weekend with friends visiting, which is why there was no update, the gorgeous weather just demanded a "before the final GP of the season" stroll
round the local woods, and despite having set off at 10:30, we only just made it back for the race at 1pm.
However, the last couple of nights have seen the first frosts of the year, the electric waistcoat has been dusted off and plugged in, and the clocks have gone back, which means it's dark at 5pm now.
That's the moment it really does feel like winter!
And just time to mention that Survival Skills courses are still running, upto mid-December, although it's best to have a look at the weather forecast and book at short notice rather than weeks
ahead because of the weather. The 10am/3pm start and finish times also give you a fighting chance of leaving and getting back home in daylight too. After that, we're closed till February, and
timetabled courses resume in March.
Meanwhile, the Discount Course* offer has been extended to the end of November in Kent and Oxford.
Confirm your booking with a deposit cheque by 30 October and you'll get the following great savings:
- £10 OFF the normal price of a ONE day course and £20 OFF a two
day course. Opt for the three day course you'll save £30!
- A £5 per day discount applies to the second person our "bring a friend or partner" deal, so you could save as much as £45 per course!
e-Mail us NOW for full terms and conditions.
* Applies to 1, 2 and 3 day courses - excludes Short Courses, Mix and Match, Assessments and training in France.
So if you want to grab a late autumn course, now's the time. I have a couple of dates available for Oxford on Friday 17 and Sat 18, plus a riding assessment along the lines of the Bikesafe
assessment (just £50!) available on Sunday 19. Other dates are available in Kent - see "Courses" from the menu.
Back to the GP. In a way, it's sad to see Rossi lose this year after making such a fight of it, although to be honest his crash evened out the bad luck Hayden had in the previous GP, when he was
taken out by his own team-mate, the loony (and rather distraught-looking) Dani Pedrosa! On the other hand, one might argue that you can have too much of a good thing and it's time for a change.
Certainly over the years Rossi's had more than his fare share of luck as well as made the odd dodgy manoeuvre himself, like when he torpedoed Sete Gibernau mid-corner a few seasons back,
punting the luckless Sete into the gravel, but himself staying on and winning the race.
But to be honest, once Rossi had gone down, remounted and clearly wasn't going to carve through the field as I expected, there was only one person to watch. And that was Troy Bayliss. That
one-off ride on the Ducati must have settled a lot of demons from his previous failure to produce the goods in MotoGP. What a star!
Comment: 3 November 2006
Tarmac Tactics - slightly delayed
When I've not been training (or in bed with my first colds for 18 months - 2 in 2 weeks is a bit much and it takes a bit of a whopper to put me off my stride!) I've been busily putting the finishing
touches to the latest addition to the Survival Skills Publications series - "Tarmac Tactics".
This new CDROM takes over where the "Survival Skills - Course Notes" CD leaves off. If the first is an explanation of good defensive techniques, machine control and advanced riding skills,
"Tarmac Tactics" is about how to use those skills practically on 21st century roads, with pages of tips and tricks I've learned both from 16 years despatch riding and my decade in advanced training.
It's all useful stuff I personally use everyday to give myself the edge to survive in all kinds of riding environments from country lanes to busy motorways. Unlike most riding guides which are
designed to get the reader riding the perfect ride, "Tarmac Tactics" takes the opposite approach; to know how to ride well, first of all you have to know where something will go wrong, why it
goes wrong, who to try to avoid it going wrong, and most importantly of all, how to avoid coming a cropper when it DOES go wrong. Because sooner or later, however good we think we are, we
will face an emergency.
Not only will this guide inform you of the risks of some everyday manoeuvres that we take for granted, but it'll up your confidence that you really can do a good, high quality, ride, in the knowledge
you have a decent grasp of the dangers and how to stay out of trouble, not just how to look good.
I was hoping to have this finished by the end of last month, but as with most deadlines, this one has slipped a bit, not least because the content has just about doubled in size from the previous draft
version that I've been working on all year. But considering I started writing the first version as long ago as 1994, I think you'll forgive
me if I take just a week or three longer to ensure I've got it just right!
You can pre-order "Tarmac Tactics" via the Shop!
Comment: 3 November 2006
Driven to Distraction
If you're out and about on the roads, try to avoid the A444 near Coventry until the local highways people have sorted themselves out. In one of those moments of madness that delight and confuse
in equal measures, each set of newly installed lights on the roundabout has a "No Left Turn" sign attached to it. Thus, once on the roundabout, motorists must either circulate for the rest of time
, or more reasonably break the law to get off the island.
What is even more astonishing, and indicative of true British Stiff Upper Lip in the face of adversity, is the fact it seems the signs had been there for FIVE WEEKS and the council hadn't noticed -
and no-one had thought to complain! The result has been five weeks of traffic chaos.
However, fear not, we ARE on the job, says a spokesman from Coventry City Council. He said the signs had been installed together with traffic lights as part of a road safety scheme that is
not yet complete.
He said:
"The current advice on the installation of traffic signals at roundabouts does suggest that where the entry and exits are separate that No Left Turn signs are installed to advise
drivers not to drive down the entry arm of the roundabout, however the advice is not always relevant.
"In response to the concerns that have been raised, the city council is proposing to cover the signs in the short term and eventually remove them."
Not yet complete? Proposing? Short term? How about getting down there and sorting the mess out NOW? Did no-one at the planning department not notice that their "not yet complete" scheme didn't
actually make sense? It reminds me of the old joke about (insert whichever country you like) switching driving from one side of the road to the other, and to make it easy for drivers, introducing the
change gradually!
Driving instructor Danny Noonan told the Coventry Evening Telegraph that the signs could cause an accident. He said:
"All the roads going off the roundabout have a No Left Turn sign, so once you start to go round the roundabout you in effect have to break the law to come off it. Some of my
learner drivers try and go round again, until I tell them where to come off."
When I was couriering, I used to pride myself on knowing my way round on the one way streets, but even I would have struggled to find my way out of this conundrum!
Comment: 13 October 2006
Honda beat new Hornet with the ugly stick
One of the recurring themes about the motor industry for as long as I can remember has been the concept car or bike, usually a styling exercise scribbled down by some young graduate snapped
up straight out of college.
Thankfully, senior excutives control which designs hit the showrooms and with a few notable exceptions (AMC Pacer, anyone?) have largely spared the world a collection of vehicles that look
as though they came straight out of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds or off the set of Bladerunner.
The downside has been a generation of cars that are identical. Can anyone really tell the difference between a Ford Mondeo and a... a... errr... well, you get the picture. However, I guess those 60s and
70s designers are now at the senior executive level, because there are some hideously ugly cars appearing - Citroen seem to have built an entire range of them!
Bikes have always been slightly different. Although there's still the ergonomic necessity for the rider to have somewhere to sit between the two wheels, and to be able to steer the thing, and
constraints of weight and wheelbase if the bike is to be reasonably manageable by someone who isn't a direct descendent of King Kong, there's far more leeway for a bit of "branding".
This has been particularly true as the engine was traditionally on display, unlike in a car, with the clear distinction since the end of the Second World War between parallel twin Brits, the big Vs
favoured by the American and Italian builders and of course, the flat twin BMW. (And just in case anyone mentions JAP, Sunbeam or any of the other myriad engine builders, yes, I do know a little
history further back). Indeed, the Universal Japanese Motorcycle with its inline four was seen as bland and identikit, compared with the traditional roots of these non-Japanese bikes.
However, with a few exceptions like the hideous Philippe Stark inspired Aprilia Moto 6.5 (matched his kettles apparently), and perhaps the odd bike like the V-Max, the family image of bikes has
been mostly quite tame. Not surprising really when you realise that form follows fashion, rather than function! And wth a few exceptions, most people like what they know - ask any designer of
a "funny front end".
If you want a laid back cruiser, it has to have the Harley look.
Big tourer? Look no further than cloning the BMWs.
Supersports? We'll pretend it's aerodynamic but actually we'll build a replica of the race bike to flog to the Rossi wannabee's.
Dual sport? It's got to look like you could win the Paris-Dakar on it.
So, really, the only area for messing about is the all-purpose runabout. Yet pretty much for 50 years, they've followed the same styling. Look at a 60's Triumph Daytona... and look at a 2004
Hornet, Bandit or Z750. There's no real difference between them other than styling tweaks. Bars are in the same place, footpegs and controls are the same, tank still sits between your knees, the
seat is... a seat perched on a conventional frame, the exhaust still pokes out the back and you have the same instruments display and
a nice round headlight. An LED tail light and digital clocks is hardly a huge leap.
Whether they've been inspired by Citroen, I have no idea but suddenly the bike image for the middle part of the first decade of the 21st century appears to be "new brutalist". At least, there's no
other way to describe the sudden rush of naked 600s that seem to have been styled with a sledgehammer.
To my mind at least, the naked FZ6 is undeniably ugly from front and side. The FZ6's back end is bit tidier, but it has a peculiar hunchback look - and that headlight is a disaster, and so are the
nasty clocks on the naked version. At least Yamaha have sorted the front of the FZ6 out by sticking a fairing on as an option and that version doesn't look too bad. It's much more balanced looking.
Suddenly the tank doesn't look like a deformity but something that is designed, and I don't think it's any coincidence there are a few of the faired ones around.
Not to be outdone, Suzuki responded with the equally hideous GSR600. And people seem to have voted with their wallets. I've seen ONE GSR600 in a year. From the front, the Suzuki just looks
bulbous. It looks someone stuck a set of scooter bodywork on upside down, and those indicators set into the bodywork round the tank are daft.
These bikes are supposed to be a stepping stone between the cheap 500 twins and the sportsbike range. I've even wondered if they are deliberarely ugly to drive prospective purchasers to the
more expensive but undeniably more eye-candy sportsbikes.
Interestingly Kawasaki's own ugly duckling, the ER-6, carries a perked up twin cylinder rather a deliberately castrated down-at-heel in-line four nicked from the sportsbikes, which will presumably
give it a price edge, whilst not losing too much in terms of usable speed. After all, whilst the FZ6's publicity blurb talks of the adrenaline-pumping fun of a fuel-injected R6-based engine, you
need neck-muscles like Arnie to hang on for any length of time at the kind of speeds the bike can manage.
However, these run-away sales successes have not stopped Honda joining the fun. Having flooded the 600 market with the naked and faired CBF600, the CB600 Hornet, the CBR600F AND the CBR600RR,
priced at everthing from £4k to £7, they seem to have decided they needed an ugly duckling too.
As the plain Jane (ok, dull) CBFs cater for the BOFs like me and the CBR pair keep the sports bike fans happy, that left the Hornet as the "exactly why do we have this model in the line-up" machine,
and thus fit for tinkering.
Enter the new 2007 Honda Hornet. And boy, has it been battered. As a friend said as we were looking at the new piccies:
"Uh - what is THAT thing masquerading as an exhaust?? If you kind of split it into two by putting your hand over it and look first at everything in front of the back wheel, then cover that and look at
the back, it looks like two separate bikes...or like someone's forgotten to put the bit in that goes at the back!"
But is any manufacturer bold enough to really change things? The answer has to be no. Even Buell with their reputation for walking on the wild side have only really tinkered with a conventional
motorcycle design. Sticking a triangular exhaust on a powered two wheeler isn't innovation - unless I'm losing the plot or really getting
old. Where are the daring feet-forward designs like Royce Creaser's Voyager or the fully enclosed Ecomobiles?
Meanwhile, I keep looking at Moto Guzzis and thinking: "nice simple styling, 2 valve air cooled motor, shaft drive".
Comment: 13 October 2006
French Frolics - or "three take a steady cruise round the Pas de
Calais"
Well, we got in our two day Survival Skills training course over in France three weeks back in excellent warm and sunny autumn weather. And I have to say it was a huge hit with the two guys on the course.
We were a little late arriving in France because the scheduled service on Eurotunnel seemed to have been abandoned for a "join the bus queue" approach, but we only lost 20 minutes so no huge problem there.
Our route started nice and easy and took us south down towards the town of Lumbres. Now, if you haven't been across this bit of France, it's incredibly easy to overlook, particularly as there are
two motorways that bypass it completely. If you know the south of England at all, the best way to describe the scenery is rather like the South Downs between Beachy Head around Arundel. Or
possibly bits of Wiltshire. What that means is hills. Lots of them.
Things get interesting after leaving our lunch/shopping stop at a modern hypermarche at Lumbres, with the route following the a tributary of the Aa river, before climbing and falling via several sets
of hairpins to Nielles-Les-Blequines.
Here the ride took a bit of a wrong turn. Well, we had to - there was a diversion in operation. Trusting the GPS got us where I intended some 30 minutes later than planned, but at the expense
of following a goat track. Well, we did pass a goat roaming at large on it, so I guess it was a goat track!
Back on course, we picked up the Vallee de la Course, a smoothly sinous road that runs mostly along a scenic river valley. A left turn just before Montreuil and we were arriving at our evening stop-over
at Beaurainville.
We'd booked into the CHAMBRES D'HÔTES DU MONT BLANC, run by Jeannie and Orazio Cerrato. Jeannie and Orazio ran a restaurant in Brussels for many years and were unfazed by us arriving half an
hour late, despite their having prepared an evening meal for us. The food can only be described as mouthwatering. There was no particular highlight - the local goat cheese, the organic bread
baked by a neighbour, the fresh fish straight from the coast or the zabaglione prepared by Orazio as we sat and chatted over a couple of bottles of white wine - all were delicious.
The rooms were elegant, spotless and comfortable, and the kitchen area between them made an excellent place to continue our training chat and video presentation after breakfast next morning. I
could happily have spent a extra day just enjoying the sun in their garden, and it was a bit of an effort to get myself mobile and onto the bike for the second day.
Our route back towards the coast took us along some nice sweeping roads with a good mixture of fast and slower bends, with the obligatory hairpins in the steep decents to the river valleys.
First north east, then north west towards Embry, stopping at a traditional french cafe in Hucqueliers for a bite to eat.
After riding round Desvres three or four times following a mixture of signs and GPS (memo to self: follow the signs OR the GPS, not both!), we finally found our way out northwards and made off towards
Le Ventus d'Alembron, where the road climbs steeply over a ridge via yet another set of hairpins, with a view back over the wide valley to the south.
From here east until we crossed the A16 north of Marquise is the only slightly uninteresting bit of the ride - it's not that the roads are that bad, or the scenery isn't reasonable, but there are a few
more cars around (ie, there are some!), the villages are a rather less elegant and closer together, and there is one huge hole in the ground that is one of the biggest quarries I've seen. But it's only a
short stretch and once across the autoroute, you're headed for the coast, and the final treat on the ride.
North of Ambleteuse, the coast road either sits four or five hundred feet high on the clifftops looking out into the channel or dips suddenly into narrow deep valleys, passing Cap Griz Nez and Cap
Blanc Nez on the way. In the evening sun, it's a spectacular end to a terrific day out.
I've done the route a few times now so have the timings pretty well worked out, so Mark and Alick were pretty amazed as I rolled into the Eurotunnel terminal almost exact to the minute to our
schedule. In no time at all, we were on the train, finishing up with a debrief as we rolled beneath the channel, and thirty minutes later
rolled off into the Kent countryside in the last hour or so of sunlight.
One thing both the guys remarked upon was how few miles we'd actually done, and how they felt like we'd ridden twice as many! We did around 90 miles each day. It's the roads. They may not be
well known and the whole area is usually avoided by Brit bikers on their way to somewhere fancier, but if you think it's dull, think again. There are fast open roads, sinous roads and steep climbs
and descents.
Interested? You should be if you want a couple of days of great riding! With Calais just 25 minutes from Dover and cross-channel prices at an all-time low for short trips, it's a bargain not to be missed!
CHAMBRES D'HÔTES DU MONT BLANC
313 Rue du Mont Blanc
62990 beaurainville
Tel : +33(0)3-21-81-04-26
Fax : +33(0)3-21-81-04-26
Por : +33(0)6-32-35-42-15
Contact: Jeannie et Orazio Cerrato
http://users.skynet.be/ChambresdHotes.MontBlanc/index.html
Comment: 22 September 2006
Hurricane Gordon fails to disrupt training
I suppose it was inevitable, but as soon as I wrote about the favourable long range forecast, two hurricanes promptly brewed up in the Atlantic and swung round in the long loop that drags them
towards the UK. This is often the fate of a hurricane that is blocked by weather systems from tracking into the Caribbean or across the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Of course, by the time they get to the UK, they've lost their tropical storm characteristics due to a combination of wind shear and colder seas (you can tell I did a bit of meteorology at
university, can't you?) but Gordon held on longer than most and was still a hurricane when it hit the Azores mid-week.
The still vigourous remnants were due to meet up with a deep Atlantic depression on Thursday evening bringing a night of wild weather to the West Country and thence up along the Irish Sea coastline.
So, a bit of luck that Survival Skills is off for another weekend of our very successful training in France, where the forecast is for the decent autumn weather to continue!
There's still time to book a course in France this year and stock up with a couple of bottles ready for the Xmas break! Or Kent and Oxford, of course, where our discount prices apply to the end of
the month!
If you are interested in the latest weather news, a good site to explore is Metcheck.com.
Comment: 22 September 2006
New from Survival Skills - Pick your Own courses
I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to improve training, so when it was suggested to me that the usual training course structure might not appeal to some riders, I listened.
The point was made that if people have done an advanced course, either with another school or perhaps with the IAM, they might not want to do a course which they might think would simply repeat
what they already covered.
A good point actually!
One other problem I've noted for myself is pursuading riders who've either just qualified or are coming back to biking after a layoff that they are capable of doing an 'advanced' course and that it isn't
beyond their skills.
So, how to solve both problems?
The answer I have come up with is a modular training course, where the trainee can pick and choose what to cover, subject to an assessment of their current riding skills - that way I can still be
sure that we'll cover topics which are not only targetted at the trainee, but appropriate.
If you are interested in this new kind of training, drop me an email and I'll tell you more.
Comment: 22 September 2006
The interminable argument - daytime riding lights and hi-vis
clothing
If there is one thread on Visordown.com that I dread reappearing, it's the regular discussion about whether or not to wear hi-visibility clothing and to use daytime riding lights (DRL). Partly because
although it's all been said many times, there is always someone who hasn't read the arguments and refuses to listen to any rational argument.
The issue resurfaced in the last 10 days or so (last done to death in January) and has been rumbling on as it always does - it's an interminable argument, but it's one where there should be no
winners or losers. It shouldn't be about taking "sides" but an issue where ideas are examined logically. But for some reason, it always
ends up with an "it's obvious - if you wear hi vis people will see you easier"/"no they won't" kind of argument.
Those who approach the issue with a closed mind won't learn anything, except to discover the surprising degree of conflict between those who believe they are safer using visibility aids and
those who think that the benefits are exaggerated.
I'd been intending to write something about this for a while, if only to save me having to re-state the same points over and over. However, this letter from Stuart Downie pushed me over the edge:
"I have been reading your rider hints and I read the item about being seen. I have no argument about it except that you do not mention dress. I see many riders, dressed in
traditional black, disappear on suburban roads as they get lost in the light scatter from street lights, shops other vehicles lights and shadows. Perhaps it is because I am
getting on a bit in years and realise I am mortal but I like to be seen and dress in yellow, with reflective bands if possible. It may not be 'cool' but I think it helps ensure that I WILL be
seen. They can stick fashion I prefer safety.
"I hope you don't think I'm being picky but I do wonder how many SMDSYs are the result of dark clothing."
At the risk of being picky myself, why do the people who believe hi-vis is good always assume that those who don't wear it do so as a matter of "fashion"?
Anyway, onto the meat of the matter.
The problem with hi-vis kit is that a lot of the time it isn't.
Leaving aside the fact that the driver has to be in a position to see the rider, has to look in the direction of the rider, has to be able to
see past obstacles like the door pillars and roadside furniture, and has to recognise "bike and rider", remember what he is seeing and correctly judge speed and distance, it simply doesn't follow that
because it's bright or reflective, it'll show up.
One major issue is that the brain works by subconciously recognising a pattern and flagging the concious, decision making mind to sit up and pay attention. This means two things. The brain
has to be "tuned" to the shape of a bike and rider. And by using different coloured vests and daytime lights, it has the effect of adding extra "edges" to the shape and breaking it down into smaller
shapes that are NOT meaningful.
Just like you can see a bit of plastic lying on the floor and only when you have thrown it away do you realise that it was the battery cover off the TV controller, because taken out of context
with the complete unit it was unrecognisable, so the unconcious mind simply never flags the splashes of light and patches of colour as a motorcycle plus rider. This technique has been known about
for years as a way of hiding something in plain view - it's caused dazzle camouflage and was very successfully used to break up the outlines of ships on the horizon and buildings and docks from the air.
Even if you don't succeed in camouflaging yourself, don't forget retro-reflective stuff only works when illuminated, which means it's nightime use only. And it also only works if a light is pointed
directly at it from near the driver's own line of sight. It won't work under streetlights. Which is why it's called retro-reflective!
Retro-reflective is thus just about useless from the sides (until you are directly ahead of the car headlights which is too late anyway) and not much better from behind and ahead when you're in traffic
where everyone is driving on dipped lights - Sam Browne, H belts and the like are too high up, and so only show up clearly on main beam. This is one big plus for the Aerostich Roadcrafter I own - it
has big reflective panels on the back of the calves for this reason very reason, just as cyclists and kids often wear reflective ankle bands - but I've only ever seen one rider wearing them regularly -
too "unfashionable"?
Fluorescent kit only works in daylight. In fact, at night under sodium lighting, an orange vest can appear brown. And hi-vis will only show up against a background that provides a contrast. An
orange bib will not show up against an orange background like an RAC van, and a yellow bib will not show up against spring foliage.
And everyone and his dog (literally - I saw a dog wearing a fluoresecent yellow coat the other day) is now covered in hi-vis paint or reflective stripes, so the "oooh, look at that" factor that
once worked (apparently) is lost.
The most visible colour for a fluoro vest is pink, for the very reason that hardly anything on the roads is pink - and aside from carnations, it's not that common in nature either! Funnily enough,
you don't see many riders wearing pink - another "fashion" problem I guess.
Think about which bits of a fluorescent jacket show up. The most visible bits of the rider from front and rear, particularly if you have a fairing and a top box, are tops of the shoulders and arms; from
the sides just the arms. Of course, if you have a passenger on the back, the rider is almost completely obscured from behind. A standard hi-vis vest of the sleeveless sort commonly worn is pretty
useless. A full sleeved jacket would be better, or something like my old Scott jacket with bright hi-vis yellow sleeves. Light-coloured gloves can be easy to spot because they tend to sit wide of the
body of the bike and you tend to move them - even small movements attract attention. Or you could try leggings rather than a vest. Guess what - noone does - I wonder why?
So what about daytime riding lights? On most bikes, DRLs are just a normal dipped headlight. Now, it seems to have escaped some peoples' attention that the function of a daytime light to be seen,
and a nighttime light to see with, are almost completely mutually exclusive. The problem here is that the well designed dip beam reflectors that are so effective at keeping stray light out of on
-coming drivers eyes at night, do a similarly effective job by day - all the driver looking at the bike is likely to see is a lighter patch on the front of the bike.
So, particularly when the viewing driver is offset, in other words in the classic SMIDSY position, it's only if you run on main beam or have a badly adjusted light, or possibly when they are close
enough for the assymetric dip beam on the left to have an effect, will they actually get any light shining directly at them.
So some riders have taken to running on main beam. And then the side effect is that the light obscures the bike behind it, breaking up the outline and effectively camouflaging the bike and rider, making
it difficult to judge speed and distance from the observer. And I'm not even going to go down the "does a light 'flash' drivers when you hit a bump or the brakes" route.
Almost forgotten is the the Transport and Road Research Laboratory investigated DRLs and decided what was needed was a lower powered (so non-dazzling) but non-directional light. The
pattern required was that of a reversing light - so from the mid 70s through till the mid 80s most police bikes had a DRL bolted to the fairing.
And even when you do use lights, you only add to the "light clutter" that surrounds you. Other bikes using lights, cars with DRLS, shop fronts, illuminated bollards and street signs, streetlights
as the elevation changes, security lights and all the rest. How is your headlight going to jump out and say "watch ME" in the midst of all that?
And I have no doubt that sometimes the solid outline of black bike and grey suited/helmeted rider also shows up better than the camouflage effect of panels and blocks of different colours.
Putting all this aside, what effect do DRLs and hi-vis clothing have on drivers looking at you, and how does it make you safer at junctions from the much-feared SMIDSY accident? Why should it
be a matter of so much importance that you are seen?
Well, it will only be an issue if you don't take precautions in case the car pulls out! If you think about it, a hi-vis vest or running with
the lights on in daytime is very like ABS. It just might protect you from the consenquences of your own error.
ABS cuts in when you've braked too hard - maybe you haven't seen the car in front of you stopping or you haven't anticipated a slippery surface, or you simply aren't skilled at using brakes
effectively. Whatever, a good driver very seldom need it.
A hi-vis vest and DRLs are the same - they just MIGHT cause a driver to think twice about pulling out on you in a situation where YOU haven't anticipated that it might happen, and are unable to
take other avoiding action.
But it's argued that as riders are fallible, hi-vis/DRLs will protect them from the consequences of their mistakes.
IF you can be seen.
IF the driver looks.
IF the driver sees you.
IF he makes all the correct decisions.
Way too many "ifs" for me. So perhaps they don't see me, despite all my hi-vis aids? Is that a situation I want to get into? Nope. I don't want to rely on someone else for my safety.
If I am sufficiently on the ball, it shouldn't matter whether the driver sees me or not - I'll do everything I need to avoid getting tangled up in HIS accident - there is absolutely NO reason I should
have it too.
For years I rode with DRLs on and wearing hi vis... and then discussions got me thinking about whether it really works - as well as solid practical evidence that three bikes and riders all wearing hi
vis and with headlights on attracted dodgy manoeuvres like cows attract flies. In all the years I've been riding, I've NEVER had so many near misses as when I was out with the trainees on basic
training courses, and it was clear that drivers were certainly NOT having trouble seeing the bikes, but in fact were deliberately pulling out in front of the
group, because "it's only some learner riders."
So two years ago, the lights went off. The hi-vis went on the hanger. Any difference? None that I can notice!
I suspect it's partly that I don't approach junctions as quickly and in such poor
positions as some riders, as I think about things like the other
driver's line of view and the time they have to see me - and my own stopping distances. I do things like time my approach to a junction so that there's something going past from the opposite
direction at the same time, or open or close the gap ahead of me as appropriate to encourage or discourage a driver from turning,
avoiding "shall I, shalln't I" hesitancy. I move laterally across the road to attract attention in peripheral view.
If you do the right things - change position, slow down, cover the brakes, accelerate in a responsive gear once committed, the "killing zone" in which there is no way of escaping the emerging car by
stopping, swerving or accelerating isn't very big. Even if the car does a brick wall impersonation, from 30mph you can stop in 3-4 bike lengths if you are the least bit good on the brakes. Walk that
distance backwards from the centre line of a side road (on the pavement preferably) and see what that means in terms of how LATE you can brake and still stop.
Being objective about it, hi-vis/DRLs are only of any use if I fail to make sufficient adjustments, either through ignorance, choice, or cock up. So if I take responsibility in situations where there is a
potential conflict in such a way that I negate (or at least, massively reduce) any chance of an accident, then what REAL use are hi-vis/DRLs other than to make the rider FEEL safer?
It's hard to find any flaw in that argument.
The case for hi-vis isn't really supported by the evidence. There was a much reported article in the British Journal of Medicine in 2004 which claimed a link between safer riders and use of hi-vis.
Unfortunately, the analysis of the evidence stopped short of revealing the real answers. The riders who had the accidents were:
- - under the influence of alcohol
- - driving whilst disqualified or without a licence
- - inexperienced
- - riding new (to them) machines
In other words, it was less to do with dressing like Dayglo Derek and more to do with skills and attitude. All stuff which has been known about for 40 years.
You would also have expected to see drops in accident rates in general over the last couple of decades as riders increasingly lit up and dressed up, and there should be another "blip" about now as
permanent wired-on lights take effect. There's certainly nothing immediately evident in reduced accident statistics, and no study to my knowledge has claimed to have found such an effect.
Whatever, in my opinion, much of the endless debate about the pros and cons of DRLs and hi-vis is futile - a rider would be wiser to concentrate on working out where and why accidents happen in
the first place, and in the second, working on the techniques and developing skills to avoid becoming one.
Now, so long as we understand that, there's no real problem in stacking the odds a little further in our favour because we do make mistakes. Nitron do a very nice jacket that they supply to the
police and paramedics, made of waterproof flexothane too, that'll no doubt last a couple of years. It's a bargain at £129.99.
However, it's worth pointing out that's just £9.99 more than a one day course with Survival Skills, and a similar price to many other training courses!
A jacket for a couple of years? Or skills for life?
Comment: 08 September 2006
Chef Oliver's drive on health stalls with 4x4s
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, most recently in the news for jumping on board the on-going healthy eating school meals campaign, has refused to give up his gas guzzler for something more
environmentally friendly.
Oliver was one of dozens of recipients of a letter from BAFTA award-winning actress Thandie Newton. The star of "Crash" found a Greenpeace leaflet stuck to the windscreen of her family's SUV -
a BMW X5 last year and soon afterwards she traded in the Chelsea Tractor for a rather more fuel efficient Toyota Prius - a hybrid with an engine that switches from petrol to electric power to get better
mileage.
Writing to suggest they think about doing the same, her high-profile mailing list included music stars Madonna, Justin Timberlake and Chris Martin, Hollywood actors Jack Nicholson, Meg Ryan and
Kevin Costner, footballers Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, the tennis player Anna Kournikova and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
Unfortunately, Thandie's recipe for slowing global warming seems to have failed to impress Oliver. He told The Times at the GQ Man of the Year awards: "I absolutely love mine - they're actually perfect
for driving in London. I don't know why everyone goes on about them".
I suspect that we won't be seeing a return to eco-friendly scooter power anytime soon!
Comment: 08 September 2006
Autumn Savers and Deals from Survival Skills
The summer has rapidly passing into autumn, but the long range forecast is still for a good few weeks of decent riding weather left to us in the year. So now is an excellent time to learn some new
skills that you can think about and practice on nice days over the winter, ready to roll out come the new riding season next spring.
For a strictly limited time, we're offering a special deal with big discounts available on ALL TRAINING COURSES* to be taken on September and October in Kent and Oxford.
Confirm your booking with a deposit cheque by 30 October and you'll get the following great savings:
- £10 OFF the normal price of a ONE day course and £20 OFF a two
day course. Opt for the three day course you'll save £30!
- A £5 per day discount applies to the second person our "bring a friend or partner" deal, so you could save as much as £45 per course!
e-Mail us NOW for full terms and conditions.
* excluding Assessments and training in France
Comment: 08 September 2006
Bikes - the green alternative?
I was having a chat with a friend just recently and the conversation turned to bikes as the green alternative. Coincidentally, I'd just been reading a piece on the same subject in
"The Road", the Motorcycle Action Group magazine that I contribute to.
Anyway, the point is that she came up with a line that went something like: "of course, bikes are greener than cars", and proceded to point out that the motorcycle industry is keen on
telling government just this.
The problem is that it isn't true.
Whilst there's been no discernable urgency from the car industry to start thinking about the twin problems of global warming and dwindling oil reserves, they have been aware for some time that a
few people do buy cars based on environmental grounds, and have been producing models to cater for this market.
It's probably true to say that most people equate "green" with low fuel consumption rather than the amount of the car that is built of
recycled materials and is in turn likely to be recycled, and it's also true that there's a lot more of a car than the average motorcycle, which does lend apparent weight to the two wheeler's green
credentials.
But bikes could and should be far greener than they are. For every rider commuting on a four stroke scooter doing 100mpg, there's another doing the ride on a bike that is struggling to hit 40mpg.
And what is the motorcycle industry doing about the problem?
Apparently nothing. That's the difference. If I want to do my bit to save the planet by driving a sensible car with good green crendentials, then I can. They are out there.
Meanwhile the bike industry is more concerned with building gargantuan creations with engines the size of which would be better off in a trawler, or guided missles with engines that produce
so much power you can't even open it right up in first gear and stay under the legal speed limit.
And it's not just the bike manufacturers. 60% of the manufacturing cost of a tyre relates to the petro-chemical component of the raw material. But what are bike tyre manufacturers doing? Are they
searching for ways of extending life of their tyres, or reducing the rolling resistance and upping your miles per gallon figure?
Nope, every year seems to see another new high performance tyre with another low point in terms of tyre life.
We don't need two litre bike engines. We don't need 200mph hour machinery. We don't need tyres that wear out in a weekend.
What we do need are fuel efficent middleweights that still give a decent turn of performance. I'm not going to ride a C90 just because I can get 120mpg out of it and forego any fun on a bike.
What I want is something around 500/600cc that does 120/130mph AND does 75mpg.
Given the technological advances that have produced the current crop of MotoGP bikes, it really shouldn't be much of a challenge
15 years ago, I owned a 1990 Yamaha FZ750. It had a top speed of just on 150mph, it would regularly return 55mpg and with a slightly restrained right hand 60mpg wasn't impossible. It ran on
Michelin radial tyres and did around 12,000 miles to a rear, tyres which were good enough for me to get my knee down with.
Currently I run a 2002 Hornet 600. It has a top speed of around 140mph, it will just about do 55 to the gallon if I am really careful, and will drop down into the high 30s if I push it. Fitted with the
latest sports rubber, 3,000 miles from a rear would be good.
And that's progress?
Comment: 25 August 2006
Last chance for evening assessments
August Bank Holiday is just around the corner, and already the nights have been drawing in quite dramatically. So it's the last call for evening assessments and evening training.
Evening training courses run from 6pm to around 8pm for the next two weeks.
Evening assessments are also available 6pm - 9pm. You'll get a written assignment sent to you beforehand and the session itself will consist of a 90 minute ride over a wide variety of traffic
situations and road conditions, with a 15 minute commentary ride by your's truly in the middle. We'll finish with a full debrief on your ride, using video footage of yourself riding. At the end of the
session, you'll either be given (or mailed) a written summary of your riding, plus a CDROM with approximately 40 minutes of video clips of you riding.
Comment: 11 August 2006
Silly season in full flow
It's August, everyone is on holiday, the sun is shining (sort of) and out come the daft ideas and even dafter articles. Welcome to the Silly Season!
Comment: 11 August 2006
Intelligent Speed Adaptation bike puts brakes on speeding riders
First up this week is the news that the speed control system trailled some years ago on cars (there's an article in the archive on this site!) has now made it to a bike.
The plan as revealed by Roads minister Stephen Ladyman using GPS technology to reduce the speed of the bike. A GPS receiver locates the machine and combines with mapping data which
includes the speed limit to determine whether the rider is speeding or not.
A Bluetooth system will sound two warning beep in the rider's helmet before the saddle starts to vibrate when they reach 5mph over the limit. If the rider doesn't slow down the system will retard
the throttle to slow the motorcycle down until it is at or below the speed limit.
The system can of course be used in cars, and there has been some speculation that the system is the first step in government plans to force car makers to fit variable limiters. It was developed
at the Motor Industry Research Association with funding from the Department for Transport.
The Intelligent Speed Adaptation bike has been test ridden under controlled conditions but riders have condemned the system as potentially dangerous.
The Transport Department last week insisted Mr Ladyman is unlikely to make the ISA bike compulsory.
There's a fair chance it will prove unworkable too, at least until GPS technology is rather more accurate than it is today. The UK Government seems to have shelved a plan to tax foreign lorries on
motorways using GPS because of the lack of accuracy (a German trial system was taxing lorries running on parallel main roads) and a loss of signal caused by trees and buildings which only gets worse
the further north you go.
Whilst it would almost certainly prove easy to fit to modern bikes with their 'fly by wire' throttles, fuel injection and electronic rev
limiters, retro-fitting to existing bikes would be near-impossible too.
None of this has stopped Motorcycle News running it as a scare story and launching a petition, however.
Comment: 11 August 2006
Bikes destroy top policeman's weekend peace
Meanwhile, North Wales Police Deputy Chief Constable Clive Wolfendale has called for motorcycles to be banned from national parks in his online blog.
Reopening the debate started in 2001 when the then Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, argued for a ban on motorcyclists
entering National parks and Areas of Outstanding Natual Beauty, Wolfendale complained that when he went to the Lake District for the weekend he was interrupted by the "inescapable whine of
motorcycles" and attacked the "grand prix ambience".
He added that motorcycles: "seemed wholly incompatible with the otherwise pristine scen" and noted that: "In Germany, some states
have banned the use of motorcycles at the weekend in certain areas. Is it now time to banish motorcycles completely from our National Parks?"
The BBC reports that bikers in north Wales are meeting to discuss their reaction to a senior policeman's suggestion to ban motorcycles from national parks.
The North Wales Motorcycle Alliance said its members would not take deputy chief constable Clive Wolfendale's comments "lying
down" and reported its phone lines had been "red hot" ever since.
The British Motorcyclists' Federation (BMF) claimed Mr Wolfendale's comments breached the police code of conduct and have written to the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to
complain.
A statement on its website said: "Mr Wolfendale's web log... contained a number of remarks that appear to conflict with the police code of conduct, i.e. 'Police officers have a particular
responsibility to act with fairness and impartiality in all their dealings with the public and their colleagues'.
"In what is obviously a personal blog, the BMF have asked if it is appropriate that the North Wales Police budget is used to fund the publication of a senior officer's personal opinions when Mr
Wolfendale's comments on motorcycles in national parks appear to be far from impartial."
Comment: 11 August 2006
Anger Management and riding
I've just spent the best part of a day writing possibly the most difficult article for the Riding Skills section that I've ever decided to put together. The subject is Anger Management, something that
gets mentioned from time to time on Visordown, and something that I've had to come to terms with, not always entirely successfully, myself.
I did some research on Google, starting obviously enough by searching for other articles on road rage. It turns out that there are quite a few out there. I think what surprised me most was the
tone taken by some of the articles as if anger management is for other people, and that there was little real help on what to do if you suffer from it. Most of the cures were of the "take a deep
breath" kind.
Virtually nothing was made of the fact that what sets road rage off is stress and surprise. So I did a bit of research on how the brain functions under stress. It makes interesting reading, and debunks
the idea that "road rage is just for other people" - the inherent responses are in all of us - the primitive animal is just below a thin crust of civilisation.
The best cure for road rage in others is not to annoy them by using "stealth biking" techniques and slipping almost invisibly past them. The best cure for road rage in yourself is not to put yourself in a
position where you are stressed and subject to surprises.
Comment: 28 July 2006
Devon dates, heatwave abates
The forecast for the early part of August is for slightly more unsettled weather to move from the Atlantic, which, I have to admit, isn't such a bad thing. After the last two weeks of
sweltering heat, I'm more than ready for the odd shower, and so is the garden. The bike could do with a clean too.
Due to a family bereavement, the original dates for the "Tour" in Devon were cancelled back in July, but I'm taking a few days holiday down that way and will be available from Thursday 3
August until Friday 11 August, including the weekend of the 5/6, for last minute bookings down there.
There are some great roads, so if you're based in the South West why not get in touch and see if I'm available? Take a look at the forecast on Metcheck.com to see what the weather will be like!
After that, it's back to the normal round of training in Kent and Oxford, with the option of taking trips to France - I have another weekend's training planned for the Pas de Calais later this year -
why not join us over there and enjoy riding empty, good condition roads?
Comment: 28 July 2006
Disintigrating roads
Temperatures in the UK got to high 20s and even into the mid 30s this month - and just as predictable as a country as damp as the UK running out of water are the disintigrating and melting roads.
Subsidence in dry weather is undoubtedly a problem and the local B road seems to have suffered from such a problem as a massive hole appeared in it around three weeks ago, quite possibly connected
with the water main that has been bursting up and down the hill for 20 years now. As soon as they fix one hole, another appears. Why not just rip the main out and replace the whole thing? At one point
last week, we had three holes and three sets of temporary traffic lights in two miles.
The council did a proper resurfacinig job on a mile or so of that road about three years ago. The first utilities hole appeared less than two weeks later. We're still driving round the bumps that the
backfill created even now. Surely the utilities should get the surface back to the same standard as the original surface, not just get away with an elastoplast patch.
And when the road does fall apart, why does it take so long to mend? They managed to rebuild San Francisco after the earthquake a few years ago in a matter of months. We get a hole
3m long by 2m across in our local road and three weeks later it's STILL not filled in and we're still having to queue to get round it. No wonder traffic jams are set to rise across the nation.
The Charing - Canterbury road has been falling apart for the best part of three years now, to the point where the temporary "slippery road" signs are now such a permanent fixture that the
council have to clean them from time to time. The result of the worn-out state of the last tar and gravel exercise was two shiny black wheel tracks with some occasional bits with chips still stuck
to the old, properly laid surface.
The spate of hot weather seemed to be the cue for the county to "fix" it with another dose of the budget stone chips on tar approach. Unfortunately, they made a complete hash of it.
The tar went down in ripples and the result was a boneshaker of a ride even on four relatively softly sprung wheels - I'm just glad I didn't come round the corner and hit that at speed on the bike
because with the lose chippings also covering the surface, it would have been a recipe for a tank slapper.
It was so bad it made the evening news, I'm told, and it seems that they had to go out and fix it quickly as they were getting so many complaints.
So, for a couple of days, there was a reasonably grippy, if rough, surface.
Then the heatwave arrived. Two weeks later, the road is worse than ever. The tar has melted, the traffic on the road has torn the chips out of the wheel-tracks again, and we are left with two
broad, shiny, black ribbons or tar. Only this time of course, they haven't cleaned up the loose chippings properly and the bit that you could once ride on in reasonable safety is now like shifting sand.
The mind boggles that our roads are so bad. France has the same weather and though some of the surfaces do suffer, in general, the state of their roads is far, far better. And they have a much bigger
country too. So why are our roads in such a terrible state?
I'd be more than interested to see if the road surface has any connection with bike accidents in Kent. But of course, it's easier to blame speed isn't it - "the rider was riding too fast for the
conditions."
Comment: 14 July 2006
Summer arrives with a bang
I'm writing this a couple of days late and hot weather has settled in over the UK and temperatures have soared way into the 30's and are forecast to stay there or thereabouts for at least another week.
The temptation in hot weather is to strip off and do what a number of riders I've seen doing which is riding in teeshirt and shorts, but I
really would say, however hot you feel, don't do it. It's not worth the risk.
There are some things you can do to stay cool-ish. An obvious solution is ride early or late and in particular avoid the early to late afternoon when temperatures peak. And though it may seem
obvious, make sure you've removed your removal thermal lining! If you can afford it, some "air mesh" style kit will help enormously.
If you do have to ride through the heat of the day, dehydration is a serious problem in really hot weather. As you're constantly riding in your own breeze, sweat is evaporating much more quickly that if
you are just sitting in the shade. If you wait till you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated. Avoid alcohol and coffee - they are both diuretics and will add to dehydration problems.
If you are travelling long distance, isotonic drinks will maintain your electrolyte balance - for example, Lucozade Sport in the UK (Gatorade is an American equivalent). The problem with Lucozade
and the other sport drinks over here is they are bloody expensive. You can get a solid mix tub from cycling shops which you make up with water which is a lot cheaper. A Camelbak style water bladder
is a good investment - you can get cheaper copies or the more expensive original from cycling shops. But good old water is cheaper.
There's some good advice around about avoiding big, hot meals. If you must have one of those, make sure you have a good rest before resuming riding - digesting your dinner diverts blood away
from the brain, resulting in the usual drowsy, dopy post Sunday Roast feeling.
Don't underestimate the effects of tiredness either - if you start to feel sleepy, STOP IMMEDIATELY! Don't try to drive through it - research has shown you are within 20 minutes of being affected by
micro-sleep - where drivers doze off at the wheel and snap awake 10 secs later. Take a good break, at least 20 mins long.
There's more advice in the Riding Skills section.
Comment: 14 July 2006
That Indefinable Gloss
A melange of threads on Visordown and a resurrected topic originally posted by Malcolm Palmer of Cooper Bike Training has got me thinking over the last couple of days.
The first question was "Will I ever improve?". It was something of a lament that a rider's improvement had plateaued, and the feedback given after the observed rides wasn't really any different ride on
ride. And he knew there was more to learn, but he didn't know where to go to resume his development.
The second issue was a statement by a rider that after practicing riding without using the brakes that they felt they'd learned a lot about machine control and that they felt smoother.
The two topics led backwards to an earlier idea that whilst a rider seeking to improve their riding is aiming to achieve a higher level of
skill, there is somehow an "indefinable gloss" to a really good rider.
So I got to thinking around the subject.
The first rider extended his question:
"Is this kind of normal - learning a bit, levelling off for a while, learning a bit more, levelling off even more etc or am I right in thinking I'll just never be better than I am now?"
Naturally, there's a plateau-ing effect as you get better, simply because you've got the basics in place, then you add the middling bits, and so on... each new development of your riding is less
"new" than refinement so the effect is less noticable - but there is also a cyclic effect as you pass through the stagesof development as a rider:
UNCONCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
Initially, you simply aren't aware of the hazard - you don't realise a situation coming up is dangerous. This is the '16er on a scoot'
syndrome - not enough experience and not enough of a questioning nature to even see something as potentially dangerous, so when it goes wrong, it's a complete surprise and comes out of the blue.
CONCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
After a time, you learn to that you don't know how to deal with a problem. Perhaps you know about the hazard but don't recognise it
developing, or you might even recognise the hazard but don't know what to do about it. Riders who experience SMIDSY accidents or who constantly run wide in corners tend to fall into this category.
You haven't yet learned to recognise the clues that give early warning of a dodgy situation - this is pretty much the level of the theory test. You basically rely on keeping your speed low enough
to deal with the problem - or crash!
CONCIOUS COMPETENCE
At the third level, you've learned the hazards and you've learned the correct responses so that you can take action in time, but you
have to use "active searching" - in other words you concentrate all the time to actually watch what people are doing to make sure that you come up with the correct solution. This is more or less the
stage that a DSA test pass will take you to - it'll keep you out of trouble but you have to keep working hard all the time you are on the bike. With a bit more practice and confidence in your machine
control to get you out of trouble, many riders begin to get a gut feeling something is wrong but don't know exactly what till the
situation develops. This is the "spidy sense" thing I've talked about before. They don't know why they're worried but they slow down
and start actively looking, so they spot the hazard developing before they get caught up in the middle of it. They've instinctively learned the clues but haven't jumped to the next stage of working
out exactly what the problem is in an analytical fashion. It's a pretty good state but not the best you can achieve.
UNCONCIOUS COMPETENCE
The fourth level and the one to aim for is where you analyse and read the road by looking at your riding and how other people drive,
so that you fully understand how problems develop, why they happen, and have pre-planned responses to deal them. And you do this so early that you react to the potential problem before the
other drivers even begin to do what you know they will do. What you are doing is training yourself to react to the clues to the potential problem - as opposed to reacting to the hazard. See
the difference? You subconciously read the way the traffic moves, analyse the view into a junction, work out the angle of the bend. The clues trigger an entirely controlled and concious reaction and
in each case a plan for the worst case scenario, so you have checked your mirrors, planned your escape route and scanned the braking/steering surface ready to react well before you might have
to put your plan into action. And if things don't get complicated in the way you fear - well, that's a bonus.
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unconcious competence
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unconcious incompetence
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The problem with "active searching" in the Concious Competence stage is that it is concentration-intensive and you simply can't keep it up for long. It might work for a short commute or 10
minutes of fast bend surfing, but you'll burn out in double quick time - and then you slip back towards the second level!
This is why it's so important to make the jump to the forth stage.
So, how do you do it? In short, you need to teach your eyes and brain to react to visual (usually) stimuli and "fire up" the concious
decision making part of the brain from its "idling" state.
We can take advantage of the fact the brain is good at pattern recognition, and go out and practice looking for clues to hazards - for instance, for junctions we would be looking for junction warning
signs, white paint at the side of the road, breaks in the lines of buildings, parked cars or hedges or even a car turning in or out. All this has to be done using concious practice - but once learned and
practiced, it very quickly becomes second nature and an entirely unconcious function of your brain.
What we want to avoid is teaching ourselves just to look for the car that is pulling out and responding to that, because by that time, rather than being able to respond early and proactively to a
problem, you're responding late and reactively. And if we respond early, we'll have time to consider whether we are taking the right action.
Back to the cyclic development - the key point is that it is cyclic - you get to the top level of Unconcious Competence but there will
be something new to learn that you don't yet know about - there are ideas and problems that I point out to people that they've never thought of and have never experienced - so from that point
of view they were at the bottom level. And sometimes I have a light-bulb moment too when I think "now why didn't I realise that before?"
If you want to continue to develop, the trick is to realise that the learning process doesn't end. However if you ride with the same people within the same system, and there's no new learning being
offered, you'll probably get bored with the experience and not push yourself to learn. Possibly you've reached the point where the trainer can't take you any further. At that point a change of
perspective may be the answer.
So where does the no-brakes game come in? Malc again:
"A 'good' rider might be applying good bend assessment, and using smooth cornering lines. But this can be done in a 'mechanical' way, or it can be done in a way that the
process just appears to 'happen' rather than being made to happen.
What I'm working to here is that the rider doesn't just react to the situation ahead, they use it to their advantage, and if that's not possible they 'blend' or 'flow' with it. In some
instances they will arrive at a situation at the optimum moment - perhaps as the lights change or the gap appears - at other times they may even 'manage' the situation to their advantage".
The usual argument for not using the brakes is that it forces you to look further ahead and is better machine control. A poor instructor will probably trot out the "showing a brake light meant you
misjudged your throttle sense" argument or the daft "riders who don't brake are faster than those who do" nonsense.
What I generally look for with a developing rider is to see if, where and how the brakes and throttle are applied and decide on practical machine control and safety criteria. Generally this means
being able to go with the flow, making smooth use of the brakes when upright, and having the throttle rolled on as the rider begins to lean into the turn.
But no two riders respond the same to a hazard and have different thresholds at which they start to worry - I wouldn't heavily criticise a rider for "comfort braking" on the approach to a corner if
it made them happy with their speed. Yes, it might signal a slight misjudgement, but so long as it is done before the bend, who is the judge of what isn necessary/unnecessary? I have to say it's the
rider with his hand on the brake, not whoever is behind. As a trainer I can think that I wouldn't have braked at that point but who is to know exactly what is going through the rider's mind?
Equally is any one technique "righter" than the others? Does engine braking work for every bike? Certainly not. Can you brake in a corner? You certainly can.
Simply arguing that being able to use throttle sense to adjust your speed to a corner rather than brakes is a better technique is far too simplistic and it might be argued that all we've done is one lap
of the "Competence Cycle" and feel satisfied with that, failing to progress by doing another lap and learning another range of skills. Just like I'd argue that a rider who rushes up to bends and bangs
the brakes on hasn't learned the early observation skills that allow smooth deceleration whether by throttle OR brakes.
And what about the guy who brakes smoothly INTO the bend? What are we looking for there? Slavish application of the "brakes
upright, throttle through the bend" rule? Argue it's a "technique not applicable on the road" even though the rider is clearly in perfect
control? I'm not talking about sudden, harsh or late braking, but well-controlled braking going into bends.
Ultimately if the rider is:
- entering at the right speed
- using a good line
- able to tighten the line in a decreasing radius corner
- understands the traction issues of braking and leaning and has some margin for error
- able to use the alternative techniques as well
then I can't see what the problem is. He's simply moved yet another lap further round the "Compentence Cycle" than the rider who can use acceleration sense AND brake positively in a straight line.
So if a rider who has previously been braking is converted to no-brakes and claims it makes his riding "smoother" then there is either something wrong with his braking skills so room to improve on
the brakes OR there is a fundamental lack of appreciation of the "Competence Cycle" and the continuing upward development by the trainee.
It's easy enough to recognise errors when you are better than the rider under observation, but what you inevitably do is recognise that 'error" within your own frame of reference. If the rider under
instruction is better than the trainer, then you have a problem.
Asking "why did they do that" is a question the trainer may not be able to answer. But - just because I can't answer why the rider ahead of me is doing something, doesn't automatically mean it's wrong.
Without being too big-headed, I know from my own experience with other trainers that I've been doing stuff they simply haven't known how to interprete because their own frame of reference didn't
match mine. I remember being told that I wasn't keeping far enough left to improve my view round a right hand bend, and pointed out the reason as being three blind driveways in the corner
. I was greeted by a blank look. The guy who was assessing me simply didn't see those as hazards in the same way that I did. My frame of reference was different to his.
Another rider following me criticised me for not holding a constant speed on a dual carriageway. What he didn't realise was that I was minimising the time I spent alongside long vehicles by gently
accelerating past them, then using the slight deceleration and longer pause between hazards to assess what to do next. As there was nothing behind me (except the observing rider) there was no
hazard in this.
So Malc suggested a fifth, offshoot to the cycle:
"Consciously Unconscious Competence
You can 'just do', but also you're aware and able to 'break down' what you do. 'Task analysis' sort of thing".
This is the layer that allows you to be effective as a trainer - the ability to perform effective reflective thinking.
So, back to the "indefinable gloss". Once you've got the "autorecognition" mentioned above working, that's when the
"effortless flow" of riding becomes evident, not only to yourself but to other people watching you. How would an ordinary rider see Unconcious Competence?
One suggestion was that a rider would demonstrate it by "allowing for other road users in a way they never realised". That's what I've said before about the best couriers. You just don't notice they are
there. They don't impact on other road users and they are always ready when someone else does something that would impact on them. Another comment was that such riders are "at one with their
bikes and display complete confidence. Watching them ride is like poetry in motion, right position for every situation. Even at high speed their riding appears to be effortless, every bend assessed
correctly every overtake executed with perfection".
But would an ordinary rider understand it? Chances are they wouldn't see the extra observations or the often very subtle changes of speed and position that give a clue to the way the rider
is thinking, and if they did see them, they wouldn't know why.
Given a trainee who is a better rider than I am, as an instructor I'm no different to that ordinary rider watching someone he realises is more competent. If I can't apply the task analysis coming from
Conciously Unconcious Compentence to understand why a rider in front of me is doing something, then it's time to admit I can't take the rider any further and encourage them to find someone who can.
Comment: 30 June 2006
Survival Skills in Yorkshire
The eagle-eyed might have noticed that the update is a week overdue, sadly caused by a family bereavement.
Anyhow, I'm now playing catch-up with the back-log of mails, CDROM orders, videos of trainees and all the other things that got put on the back burner for a couple of weeks, so apologies if things
didn't get seen to as promptly as usual.
In the midst of it all, the Yorkshire "tour" dates happened to fall. I did consider cancelling the event but in the end went ahead with it as a bit of a distraction as much as anything, plus of course I
didn't want to let the people who taken time off work to book the training. I did refuse a late booking for the Monday and Tuesday though.
So on Thursday 22 June, I set off on the long haul from Oxford to Skipton, my usual location for the event in Grassington being booked solid by the time of my last minute decision to go.
Compared with the pub in Grassington, the inn in Skipton was a bit uninspired, providing a dull "continental breakfast buffet" and wanting you out the room by 10am - I'm barely awake by then!
The weather for the event was something else too - 13C on Thursday whilst we were out training and very windy. I was wishing I'd taken my heated waistcoat. Whilst the roads were damp in
patches we didn't get any real rain, but it was far too blowy to use the high roads, confining us to the fairly dull valleys for the first day. On Friday, the wind had dropped and for the next two days,
we were able to use the high roads as usual but it was still cold and the sun was largely absent.
As usual, it was good to meet some new faces up there, though a bit of a shame the usual rideout on the Sunday didn't happen as I headed back south that day, and some nice words have been said
about the training.
Comment: 30 June 2006
Faster cornering with RiDE or better cornering with Survival
Skills?
I picked up the recent RiDE magazine promising 20 pages on "cornering faster" the other day. Despite a good look I could only find a couple of pages on cornering technique and a load of bumph
on accessories and tweaking the bike.
The thing is that the best bolt-on accessory on your bike is the you, the rider, and the best tweaks you can do are to your own skills. A good rider can still corner well on a wallowing hippo of a
machine whilst all the bling in the world won't turn an incompetent owner into Valentino Rossi. It's your lines that make a corner safe, and it's only when you know you are safe you can even attempt to
add speed.
The article wasn't attributed to any particular author that I could see (but to be honest I didn't look that hard) but spent a lot of time talking about finding the apex. The problem is that the apex
just isn't important on the road, indeed it's barely relevant to road riding - it's where you exit the corner for the next hazard that controls your line all the way through the turn.
Along with an over-emphasis on the mid-turn vanishing (or limit) point, worrying about the apex is a red herring, and both are potentially dangerous distractions.
It's not by coincidence that the much-derided line taught on basic training keeps you more or less midway between kerb and white centre line all the way through the turn - so long as you can steer
the bike and are going at a sensible speed, by using this line you can deal with the biker's nightmare, a decreasing radius turn, because following the middle of the lane line will ALWAYS get you
round the most awkward of bends, simply because by the time you get to the exit, you'll STILL be in the middle of the lane.
By contrast, a rider who has apexed the bend too early will struggle to get round a simple constant radius turn, even if he went in at a reasonable speed, simply because having turned early,
he'll apex early and he'll run out of road before the end of the bend. If, as is usually the case, the rider has used the line to carry more speed, then he's going to have to turn hard and lean a long
way to get out of trouble. Unfortunately, riders often don't make it - it's just about the most common single vehicle accident, and frequently has serious consequences for riders.
So you want a quick and simple solution that doesn't take 20 pages to read about (or for me to write, for that matter)? Here goes.
Set yourself up as normal, near the white line for a left hander, near the kerb for a right hander. If there is no dangers, hold that wide line and simply follow it around the bend until you see where
the road goes next.
And I do mean SEE! Don't operate on guesswork where the clues suggest the road might go or where the vanishing points makes you think the road ought to go, but stay where you are until you
genuinely see the way out of the turn. Don't turn in, don't tighten the line, just stay wide and look for the point where you can either see the next hazard and have to steer to deal with that, or where
you can see the next straight and where you will be able to get the power on and accelerate.
When and and ONLY WHEN you see the exit, should you dip your shoulder, add some extra countersteering and tighten your line across the lane to get there.
Try it. Drop your speed down a bit to give yourself time to see and think, and try staying wide in a corner, and simply looking for the point at which the view out of the bend opens up. Did I mention
the apex? Nope, thought not.
There, now that took a couple of hundred words, but I suppose shouting:
"1/4 page cornering article
improve your riding in 300 words"
on the front cover isn't going to get riders buying the magazine is it?
For that matter, "better" cornering doesn't sell magazines as well as "faster" cornering and I guess the emphasis on bike bolt-ons keeps the advertisers happy.
Comment: 09 June 2006
Monsoons and Heatwaves, Rest and Recreation
Back when I was a kid, summers seemed endless. As I get older, it's winters that seem endless, and certainly this spring was later than usual, as told by the profusion of spring flowers overlapping
into summer - the bluebells haven't long finished, the last of the hawthorn is withering and there is still red campion a-plenty flowering in the garden, and we're almost at mid-June!
The temperatures struggled to haul themselves past the low teens in May (the central heating has been on as recently as 10 days ago), and I've been putting off garage maintenance work until I have to.
After the torrential rain in Wales and Oxford, I was hoping that my weekend's training up in Bury St Edmunds would fare better, especially as I was camping for a change. Oh no. Whilst we got
away with riding in reasonably dry weather over the two days, it rained hard both nights (the tent did well - only a couple of damp patches) and was incredibly windy on the Sunday - the gales must
have been ordered specially for the nearby kite festival.
However, the real rain was reserved for the ride back. I managed to get the twisty bit out of the way but the rain came hammering down as soon as I hit the A12, and from there until about 5 miles
short of Maidstone it was unrelenting.
So what happens next? A heatwave! As soon as I reach Oxford on Wednesday last week for another couple of days training up there, the temperature goes through the roof and we have blazing sun.
After eleven days training on the trot, I treated myself to a couple of days R&R on the Saturday and Sunday - this update is actually
a little late being written because of my time off - and went riding in sweltering temperatures with a buddy of mine.
Keith and I did a nice 275 ride out to the Welsh borders and back to Oxford on the Saturday. It was one of those rides that makes me wonder if riders actually have maps with anything other than
trunk routes marked on them. We did some terrific roads and except on one stretch of main A road (with Gatsos and mobile camera sites every couple of miles) where we passed one group
and several pairs of bikes out riding, we saw hardly saw any other bikes anywhere.
Perhaps I should start a sideline in biking routes!
Our 275 mile route took us out to Montgomery via Clee Hill and back via Hay-on-Wye and aside from hopping on the M50 on the way back because we were running a bit late, it was mostly B and
a few quiet A roads, with the occasional unclassified for luck. I particularly enjoyed the stretch of A463 out of Newtown to Llanbister that I did with Bonners and Rainy on a two day course
last year. It offers some challenging bends and most of it is immaculately surfaced.
One interesting moment - we got tagged by what was almost certainly an unmarked police bike between Craven Arms and Church Stoke. I spotted him in my mirrors closing up rapidly behind Keith on
a lovely quick bit of road. The give-away was that he caught us up very fast indeed then settled in behind to follow. He was far too smooth in his riding, followed at a good distance and measured his
overtakes, not rushing through into the same overtakes Keith took.
I just took the overtakes that presented themselves as normal, and dropped the speed back to 60 when completed as per GPS... As soon as we dropped the speed to 30 for the limit at Church Stoke,
he dropped out of sight again - he certainly never rode up to the junction we turned at. I spotted an unmarked bike pulled up with some bikers in the same general area when I was up there training
earlier this year... same one perhaps? I can't remember what the bike was but the one in the mirror might have been a Rockster or something similar.
Being gluttons for punishment, we headed off on the rather shorter trip to Castle Combe on the Sunday, to catch the second day of the Superside world championships. Those of us with longer
memories will remember when they were called sidecars (I'm NOT old enough to be comfortable with motorcycle combination, thank you!) and raced with the solo GP series. But these unlovely cousins
were eased none too ceremoniously out the door some years ago and have established their own niche championship.
There was a supporting cast of races from the ACU Star championship, and the sun beat down all day on some great racing, but I think we spent almost as much on bottled water as we did on
the admission charges. We could have done with a bit of sun cream too.
All in all, a good weekend and a long time since I've ridden the bike just for fun.
Comment: 09 June 2006
Tyres and tribulations
One thing that did become critical a couple of weeks back was a new set of tyres for the Hornet. I've been using the original fitment Michelin HiSports until now, as I was quite happy with their level of
grip and general stability, but they've become more difficult to find. One thing that I did want was their longevity, although I still don't
think 7,000 miles counts as a touring tyre. At the risk of saying "I remember the days...", I do recall when a Michelin 59 radial lasted 18,000 miles. Now THAT is a touring tyre! The HiSports have also
been reasonably priced at around £140 via mail order.
So, as I couldn't get hold of any HiSports when I wanted them, I'm trying a new fitment - Continental's ContiForce radials. These have been around a few years now and as is the way of these things,
shuffled down the leaderboard by the newer ContiRoad and ContiSport Attacks, tyres that are fitted to the 2006 range of BMWs. However, I seemed to remember that the ContiForce didn't
do too badly in some magazine tyre tests, and a quick hunt round the net showed a few people had fitted them and rated them decently. And they are available at just £120 a pair! So on a pair went.
Due to work commitments, the rear was fitted just in time for the Suffolk trip and felt good and reassuring in the wet, although I did have one spin-up moment under acceleration - it may have been a
bit of slippery surface as it hasn't happened since. The front went on ten days or so later and so far hasn't seen a wet road. So a report will be delayed until I've used it in the rain.
So far, stability and grip seem impressive - if anything, the steering is a bit more positive than the HiSports and definitely more reassuring than the MEZ4s that I fitted last year. And with around
2000 miles wear on the rear, there is negligable flattening off yet.
Getting the front fitted proved a bit of a nightmare. I got the wheel off the bike the previous evening after training, then took the loose wheel and tyre, along with the front off the CB250RS along to my
local tyre fitter first thing next day.
They don't supply Continentals or the HiSports, so I've been buying them mail order and paying the £10 per wheel fitting charge. So I handed over the RS wheel to have the pre-ordered Pirelli City
Demon fitted. Ten minutes later they found it, and popped it on the rim. Another ten minute pause. "We haven't got a tube, but we can order one". Cue raised eyebrows from me. Slight pause.
"What's wrong with the old tube?". "It's flat, or didn't you notice?" "Oh."
At this point, I elected to take the half-fitted tyre, get a tube and finish the job myself. Not something I particularly wanted to do, but it was quicker than waiting for them to sort it out.
So, next up is the Hornet front wheel, and whilst that's being sorted, I head in to pay for the Pirelli. I suggest they might like to waive the tenner fitting charge, given that they a) haven't got a
tube b) over-charged me the last time I was in for a wheel balance that wasn't actually done. Seemed reasonable to me, anyway.
Next the bloke behind the counter asks me what price the Pirelli is. I'm wondering why they don't know themselves, and mention that it is £40 on their price list online, to which he says "Oh we don't
charge the same price as on the internet". Well, I've been using them for years and that's the first I've heard of that policy. Anyway, out comes the calculator and a few buttons later, he says
"that'll be £55."
Oh no it won't.
I refused to pay that much for it, particularly as the tyre is available at £36 on the web elsewhere. I don't know where he'd got the extra £15 from over their online pricelist, bearing in mind
that fitting is free if you buy the tyre from them, and they hadn't fitted the tube, but I guess he'd tried to "lose" the £10 fitting
charge for the Conti in the price for the Pirelli, and added a bit for luck. I was not amused, went back out to the bus, brought the part fitted tyre back in and told them to take it back. In the end, I
think he was so surprised he actually DID waive the fitting charge to the loose wheel. I've now got a Conti City on order instead, and I'll just get the tyre levers out myself.
Anyway, the drama didn't quite end there - I was now running seriously behind schedule and got back home with only 20 minutes to spare before the trainee arrived for the day's training. And of
course I had trouble getting the spindle through the wheel. I took it all out again, cleaned the old grease off, put new grease on and offered it up. This time it went in with no problem, but when I
tightened it up, the bike didn't want to move - the brakes were locked on.
Ho hum. Off it came again, and I reversed the spacers. This time as I tightened it up, it was clear that wasn't going to work either. Out a third time and this time I recheck the wheel rotation - yep,
it's the wrong way round. I was just persuading the spindle through the wheel for the third and final time when the trainee turned up, so we started a few minutes late.
Which wouldn't have been a problem had he not had a business meeting to go to immediately we finished. In an effort to save a few minutes, I pushed reserve tank a little too far right at the end
of the day, and 3 miles from base, reserve ran dry. Fortunately, I remembered the old despatcher trick of tipping the bike to one side
and there was just enough fuel in the tank to get to the next filling station and fill up.
All of which was much to the amusment of Mark the trainee - so thanks for being so patient on a day that wasn't as smooth as I like!
Comment: 26 May 2006
Watch out, there's a gendarme about
A fairly regular spring occurance is news released by the motoring organisations of the latest French crackdown aimed at driving down road casualties, but aside from a tendency to target (and tax!)
with regular speed traps British drivers heading into France on the peage away from Calais, it was quite possible to go from one end of France and the other and hardly see a policeman, let alone a
speed trap.
But after years of what have appeared to be false alerts or at least campaigns aimed mainly at the French themselves, latest news from the grapevine is that the net has been spread far wider. This
time they really do seem to be clamping down not only on the locals but also drink-driving and speeding by Brits abroad.
It would seem that on the routes away from the overnight ferries, drivers are being stopped and breathalysed, and routes back to the ports out of Le Mans were also subject to routine stops and checks.
Elswhere and deep into France, riders exceeding the speed limits and passing on solid lines have been pulled up and fined. One group of riders had six stops out of eight bikes. Expect an on-the-spot
fine of €90 for speeding and €90 for passing on a white line.
Reports are of marked and unmarked Subarus as well as tripod mounted lasers being used. Autoroutes and main N routes have always had speed traps but they seem to be moving onto the
faster stretches of D road too, particularly where they run between built-up areas.
You have been warned.
Comment: 26 May 2006
Do speed cameras really catch bad drivers?
Interestingly enough, according to the results of a research project just published, the more times you have been caught by a speed camera, the more likely you are to be involved in a crash.
The independent research project showed that 64% of motorists with points on their licence have been involved in a collision, compared with 42% who have no points.
The study, developed by Prof Stradling at the Transport Research Institute, Napier University, Edinburgh on behalf of eight Midlands' safety camera partnerships, also shows that 72% of drivers with
four or more points (for example, two seperate speeding convictions) on their licence have been in a crash.
The study also revealed that:
- 15% of men aged between 35 and 50 have received at least three speeding tickets
- only one third of drivers who had been involved in a road traffic collision said they drove more carefully after the crash. More worryingly another third said having a crash had absolutely no effect
on their driving afterwards
- economically active male drivers aged between 35 and 50 with larger car engines are most likely to activate a speed camera
Interestingly, the summary of the report concludes that although 35-50 year old males are most likely to get a ticket, it's not because they intended to speed:
- their knowledge of speed limits is hazy, often unaware of the national speed limit
- they are unable to identify a 30 or a 40 limit by means of streetlights
- they do more miles, and often in unfamiliar areas
The report also concludes that they are "more set in their ways" and have not adapted to speed cameras in the same way as younger drivers, hence the view that cameras are a cynical
revenue-gathering exercise is prevalent in this group.
By contrast, the 17-24 year old group have grown up with cameras, often drive in very limited areas that they know well, and know how to "play" the cameras.
The research also highlighted the problems of the negative response generated by flashing "accidental" offenders, as opposed to the groups identified as fast and reckless. The report states that this:
"...highlights the need to work with them rather than always against them. They need to understand the consequences of speeding (whether intentional or not) through effective
communications and thereby heighten their awareness of their speed.
These people are most likely to say they would drive more slowly if they knew what the speed limit was and so there is a need to increase and improve road signage to help them achieve this".
Indeed - something I have been saying for some considerable time. And not only to improve signage - but to make speed limits much more consistant.
Comment: 12 May 2006
Sun and Rain
The update is a little late, because on Friday last week, I was actually enjoying riding some excellent twisty roads in Wales, on what has become my annual pilgrimage to Montgomery. Due to a
bit of poor planning, I actually ended up in Wales on two successive weekends, with some training in Oxford mid-week.
The occasion for the first visit was the Welsh National Rally. I did this a couple of years ago and finished (puffs out chest) second overall. What this actually means is that I managed to read the
instructions correctly, join all the dots on the map, be reasonably good at quiots and darts, and answer more questions correctly on Welsh history than the locals managed.
I failed to get the entry in on time this year, so in the event, I was only riding the route for fun, and as a chance to enjoy the delights of chasing a Velocette LE around the mountain roads. Janet was
there with her Noddy Bike again, and overcame the problem of a blocked jet in the carb to get a Silver award, notching up just over 200 miles in around 9 hours. Out came the tools and in just a few
minutes, Janet had stripped the carb, blown the jets clear and reassembled it, and the bike performed faultlessly after that. She had intended to go for the full Platinum, but the tightness of the
schedule on a bike with a top speed of around 45mph meant that even the short delay whilst she stripped the carb meant that she could never make up the time lost to get to the last manned
control before it shut.
We were lucky with the weather, it was a relatively warm morning and it only went a bit downhill after lunch with a short period of fairly heavy rain and a "fizzle out" period. We took an interesting
selection of roads, including one gated road back to Bala which crossed some of the bleakest and most remote countryside you'll find in this country.
A few days later I was back for a couple of days training, and again, on what was actually a weekend of not particularly good weather, the weather genie worked wonders allowing nearly all the
training we did to take place on dry roads, right up until the moment I was due to leave to return to Kent on the Saturday evening. And then the heavens opened. The rain was torrential at
times, with flooded roads commonplace on the way back to Oxford. Insult was added to injury when the roads finally dried out about 10 miles from my destination and I squelched up to the house to
find they'd hardly had any rain at all.
I was also caught in a massive thunderstorm on Wednesday last, too, in the Newbury and Didcot area. The roads were awash with a foot of water in places, but because it was rush hour, was anyone
slowing down? Nope? Again, back in Oxford they'd had a few rumbles of thunder but no rain.
At least the cheapie new waterproofs (bought to replace the ageing and now leaking HG Splash kit I've had for 5 years) worked fine! The boots were a different matter, they're not supposed to be
waterproof, but it would have helped had I packed a pair of waterproof socks as opposed to one sock and one knee warmer!
Comment: 12 May 2006
Philips MotoVision bulb test no-glow
I was hoping to have a bulb test for the site this month, utilizing the new Philips MotoVision bulbs. These are supposed to shine up to 40% more light down the road, and up to 20m further ahead,
whilst providing an "orange fringe" glow which is claimed to make bikes more visible. At £11 a shot, they're not exactly cheap though.
The blurb on the website says: "bikers are more vulnerable than other road users, lighting plays a prime role in ensuring optimal safety" and claims that these bulbs are a major leap in technology.
A point was made of the "thermal shock" proof quartz construction, meaning they won't shatter if they get wet. I'm surprised that quartz construction is an innovation - I seem to remember these
bulbs are generically called "quartz halogen" for a reason. And I'm not too sure why your headlight is likely to fill with water.
My initial reaction was that amber bulbs have been around for decades, and were compulsory in France for many years, albeit in a "non-dazzle" role. In fact the French have stopped using them, and
the "orange fringe" looks like the same effect as has been available for 10 years or more with the "bad weather" bulbs that give an
amber or blue glow, depending on where you stand and whether you are on dip or main.
I've had to fit an amber bulb when my headlight blew in France and also tried the blue/yellow "bad weather" bulbs and both are noticably more useless than a standard 60W white bulb. If you
restrict the output of the light to the low energy, long wavelength, red end of the spectrum, the bulb puts out less light for you to see where you are going, regardless of the 40% extra light claim. And
of course, this is the primary function of your headlight!
The problem with using the headlight as a day riding light is something the Transport and Road Research Laboratory explored back in the 70s - the focus of dip beam by its very design is
concentrated onto the tarmac ahead of the bike. That means it is invisible from the sides and almost invisible except by scatter from the front, unless of course the light is badly adjusted when the
dazzle caused by the light obscures the bike behind it. The TRRL came up with day riding lights that were fitted to police bikes in the late 70s and into the 80s which used a 21W bulb in what was
more or less a reversing light! The pattern was designed to be the exact opposite from a beam, and be diffuse and visible from as wide an angle as possible. Whatever clever things you do with the
bulb, the lens design isn't the greatest way of making yourself visible.
Quite frankly, a coloured LED in the pilot bulb hole of a conventional headlight would have the same effect of colouring the headlight, at less cost, infinitely longer life and without
compromising the beam thrown by the main bulb at night. If you must fit a bulb that gives a coloured "fringe" for daytime riding, then try Halfords all-weather bulbs - same sort of effect but much
cheaper!
And, of course, there is the danger that using passive visibility aids means we switch off from our primary defence, pro-active riding.
The 20 metre longer beam is dubious too, given that the beam shape is fixed by the shape and focus of the reflector. The diagram claiming to show the effect of the new bulb shows a bike on dip
beam, with the original dip extending only about four bike-lengths ahead of the bike. With the replacement bulb, there's an extra couple of bike lengths of light. Looks great, Unfortunately, the only
way you can get light thrown 20m further ahead on dip beam is by tipping the headlight up, which means potentially dazzling oncoming drivers.
Anyway, I was emailed by the supplier after I posted something to this effect on Visordown, and offered a set to test. No problems said I.
Unfortunately, the test set never materialised and after three weeks an email back to the supplier went unanswered. So it seems I'm crossed off the guest list! Perhaps they were worried that I'd
not be converted by them.
You can check out the link and decide for yourself: http://www.motorcycledealer.co.uk/motovision.htm
Comment: 12 May 2006
Spin eats tarmac shock!
Well, it had to happen... the last time I fell off a bike was in 94 or 95, in a "will she, won't she?" moment with a civilian employee
driving a police vehicle, weaving in and out of lanes... I guessed wrong, she weaved back in front of me, THEN saw me, THEN stopped - completely blocking the road on a bit of less than wonderful tarmac.
Anyway, the afternoon before setting off to Wales, I was out on the "new" CB250RS and thought... "mmmm, handling doesn't feel quite right, I wonder if the tyres are a bit flat?".
Of course, I shouldn't have wondered, I should have stopped and checked because half a mile later I slowed down to turn right at a crossroads in the middle of the no-where and the front tyre
deflated instantly mid-turn, the tyre rolled off the rim, then the tread delaminated!! When I picked the bike up, it was split and hanging off the carcass!
I stuck out a leg - I was only doing about 3mph at the time - but the front just kept going away, depositing your hero on his hands and knees in the middle of the road! At least the body armour in
the 'Stich worked and I didn't even have a bruise on my knees.
So, two lessons in one... if the bike feels a bit odd, don't just think about it, stop and check... and if the bike has a ancient-looking front tyre with a tube in it - change them both!!!
Comment: 28 April 2006
The Right (side of the road) Stuff
At last... the sun is out and shining, the warm air is bring out the insects and the flowers and the roads are dry. So a great time to run the first two France training courses of the year.
I've run training in France as well as Portugal and the Isle of Man in the past, but the huge drop in cross-channel charges brought about by the low fares offered by Norfolklines and Speed Ferries
means that training in France is now not only affordable, but actually no more expensive for me than getting to Oxford and back!
So what's the big deal about riding in France?
Quite simply, it's the quality, the variety and above all the emptiness of the roads. Unbeknownst to most people who blast past on the motorways, there are terrific, empty roads just a few
miles into France behind Calais that twist and climb over the chalk ridges leading inland from the coast north of Boulogne. There's every kind of road you can imagine, from fast sweepers to
sequences of hairpins climbing the scarp face.
If you are used to bouncing your way round the rutted cart tracks that pass for roads in Kent, and fighting with heavy traffic at virtually any time of the day, then you'll be amazed at the contrast
just 22 miles away across the channel. What really struck me when I headed back thru the twisties after driving off the train back in Kent is how utterly crap the road surfaces are here.
First up on Tuesday was with Barbara Alam who's done two day course with me in Wales last year and has ridden in Europe before, so we took the opportunity to do a refresher. We had a slight
problem due to making a last minute decision on which day to go to ensure the weather would be good, because the trains were booked up at the departure and return times of choice, so it meant
an early start and a bit of a dash to Folkestone. On our return, when we got back to the terminal it was awash with people who'd been away for Easter and were struggling to get through the
autocheck-in booths. Although we were there with the 30 mins to spare as directed, we got bumped down a couple of trains, so it was a bit of a longer day than planned.
On Saturday, it was the turn of Colin Anderson who was a complete novice as far as riding on the wrong side was concerned, so we took the first few miles nice and gently, before gradually
picking up the pace as the day went on. Again, the weather genie did the trick and there wasn't a cloud in the sky from our departure from Folkestone at 10am to our return to the UK at 6:30, and this
time we got on the trains booked with no problem. The final ride back from Ambleteuse along the coast to Sangatte in the early evening sun and crystal clear air was just magic.
On both days, to start, we had a briefing on riding on the right on the train, in particular an explanation of Priorite a droit and the clues to look for to avoid falling foul of it, and covered the usual
stuff for both courses that the trainees were doing over on the other side of the water. Both trainees had also had a comprehensive briefing note through email before we left.
One thing about the french Priorite a Droit system is that it's very unpredictable nature (at least to a Brit - there are some simple rules to follow to work out how to apply it) makes you really work
in looking for the signs and side turnings and responding to them, something that few UK riders really bother about when on a main road. The trick is to get out of the UK driving habit of following the
bloke ahead and ignoring anything that isn't in front of you.
On both courses, once over the other side, we took out into the countryside to enjoy the roads. I've planned a route that allows for a series of loops that allow the challenges to be matched to the
abilities of the trainees, as well as getting generally more complex during the course of the day. The final ride is a beautiful scenic
ride along the cliff tops looking down at the Channel. I'll put some video clips up on the website when I get a moment.
Our lunch stop is a bar in an almost-new LeClerc supermarket. After a decent hour long break and tasty snack lunch, we've time for a quick trip round the shop. If you only stocked up on printer
cartridges and flash cards, you'd save yourself enough to pay for your trip! I managed to pop a bottle of malt in the tailbox, at about a £6 saving over UK prices.
Oh... and the petrol is cheaper and seems to go further too... I normally hit reserve at around 115 on the Hornet. On Saturday, I didn't brim-fill it as I usually do (every miles counts when the tank
is that small), and it did just under 130 before starting to splutter!!! Nearly 10% extra mileage. Interesting.
I enjoyed myself so much that I've decided to make any date for Kent training available for a trip over the water. Can't wait for the next one over there.
Comment: 28 April 2006
Three wheels on my wagon
A prototype, three-wheeled car/bike has been demonstrated at the University of Bath. The tilting "Clever" (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) is around 1m wide and it's claimed it
could help solve city congestion.
The fully enclosed two seater is powered by natural gas and has a top speed of 100 km/h (60mph), and is the outcome of a 40-month project by researchers in nine European countries, funded to the
tune of £1.5m by the EU.
The idea is apparently to design a totally different kind of motor vehicle specifically designed for the urban environment. Naturally, the BBC immediately dragged the ill-fated and ill-conceived Sinclair
C5 out of the archive files, but as a tilting three wheeler, it's really neither car nor bike.
In an interview for the BBC website, Ben Drew, a research officer at the University of Bath, one of the institutions involved in the
project said: "The only solutions at the moment are motorbikes or cars. The idea is to try to marry the small size and efficiency of a motorcycle with the comfort and safety of a standard car."
"It costs less to run, is quieter and is less polluting," said Dr Jos Darling, a senior lecturer in charge of the Clever project at Bath University.
However, like most of these ideas, it's not that new. The leaning three wheeler thing was done by BSA in the late 60s with the Aerial and Honda in the 80s had one too with the Stream. However, both
these looked more like conventional scooters, with handlebars. The Ecomobile is a fully enclosed two wheeler.
Where this does appear to differ is in the use of a steering wheel, which is a more logical step than equipping the vehicle with handlebars, given that it won't countersteer, but would require a
turn of the bars in the direction of travel.
But... if these things are to fly without some serious legislation almost forcing people to use them for commuting, they somehow have to be style icon, affordable transport and rich boy's toy, all at
the same time.
And a 60mph natural gas powered three-wheeler seems like a serious dead-end to me. The leaning body/static wheels concept is still a leap of faith for anyone buying something like this,
particularly for those coming from a car to this. Witness the relative successes of the Smartcar and the BMW C1. People buy what they are familiar with.
So, it seems to me you have to sell it on conventional terms elsewhere. Great tho it may be to use a cleaner energy source etc etc, powering it with a fuel you can't buy at the petrol station
seems bonkers to me and to end up with a level of performance that is going to struggle in all but the slowest traffic seems bonkers to me.
Comment: 28 April 2006
I won't say I told you so...
...but I told you so. Check out the "How much power do you need?" article I wrote several years ago.
The June edition of RiDE magazine has a very interesting article on how much power four of their riders actually needed to ride their bikes round their test route. With the advantage of a data-logger
on their GSX-R600 they were able to get real figures.
Steve Rose lapped their 40 mile TT circuit, with (in his words) "the speedo barely dropping below 100mph" for an average speed of just over 60mph, and used an average of just 26.3hp on the ride.
He used a peak power of 72hp, some 30hp short of the maximum output of the bike and the average throttle opening was just 15% - he never got it more than half open.
The more legal-sounding 47.4mph averaged by Emma Franklin required just 11.1hp. Yep, you read that right - ELEVEN HORSEPOWER! That's what a CG125 makes. She used an average
of 10.4% throttle and a maximum of 39.4hp, or rather less than the output of a DAS trainee's 500.
Ed Tim Skelton lapped at 51mph, using an average of 13.5hp with a peak of 94hp. His average throttle opening was just 13.5%.
Only racer Kev Smith managed to get the throttle fully open and to hit 110hp whilst blasting his way round at an average speed of 65mph. Even he only used an average of 36hp with the average
revs only half way to the red line.
So what's this all about?
Basically what I have talked about before. Serious hp is only needed when you are accelerating, and with the sort of bike used here, even hard acceleration rarely explores full throttle and peak
revs at the same time, so you just don't ever got to use the maximum power output of the bike.
Think about it - with a typical 600 geared to hit around 70mph at the red line IN FIRST GEAR, it's pretty obvious that unless you are riding at extremely silly speeds, you can't get near peak power in
the higher gears. And in first gear, try to use full throttle and the front wheel will smack you in the forehead.
Four cylinders give a nice long rev range, but the need to to see the biggest figures on the spec sheet to sell the bike means that all the power is packed up the top end. 2hp more than last year's
model or the competition pulls in the punters. A more practical motor would have the peak power lower down, with a long "tail" so that the rider could use the "bump" of the torque curve, but 40
-80 overtaking times don't sell bikes.
Comment: 7 April 2006
Overtaking - lifesaver or not?
One of my least favourite expressions is "if I didn't overtake, I might as well be driving a car", as if a motorcycle is a licence to overtake. Personally, I believe that there's nothing more dangerous
that we do on a bike than overtaking.
So I tend to think that everything we do that decreases risk is a good idea.
So recently the discussion raged again - lifesaver or no lifesaver before pulling out to pass another vehicle? The crux of the argument is whether you can believe in what is sometimes called
'mirror history'. The idea is that if you check your mirrors often enough, you should know if there is anything in your blindspt and whether you need to look.
I'm afraid I don't really go with that - there are too many things that can go wrong, and so I'm a believer in checking the blind spot as a default. However much you look in your mirror it can only tell
you what's behind you, not what's alongside you. The problem is that as the road gets busier, the chances of you correctly filling in the information starts to go down. As one contributor put it:
"I find there are some situations where I think a shoulder check is essential and some where they aren't needed. It all depends on the complexity of predicting the future. If you have gathered a
stable but dynamic, developing 'picture' of the space around you from the information gathered in the period before the manouevre - other traffic, behaviour. speeds - and can confidently predict
that nothing will adversely affect the manouevre...then you make the move without a shoulder check. If the situation is one of high complexity then you make the check."
That's about the way I'd see it - but given the human propensity for making mistakes, I'd have to be very, very certain there was nothing around me NOT to do one.
Look at it this way. You wouldn't rely on three or four glimpes through a hedge to decide whether it was safe to pull across a main road, would you? You'd look properly before committing
yourself. But the mirror checks can only give you the equivalent of these glimpses but to the rear. Only a shoulder check can show you what is in the blind spot.
Why are we looking there, then? Well, there are two problems, if you discount the obvious one of failing to look often enough.
You'll need to look into the blind spot to see the bike or car that comes up so quickly that you don't spot it between regular checks - you may also find that on a multilane road, a vehicle will come up
fast on your left then switch sides - so that your checks in your right mirror won't have shown it.
It's also saved me several times on motorways when a driver has moved up from behind and then sat in my blind spot so he's not visible in the mirror - the only way you'll spot that is a blind spot check.
Even if you think you know what's there and it's going to stay there, you might be wrong. Read this:
"The dangers of the assumption above were brought home to me when I was being observed a few years ago. We were on our way back and it was getting dark; my observer was riding a Pan and
another Pan had caught up with us which I hadn't seen; this second Pan had gone past the observer who had moved over accordingly, so the lights I saw in my mirror weren't his at all;
thus there was very nearly a meeting of fairings when I pulled out to overtake, thinking that my observer had anticipated the overtake and was ready to follow me through, when, in fact, it
was the "foreign" Pan overtaking me."
So, given the safety benefits, why are riders and some instructors so dead-set against them?
One of the main objections levelled against the blindspot check before committing to an overtake is that it's potentially dangerous if the car suddenly slows down. My take on this is that if this is a
problem, you're too close. Full stop. No argument. If there's any obvious reason the car might slow, you shouldn't be there. Even if you can't see anything that might cause the driver to slow, if
you're worried about running into the back of the car when planning an overtake, you won't be thinking about the other problems the overtake is setting you - it's a form of target fixation.
Given the ever-more crowded state of the roads, the chances of an overtake being completely free of oncoming traffic is going down every day - you need more attention ahead, not less.
It's true that the alternative technique means you are accelerating from further back, and what you have to avoid here is carrying too much speed into the overtake. If a situation starts to develop that
looks awkward, you may have to pull back in. If you can't pull back in, you are passing with too much speed. You should pass slowly enough that you can bail out if you need to. I can't begin to say
how many times I've been in the middle of a pass and something goes wrong that I've had to brake to avoid, and I don't just mean misjudgements on my part - but brain out manoeuvres by the other driver.
Another argument has been that looking behind takes too long. Some quoted two seconds as the time it takes to look over your shoulder. I wouldn't be spending two seconds looking behind me
either. If it takes you that long to do a shoulder check, you're looking too far behind. That was what riders were supposed to do until fairly recently, thanks to the DSA's reluctance to acknowledge
bikes had mirrors till the late 90s, but it's really not necessary. It's simple enough to combine a mirror check and follow the head turn thru into a blind spot (chin to shoulder) glance. If you've just
checked your mirror, your head check has now filled in the entire picture alongside and behind.
Half the reason for argument on this issue is that people still think that a lifesaver is a long look behind. It's not. Not in 2006, anyway.
It's a blind spot check timed before an important change of position, into a potentially dangerous position. In other words, it's the timing rather than the action.
I really cannot see why people are so against the idea of doing them. If it's timed correctly it's no more dangerous than looking in the mirror.
Whilst I'm on overtakes, I'll comment on the habit of moving up to a very close position behind the vehicle ahead when looking for an overtake. It's recommended by police instructors and seen on the
Bikesafe 2000 video. For my liking, that position is far too close.
There are several problems aside from the obvious one that if you are too close, it's hard to accelerate before you are wide and clear. If you yo-yo between the close "overtaking" position and a more
laid back "following" position, it's incredibly distracting to the driver, particularly if you have
lights on. And something else that's rarely mentioned is that as
soon as you move up, the car behind maintains their own "is that a fly on that bike's numberplate?" following position, so dropping back becomes problematic, if not potentially dangerous.
Following too close through a bend is a mistake too, as most drivers decelerate until they can see their way out of a corner - if you're too close, that means you decelerate too and end up at
lower revs than you meant to. Slow + high gear = longer time to make the pass when you finally go... another factor which is ignored is that cars are massively more powerful than they were
even 10 years ago. Even something that looks like it ought to trundle out of a corner like a 4x4 can often accelerate pretty quickly, so we have to pass even faster. Hanging back further
allows you to catch up in the final part of the corner, and often makes it easier to pass without excessive speed or any wasted time.
Comment: 7 April 2006
"The World's fastest Indian" - movie review
Nope, we're not talking about home delivery of curry, but a movie. It's a new departure for Survival Skills but if you like bikes and you like what are commonly called "heartwarming" stories, I guarantee
you'll like this.
The Indian in question is a 1920's Indian Scout, and the story is of Burt Munro's epic journey from New Zealand to 1960s USA to run the elderly bike in the speed trials at Bonneville salt flats. It's
based on the true tale of an elderly man with a passion for speed who has spent a lifetime tinkering with bikes and tuning his Indian with home-made parts.
His dream has been to prove the bike's speed at the mecca of high speed trial, Bonneville Speedway in Utah, and a health scare finally forces him to scrape together the cash to load the bike on a tramp
steamer for the first leg of his journey. On the way, he overcomes setback after setback and charms a variety of odd-ball characters into helping him reach his unlikely goal.
Anthony Hopkins plays the role of the Munro to perfection, an outwardly amiable eccentric with a iron determination to to achieve his dream and a fearless approach to push himself and his bike to
the absolute limit.
The final half hour of the movie, as Burt finally gets to run the bike over the six miles of salt flat, is absolutely gripping stuff, and anyone who's ever been tempted to open a bike up and hang on
will be mentally urging the timing clocks higher and higher and feeling every wobble and vibration along with Burt in the body of his steamliner fairing.
Yes, there are a few cheesy moments and the quickfire snapshots of odd-ball characters that help Burt out on his way have a comic cut feel about them, but it's genuinely good movie.
If you can't catch it on the big screen, make a date with a DVD as soon as it's on release.
STOP PRESS: 28 March 2006
3rd European Driving Licence Directive is pushed through
Amid claims that motorcycling has been sold down the river and tales of political intrigue, the 3rd European Driving Licence made it past the first reading stage in the European Parliament yesterday,
as the member states reached agreement of a Common Position.
Untangling the labyrinth that is European politics is hard work at the best of times but it seems that opposition to the 3rd EU DLD has fallen victim to a "don't rock the boat" policy amongst the
voting members.
The 3rd EU DLD is a raft of measures designed to tighten up licencing procedures across the EU and to unify the different systems operated by different countries.
For example, aside from the proposals affecting motorcycling, the directive aims to tighten up driving examiner standards, set a life of 10 or possibly 15 years on a car or motorcycle licence after which
it has to be re-applied for, and to stamp out "licence tourism" where a disqualified driver can move to another EU state and apply for another licence.
Claims are rife that a deal behind the scenes was done on the 3rd EU DLD to preserve fragile agreement on other, "more important" issues, although it's not clear exactly what those issues might be.
However, the member states will be given until 2012 to fully implement the new laws, and it's been suggested that this long lead-in time is to ensure that those who supported it will be spared
embarressment at that time as they are unlikely to be in office.
Germany was initially against the limited life of licences part of the directive but seems to have changed their vote, and although the UK position was against the proposals for motorcycles, 'non-paper'
submitted by the UK Government on the motorcycling proposals was rejected by all other parties. As a result, Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman was due to register his disapproval of the
proposal at the Council but indicated that he will be abstaining from the vote rather than voting against the proposals.
The completion of the First Reading allows the draft Directive to proceed to the Second Reading where it is anticipated the Directive in its current form will merely be rubber-stamped.
For objectors to the 3rd EU DLD, the next stage of action is to demand a full Second Reading.
STOP PRESS: 28 March 2006
Is the 3rd EU DLD the "death of motorcycling?"
The big issue with the 3rd European Licence Directive that has concerned riders, and more directly the motorcycle industry in this country, is the refinement of the stepped licensing system
contained within the proposals.
It provides for the introduction of a licence for mopeds and establishes the principle of progressive access to bigger and more powerful motorcycles. Direct access to the latter category will only
be possible at the age of 24 after a theoretical and practical test. People who want to ride the most powerful motorcycles before that age will need to gain two years experience on lighter types.
A new licence cateogry AM for mopeds will be created. Before a licence is granted, a theory test will have to be passed and Member States may impose a practical test if they wish (which is
current practice in quite a few Member States today).
For bigger bikes, the current "stepped licencing" system will be expanded. Under current legislation, progressive access was introduced in 1997, allowing access to the most powerful bikes
either directly at the age of 21 by taking a test on a suitable bike, or automatically after passing a test on a 125cc machine and gathering 2 years of experience on bikes limited to 25 kW/33hp.
Under the proposed 3rd EU DLD, a more sophisticated progressive access model is introduced, that will take into account age, experience, training and testing. There will be three categories of
motorcycles A1 - light motorcycle of up to 125cc/11kW, A2 - medium motorcycle up to 35 kW and A - unlimited.
Although full technical specifications have not been decided for the vehicle definition of the medium-powered category A2, the increase in power output from 25kW to 35kW (46.6hp) will mean a much
wider range of bikes are available for these riders, unlike the previous limit of 25kW (33hp) which either demanded artificially restricted machines or the hunt for older bikes that fell into that
limit by design. The category thus becomes a real main category.
It's been claimed that Progressive Access will lead to tests or training requirements between each category. In fact, when progressing from a less powerful motorcycle to a more powerful one
, only one theory test and one practical test is mandatory, so that in fact a licence can "mature" through each stage just as the current UK "restricted" licence becomes a full, unrestricted licence
after two years at the moment. Other member states, for instance Germany, have operated a stepped licence system with tests between each stage and the Directive allows Member States to
continue to check the experience gathered either through a test or through training.
So how is all that likely to affect riders, and training in particular?
Not as much as some doom-and-gloom merchants think, in my opinion. I really don't see this as the "jumping through hoops" exercise that some commentators seem to have detected.
First of all, we should remember that the UK government fought hard for direct access when the original stepped system was put in place in 1997. Other nations wanted compulsory progressive
access with testing between licencing stages. The 3rd EU DLD maintains direct access, so claims that the the Directive will make extra tests and training between stages compulsory are unfounded.
The provision is there - but it was there in the existing stepped system introduced in '97. It's down to the UK government to decide whether to allow direct access or mandatory progressive access,
but given the opposition at ministerial level, it would seem unlikely that riders will be forced to go the route of extra tests - unless of
course there is a major U turn on national policy. The industry was warned several years ago that unless they did something to reduce accidents, the big stick would be waved, and this new tiered
system would be one way to do that.
One benefit that the industry seems reluctant to see is that the new 35kW category will make the 125cc test much more attractive to new riders.
One of the best selling bikes of the last two years has been the CBR125. Although it's only a 125, this is not a cheap bike. And it's not bought by riders with full licences or the C90 crowd who have
no intention of ever bothering with a bike test, it's bought by fashion-concious learner riders. That doesn't suggest a shortage of cash to get on a bike.
The problem has rather been, what do the owners step up to when they pass their test? There's been little incentive to pass the 125 test other than the expiration of the two year CBT, so the effect
of the existing 25kW legisilation has been to leave young riders circulating on L plates without the benefit of any training other than the bare compulsory minimum.
The 25kW/33hp bikes have been seen as under-performing and thoroughly underwhelming. That hasn't been helped by the ludicrous lack of purpose-designed bikes in that category.
Not a single manufacturer has risen to the challenge of making the most out of the situation. Not a single bike has been purpose-designed to meet the 33hp limit. The best of the fudged bunch
fitted with restrictor kits is probably the overweight and overpriced BMW650 single.
Rather, newly qualified riders with a restricted licence have been forced to ride either an ancient bike that fell inside the limit, an artificially restricted bigger machine, or far more rarely plump for
one of the few new 250s which fall way short of the power limit. Or they can give up riding for a few years and come back when they can do Direct Access.
The other issue is whether upping the limit to 24 for Direct Access to the most powerful bikes is such a big thing? Looking at the riders who go through the school doing DAS at the moment, I would have
to say no. The average age is probably early 30's with the majority being between mid-20s and mid-40s.
What may be a real issue is the cost to training schools of upgrading machinery for the training. There are suggestions that the specification for a Direct Access training bike (and
consequently also the machine the instructor will have to ride) will be set at around 80hp. That rules out the current 500s like the ER-5 and CB/CBF500s used by schools, and moves up to models like
the Hornet, Fazer or Z750.
However, it could work to training schools' benefit - if the 125 test becomes more popular again, the need to train riders on the bigger, more expensive machinery might decline. Training might therefore
become cheaper and more accessible.
There is a huge need within the motorcycle community to focus on the positive rather than the negative. There are certainly those in the industry who aren't happy about the emphasis on power and
speed, and they have to push this message to the manufacturers.
It cannot be doubted that the race-bred heritage of the supersport machines has directly led to massive improvements in brakes, tyres, suspension and chassis design in general, all of which are
undoubtly beneficial to rider safety, even when traded off to custom and touring machinery. But do we actually need 1800cc cruisers or tourers, or 1200cc hypersports bikes?
Nope. What is needed is to persuade riders that mid-sized bikes are sensible, usable, REAL, machines. Somehow the trend to ever larger and faster bikes, even when the marriage of speed and the
purpose of the bike is at cross-purposes as it clearly is with some of the behemoth tourers and customs, has to be reversed.
47hp may not seem a lot when the magazines decide that 90hp models like the Honda Hornet 600 are "starter bikes" but given the mysterious losses between the claimed output in the spec sheet
and what the bike really delivers, it should be easily possible to build a genuine 125mph machine. Remember the 45hp TZR250? That didn't hang about. Or the 52hp CX500? That propelled
thousands of couriers millions of miles all over the UK. And it's not something that can be laid simply at the door of the Japanese manufactuers - BMW had perfectly usable 600cc and 650cc twins
in their line-up for years - what happened to them? It's time we all remembered these bikes were proper bikes.
With a genuine power output of just under 47hp to play with, the manufacturers already have their range of admittedly fairly dull 500cc twins which produce "ballpark" power outputs, but with a bit
of imagination, the class could be revitalised and get a shot in the arm. Just looking at Honda's range - who'd turn their nose up at a new race-rep 47hp VFR400? Or a 47hp Transalp dual-sport? Or fully
kitted Deauville tourer? Or a sharp-looking Dominator-based supermotard? The possibilities are there - just crying out to be exploited.
And there's a reason for making smaller bikes more popular once more beyond the obvious one of keeping biking alive. If motorcycling is to fit with "green policy" as we happily claim we
can, then commuting on a 1000cc bike that shreds its tyres in 3000 miles and drinks two gallons of fuel on the 70 mile round trip has to be seen by riders as bonkers as School Run Mum delivering
the kids a mile down the road in a gas-guzzling Chelsea Tractor.
Commuting shouldn't only be about saving time, it should be about saving the planet. So let's see the motorcycle industry lobby for subsidised training for kids and commuters, and get them out of
cars and onto sensible bikes.
The death of motorcycling has been predicted before. Personally I
don't think this rates as even a bad cold.
Comment: 24 February 2006
Survival Skills on Tour - the dates
As promised, information about Survival Skills Group Training weekends in Mid Wales (Montgomery), Yorkshire (Grassington) and Devon (Dartmouth), as well as our trips to France. There are some
absolutely top roads in all these areas, both for training and for simply fun riding. I'll point you at a decent B&B, and beer will definitely be arranged.
Format
General format will be the same as the last two years - there are some comments about the training in the Words page of the Courses section. Full courses available will be:
2 day Survival Skills
1 day Confidence Builder for new riders
1 day Creaky Rider for returning riders
1 day Bends for pretty much anyone
1 day Refreshers
Thurs/Fri - EITHER 1x TWO day Survival Skills advanced course for two people or 2x ONE day advanced courses (choice of Bends, Confidence Builder or Creaky Rider) for four people
Sat - 1x ONE day advanced course (choice of Bends, Confidence Builder or Creaky Rider) for two people
Sun - Recreation ride that anyone can join - I'll be riding with you
and on hand for tips etc etc..
Mon/Tues - 1x TWO day Survival Skills advanced course for two people or 2 ONE day advanced courses (choice of Bends,
Confidence Builder or Creaky Rider) for four people
Training is 2:1 but I'll do my best to match you up with a similar rider, and days will be leisurely and relaxed, so we'll cover plenty of
ground for both participants. I'll have the full training set up, with laptop, printer and on-bike video camera, so there will be full
briefings and training aids including lesson plans, notes and training videos before we ride, and debriefs with a written assessment and footage you in action (weather and camera operator error
permitting) which I'll burn to CD so you can take it home.
Cost
£105 per person per day including a free Survival Skills CDROM (accomodation extra)
Dates
WALES Thursday 11 - Tuesday 16 May
YORKS Thursday 22 - Tuesday 27 June
DEVON Thursday 20 - Tuesday 25 July
These are already booking up - as I write, deposits have been received and six of the thirty slots are gone already - so don't delay if you want to grab one for yourself. I'll hold a slot for you for
7 days following enquiries and a 50% deposit cheque will secure your course. If I haven't received your deposit after 7 days, the course will be offered to the next in line. Balance to be paid at the
time of the course.
Comment: 24 February 2006
Survival Skills in France - the dates
The cost of getting to the other side of the Channel has plummeted with a training day over in France now being an even more viable proposition, and I ran a trial course late last autumn to
check out what could be done.
Just over the water within 30 miles of Calais, there are some fantastic roads, quiet and for the most part almost completely free
of traffic, and mostly very well surfaced. Most people never see this area of chalk Downs-type country behind Boulogne which resembles bits of Wiltshire or Kent because they blast straight past
on the motorway far to the east where the hills have virtually been rolled flat again.
Training will be 2:1 but I'll do my best to match you up with a
similar rider, and days will be leisurely and relaxed, so we'll cover plenty of ground for both participants. I'll have the mobile training set up, with portable video player and on-bike video camera, so
there will be full briefings and training aids including lesson plans, notes and training videos before we ride, and debriefs and footage you in action (weather and camera operator error permitting),
which I will send onto you after the course.
If you opt for a 1 day course, we'll make sure we stop for a meal before we return and you'll have time for a quick trip to a
supermarket on the way round to take advantage of low-duty goods. On the 2 dayer, we'll do an overnighter in France.
You can choose to do either a TWO day Survival Skills advanced
course or a ONE day course (choice of Bends, Confidence Builder or Creaky Rider).
Cost
£150 per person per day including a free Survival Skills CDROM (Eurotunnel and accomodation extra)
Dates
Sat 22 Sun 23 Apr
Sat 20 Sun 21 May
Sat 17 Sun 18 Jun
Sat 8 Sun 9 Jul
These are already booking up - as I write, deposits have been
received and five of the twenty four slots are gone already - so don't delay if you want to grab one for yourself.
I'll hold a slot for you for 7 days following enquiries and a 50%
deposit cheque will secure your course. If I haven't received your deposit after 7 days, the course will be offered to the next in line. Balance to be paid at the time of the course.
Comment: 24 February 2006
Where does Point and Squirt come from?
Every few months, someone asks the question: "what's the best way to get round corners?" and they get (mostly) sage advice. The general consensus these days is that the best way to deal
with a bend that the rider can't see round (which is most of them when you think about it) is to go in deep and relatively slow, turning tighter and straightening the bend only when they see the exit.
For something like 15 years I've been riding this way, and since 1996 Survival Skills has been training riders this way too. I called this technique "Point and Squirt", because that's exactly what you
do. You wait till you see where are going next, then turn sharper, point the bike at the exit and turn the throttle harder to squirt the bike out down the road to the next hazard.
And so to Visordown, and Spring 2000, and the launch of the Survival Skills section on there. For the first time, I'm on a national platform writing about "Point & Squirt". And suddenly a load of
people appear and tell me: "ah, but that's the line you'd take if you follow the advice in Motorcycle Roadcraft." And every time year or so, the discussion about whether they are the same thing
resurfaces.
However, the more I think about this, and the more the supporters of Roadcraft discuss this with me, the more I beg to differ.
Now if you've not already switched off because this is too technical, aren't face down on the keyboard through boredom or haven't throw your hands in the air wondering why on earth we
instructors can't agree on something as simple as how to ride a bend, I'll tell you why I think that understanding where and how Point and Squirt came into being is an important issue. Firstly you
need to understand my own sources and background.
Many advanced instructors are ex-police, and have had benefit of police training, or like the IAM observers or RoSPA diploma holders, they absorb Police-style techniques because their trainees are
examined by ex-Police riders.
Coming from a non-police background, I learned my riding in the way that the vast majority of ordinary riders have to - buying books, reading magazine articles galore, discussing riding with
motorcyclists from all over the world, and then going out and trying it.
Naturally, one of the books that I bought was Motorcycle Roadcraft, both the latest mid 90s edition but also I bought and read a much earlier 80's "Blue Book". I also have a couple of IAM
guides on riding from both the 80s and the 90s which are heavily influenced by Roadcraft.
Unfortunately none of these books really give a lot of help on cornering. The advice which stuck in my mind was that the rider
should be using a wide line to "avoid working the tyres hard" and to use "throttle sense" to speed up and slow down as the radius of
the bend changes by using the Vanishing Point technique. For a number of years, this is what I tended to do, particularly as magazine articles written in the late 70s and 80s tended to repeat
these points.
It's these issues that generate the bulk of the argument between myself and the pro-Roadcraft lobby. I'm usually told that either that I misunderstand Roadcraft, that an instructor would show a
rider how to interpret and apply the bald advice in the book correctly on the road, or that my memory is fallible and I've got it all wrong.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I went back over a number of books and articles in my collection (or at least, the ones that I had immediate access to) to see if my memory was fallible.
The only REAL exception to the "wide in, clip the apex, wide out" line was an article in a series called Survival Arts (from 'Motorcycle
Sport') which showed a deeper, tighter turning, exit away from the white line approach. It's quite obviously different from the diagrams in the "Blue Book" edition of Roadcraft which show near-symetrical
maximum radius lines worked into the width of the road.
So why such a radical difference? I think it stems from several things. The first is that the old 'Blue Book' was written for 50-odd hp Triumph Saints and BMW R80s. Modern bikes respond very
differently to throttle use and have vastly more power. Even the mid 90s version makes no allowance for that fact. Wide lines taken on modern sticky tyres and good handling bikes simply invite high
mid corner speeds and extreme lean angles, which goes right against the idea of "not working the tyres so hard".
It's also a fact that Roadcraft is aimed at police riders and so the safety message is somewhat subordinated to making progress. As
other instructors have pointed out the book was only intended as reference material to the practical training, not to be read alone.
This is almost certainly true, but surely the advice in the book should still be unambiguous?
It might also be worth noting that the Survival Arts series was written by a rider with courier experience, but with reference to a police rider, who'd had that join the dots instruction that was
surely intended to go with the book!
This Survival Arts article appeared in April 1990. I was doing a lot of cross country courier stuff from Kent from 90-95, and with the aid of those articles, I altered my cornering technique and I found
it worked. This is where I developed my "slow approach, deep in, turn late and hard, fire it out" riding style. I've got some notes which date from 92 or 93 when I actually started to write up the
benefits on the road of what would become Point & Squirt.
In 1993 Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist 2 was published. I read it, and have to admit I didn't really "get it" first time round. As I've said before, the combination of Californian English and psycho
-babble doesn't make it an easy read. It went back on the shelf.
Sometime in 1994, I got online and started discussing riding with riders from all over the world. Naturally bends cropped up and I called this late, quick turn technique "Point & Squirt" when I was
trying to explain it to someone on CompuServe.
As a result, I started to get useful feedback from US riders who'd done Code's California Superbike School as well as Reg Pridmore's CLASS in the United States. So I re-read Code, rather more
carefully this time.
What struck me immediately was that the stability issue of keeping the bike upright as much as possible, keeping the throttle open through a turn and using the quick steer that Code thinks very
important made immediate sense to me, and confirmed what I was already doing.
It also went diametrically against Roadcraft's "vary throttle/speed with radius" and "maximise the radius" advice, as did Code's
approach to turning into a bend ("turn only when you see the exit" and "steer once only") and definition of the exit ("where you can do
anything you want with the throttle - pull a wheelie if you want to") . [The "turn only when you see the exit" advice IS in the later edition of Roadcraft but it's not given any great emphasis.]
It was pretty obvious that I was actually riding the Keith Code approach to corners rather than what I perviously used and now interpreted as the Roadcraft approach. What Code did offer was
something I hadn't worked out for myself - a way of knowing exactly where the "entry", "turn in" and "exit" reference points in the bend are - his "two step" way of looking for the turn-in point
whilst searching for a target point to aim for is an example.
Another useful source of information that came my way at that time was some training material for instructors belonging to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation in the USA, the "Slow, Look, Lean,
Roll" approach to cornering, quite a few years before Thames Valley Advanced Motorcyclists started using the selfsame approach to bends. That allowed me to break the corner down into sections.
I've been told that Point & Squirt is just the Roadcraft line "properly explained", but I'm still not convinced that Point and Squirt is the
"plain vanilla" line that those critics suggest. Put the advice from the MSF together with Keith Code's reference points together and you have a comprehensive "what, where and why" system for
riding a bend, something that Roadcraft clearly lacks.
Whichever way you slice it, whether you believe that I got it wrong because I didn't read ALL the advice in Roadcraft (and I'm happy enough to accept that there are some warnings in the text which I
obviously didn't pay enough attention to), or whether you believe that an instructor would join the dots and fill out what the book tells you with common-sense warnings (and I'm quite happy to
believe that other instructors DO indeed do that), the fact remains that Roadcraft, whether in the earlier or later versions, IS capable of misinterpretation if it has to be "properly explained".
Certainly if the two are the same, it doesn't explain why, when in 1994 I joined the local IAM group, that I was told off by my observer for using the Point & Squirt, and had demonstrated to me
the "proper" approach to cornering, which took Kerb/Apex/Kerb and White line/Apex/White line approaches to bends. I wasn't even warned to tuck in away from the white line on left handers as was
advised in the old Blue Book. And on social runs I had plenty of opportunity to "observe" the members who'd passed as well as the
observers themselves putting themselves into turns they couldn't possibly see round, and exiting millimetres from white line or kerb. I
was also "lucky" enough to be given a demo ride by a policeman doing just this.
I'm also told that I'm out of date and that the Point and Squirt variant is now the accepted way of riding. Fair enough. Except that I rode with a very nice guy only the summer before last on the
last but one CompuServe meet. He's had his IAM pass for 20 years or so, and is still active in his group. After one of our rides, he quizzed me on the lines I was taking. I explained Point & Squirt.
"Nah", he said, "I don't like that... it's all stop/start... I like to avoid touching the brakes at all and use wide sweeping lines because the
bike's more stable. It's how my two mates who are both ex-police riders ride too".
At this point, the discussion can descend into a "we're right because Roadcraft is used by the police, so you must be wrong" slanging match which is not very constructive. It's also a bit of a
shame because there is a lot of really good information available to all instructors and riders who want to get better from OUTSIDE the
usual UK sources if only they care to look for it and accept that it can be used. I'm certainly not ignoring Roadcraft- but I'm not afraid
to build on it, ask questions of it where I think it is of doubtful use, and discard it altogether where I think there is a better alternative.
I'm quite happy to accept I was "doing Roadcraft wrong" because I'm fallible and I do misunderstand things. But if I was wrong, so were my IAM group, the other two or three dozen IAM members
from groups up and down the country I rode with around that time, and the many riders I've subsequently taken on training courses since who based their cornering technique on Roadcraft - none
demonstrated a credible version of Point and Squirt, nor a full understanding of the techniques.
But... not everyone rides like that.
The first time I recall seeing Point & Squirt properly explained in a UK magazine would be Andy Ibbott writing as director of the UK
version of the California Superbike school in MCN - without laying a hand on it, I'd hazard a guess that would be 6-8 years ago, late
90s - at which time Survival Skills had been teaching Point & Squirt for 3 or 4 years. Not surprisingly as I'd developed my ideas largely
from Code, I agreed almost entirely with his assessment of bends. Since then, last summer's series of expert riding articles by Andy Morrison in Bike covered the same techniques very well indeed.
Most interestingly of all, the Bikesafe videos from Thames Valley and West Midlands clearly show the police riders using the deep in, quick steer technique that I call Point and Squirt. Illogically, the
commentary on the second still talks about widening the line and not working the tyres so hard.
I'm not interested in scoring points and I'm not trying to put noses out of joint by appearing to criticise other instructors, nor am I
looking to be "sole Guardian of the Truth" as one critic put it. (If I was, I'd hardly be publicising how Point and Squirt works, would I?).
But I do believe that an honest assessment of the sources we use is vital to help others understand what and why we do what we do. Blind acceptance of "what's always been done" is not something
we should be aiming for. We need to make the effort to give riders looking for help the best possible advice to ride bends, whether we do that by building on what Roadcraft does offer, admitting that in
some ways it is doubtful advice for modern riders or by drawing on new sources altogether.
Comment: 10 February 2006
Survival Skills in 2006 - eleventh season in training
As the snowdrops finally poke their noses above the ground and promise that spring will arrive, Survival Skills is now open for bookings from March onwards, when the normal routine of
alternating scheduled sessions in Oxford and Maidstone resumes.
Throughout the remainder of February, we'll be available for courses at short notice, working around the weather, and in MAIDSTONE only. If the forecast looks good, give us a bell and
we'll see what can be arranged. First Oxford dates are early March.
Survival Skills will be on tour again next year. I'm planning on repeating training in Wales, Yorkshire and Devon, with dates to be made available soon.
There are several new things to look out for in the Courses section. You can now opt for an extra "Double Bends" day on either the Survival Skills 2 day course (making it a three-dayer) or on the
Bends course (making it a two-dayer), which will give us more time to get to some challenging roads. For trainees who've already done a course, keep an eye open for the budget priced refresher days.
In addition, I'm keen to encourage day trips to France through the summer. Most people bypass the area immediately behind Calais and Boulogne on the motorways, yet there is an area of "Downs"
similar to Wiltshire or parts of Kent and Surrey that offers twisty well surfaced roads and fun riding only 20 miles from the Channel Tunnel. Best of all, they are almost deserted compared with roads
in the UK. With the drop in fares that happened late last year at the moment continuing into 2006, a trip to France is a fun and inexpensive way to get some training, have some good French food
- and to bring back a bottle of cheap whisky!
Meanwhile, the website overhaul continues. Many sections have now been made-over, and I hope the job will be completed by the next editorial.
I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones in the coming year!
Comment: 10 February 2006
Sign of the times
I popped along to the MCN London Motorcycle Show last month, was in and out in just four hours and came away vaguely underwhelmed.
Part of it was the resemblance of the trader stands to the indentikit British High Street. Wherever you looked the same things were on sale - the same helmets, the same throw-over luggage,
the same bubblepacked junk on the same display units. All at the same price. Even the "bargain" items like the three bits of soft luggage deal for £50 were the same price on every stand.
And the indentikit nature didn't end there. The only bikes that grabbed my eye as clearly original were the pair of new Kawasaki ER-6s and the BMW F800S/ST, all looking built down to a price to me.
I must also make a nod in the direction of the Suzuki GSR600, which looks to have joined the ranks of Hornet clones three years too late (spot any new Hornets last year?) and the Buell Ulysses
which feels nice to sit on and is horrible to ride according to the comics (I should get a test ride).
Triumph Daytona 675? I walked straight past it - it may be ground-breaking but it's a Supersport 600 to look at. As I did the new Morinis - Monster clones. At least the ugly front ends of the ER-6N,
the MT-03 and the GSR600 all drew the eye even if the instinct was to look away again as quickly as possible. Quite why three of the four Japanese manufacturers have all chosen to release
"uniquely" styled machines that could all be mistaken for each other from a distance is beyond me - is there only one designer working for all of them? Same as fox-eye lights a few years back.
And why were Honda and every scooter manufacturer missing? Unless of course, I walked past them too.
Sales in 2005 might have levelled off after falling for four straight years according to MCIA figures, but signs of a recovery are far from clear, as I think this show suggests.
Joy at claims that the over-1000cc big bike market is bouyant - registrations were up 17.2% to reach 18,960 new registrations in 2005 - should be tempered by the fact that the bikes are
"upsizing" in general. The 750cc market which 10 years ago was the highlight of every manufacturer's range has vanished without trace.
Comment: 10 February 2006
Sign of the times 2
A survey at the end of last year confirmed that many motorists fail to recognise common road signs.
In a survey of more than 500 drivers by an insurance company, not one could correctly name all 12 road signs shown. Only 77% of the drivers correctly identified more than six of the signs.
Roadworks were the most commonly recognised sign, with 96% of drivers managing this one. But those signs indicating hazardous conditions were more of a problem. Only 42% managed to spot a
slippery road surface whilst uneven road surfaces foxed over three quarters of the sample with just 23% getting it right. Astonishingly just 8% knew what the side-winds sign mean.
The value of the theory test appears to be questionable as older drivers managed better than younger drivers who would have had to sit the touch screen test. Motorists over 55 identified 55%
whilst in contrast, drivers aged between 18 and 24 could identify only manage 45%.
Although female motorists matched male drivers on the overall score, with men averaging 5.6 signs read correctly and women with scoring 5.5, the highest scores came from men. 21% per cent of
males spotted eight or more road signs correctly, whereas not a single woman could do this.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the only sign every single person recognised was the sign for a speed camera sign.
Comment: 10 February 2006
Annual BikeSafe event set for 1 & 2 of April at Cheltenham
A press release from the Motorcycle Industry Association:
The annual National BikeSafe event, supported by the major motorcycle manufacturers, is taking place on April 1 st and 2 nd at Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire. The event will run from
10am 5pm on both days and entry is free.
This event is unique, in that it provides the opportunity for people to admire the up to date models on display and benefit from a free BikeSafe assessed ride and assessment provided by some of the
UK's top motorcycle police.
Motorcyclists will have the opportunity to enjoy a fully assessed ride using either their own machines or having the luxury of briefly borrowing an up-to-date model from the manufacturers in attendance.
Riders, who want to enjoy the riding experience, MUST bring BOTH parts of their licence. The assessments are informative and fun. Designed to help riders learn about their riding style and understand
more about their strengths and weaknesses enabling them to choose the most appropriate type of post-test training.
Major manufacturers BMW, Honda, Triumph, Ducati, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Harley-Davidson will be at the event with a fabulous range of machines. Many other attractions will create a weekend
event that appeals to people of all ages offering an enjoyable and exciting day out for the whole family. Musical entertainment will be provided by local groups and performers including Mid Life Crisis,
Vince Freeman and the Bleeding Hearts.
Comment: 27 January 2006
Overtaking on left-handers - experts only or best avoided
altogether?
I've been generally very impressed with the clarity with which Andy Morrison has put the case for advanced riding techniques in Bike
over the past year, but in my opinion "overtaking in left handers" (Bike February 06) goes the proverbial "bridge too far".
He states plainly enough that it's dangerous but then goes on to assert that it's a manoeuvre within the grasp of the expert rider. Well, perhaps. I'd certainly not say I've never overtaken in a left
hander but I can certainly say there's a few cases I wish I hadn't bothered.
One thing that is much understated about overtaking in general is the difference between "need" and "want". Overtaking comes far
towards the "nice to do" rather than the "must do" end of the scale. There are very few overtakes that you actually need to do; the
safer option is nearly always to choose not to pass. To say that we might as well be in a car if we don't overtake is to overlook the risk factor involved. Do a caclulation on a risk-benefit scale. To my
mind here we have Risk 10, benefit 1. There are too many "what ifs" - variables over which you have no control and may not even be aware of.
Andy has pointed out problems of dead ground but I think he's missed a number of other considerations, which need re-emphasising given the risks of the manoeuvre.
One is that with overtakes is that you have no control over the driver you're passing. On a straight you at least have a chance of him knowing you are there. In the middle of a bend even if the
driver is aware you are there - people tend to check their mirrors on straights - there is little chance the driver will be expecting you
to pass mid-corner. Neither will the driver you are about to pass or the driver from the opposite direction be looking for an overtaking bike - on bends you tend to look where you are going, not the
furtherst point you can see - which is why we spend so much time on lifting riders' view on training courses. It's also easier to steer on a straight, but even there drivers swerve when they go for the
mobile phone or the cigarette lighter. You'd hope they'd not do this in a bend and swerve - but I wouldn't rely on it.
Andy talks about the need for a view far enough ahead to allow you to visually sweep a clear space for oncoming traffic, and that by definition, the type of bend you'll be on will be shallow or you
wouldn't be trying to pass. And shallow bends invite high speeds not just from you, but from other road users. Andy mentions the danger of a car doing more than the limit and the need to consider
just where you might meet head-on in deciding if you have enough space. What he hasn't mentioned is that the vehicle most likely to be exceeding the speed limit, and by a considerablely margin at
that, is of course another bike. And the less-than-skilled rider coming the other way is quite likely to be hugging the white line rather than the hedge so you'll see the bike much later than you
would a wider car or truck. That space that looked clear might not be nearly so big as you thought.
There are some neatly drawn diagrams in the magazine which show the road visually swept for a couple of lorry-lengths ahead of the vehicle you're setting up to pass. This hugely understates the
distances you're likely to need. Say you aim to pass a lorry doing 50. First hitch is that to get the views you need, you have to hang back from the vehicle you're about to pass in the first place. You
really need a view ahead of many hundreds of metres - 800 metres or a half of a mile isn't overstating it. The temptation of course, is to nail it once you've decided to go - but the faster you attempt
the pass, the more difficult it is to bail out when it starts going wrong.
And what if the bike coming the other way is doing 90? Even if you only speed up to 70, to give you a passing speed of just 20mph, that's a closing speed of 160mph. You're now trying to mentally
juggle closing speeds of 160mph with distances of hundreds of metres, something that quite frankly any normal human brain struggles to deal with - we never evolved for doing time/distance
calculations at that speed. What happens when the brain runs out of processing power is that you revert to "best guess" based on previous experience - so you are likely to underestimate the
oncoming bike's speed, overestimate its distance and think you have more time than you really have to complete the overtake. And as suggested it's quite easy to get even higher speeds which
need even longer distances.
Andy mentions the brown underpant factor of getting it wrong. But what about the effect on other road users? You emerge from behind the truck and the oncoming driver suddenly sees you. Even
if you've timed it perfectly, you're likely to scare the wits out of him - he's not going to have the time to sit and make the same rational calculation you just made - he's just going to see a mad
biker heading straight for him on the wrong side of the road in the middle of the bend. Can you guess what he's likely to do next? I can't and don't want to have to. Or alternatively what about that
speeding rider hogging the white line? Whilst you might be good enough to brake or swerve to miss the oncoming rider, you'll be swerving to relative safety - to the inside of your turn. He'll be
swerving OUTWARDS towards the hedge. Do you want to be responsible for sending him into the hedge? Meanwhile, what's the lorry driver likely to be doing when he sees all this unfolding in front of him?
And onto another issue that gets scant attention when riders overtake. Where are you going next? You're now accelertating through a bend through the area you have visually swept, but
ultimately into a blind spot - by definitiion you can't see what lies beyond the area you have swept at the point where you commit yourself. But that view will continue to develop - what if your
developing view as you commit to the pass shows you that the bend tightens? Or blocked completely? You are now committed to accelerating towards a hazard and you CAN'T slow down until a
much later point than you would normally because you have to complete the pass first - you need MUCH more space because you need to be able to STOP IN THE DISTANCE YOU CAN SEE IS CLEAR
not when you start the overtake but at the moment you COMPLETE it! This is much further ahead than the article makes clear.
What about machine control? You're placing accelerating and braking demands on the bike mid-turn. Not ideal for grip, stability or holding a smooth line easily. Whilst you've almost certainly got grip
enough in hand on a decent surface, what if there's diesel or even a wet patch ahead? Given the speeds and distances involved, you're going to be relying on the surface hundreds of metres ahead
of the point you commit yourself. Are you good enough to spot loose gravel at a quarter of a mile? I don't think I am. Although the issues of poor surfaces have been mentioned previously it's not
stated explicitly in the feature. And it's far easier in terms of machine control to accelerate and brake hard in a straight line - by committing to an overtake mid-turn, you're compromising your
ability to play these vital get out of jail cards. What if the braking zone for that tighter kink ahead co-incides with a slippery surface?
So, back to "need" and "want". What's left pretty much unsaid is that a better opportunity will be along in a minute. I intensely
dislike this "press on at every opportunity" approach to riding and once again I say it may be appropriate to police pursuit riding, but
question its validity in civilian riding in general. Even if you do decide to teach it as part of your training, it's one thing to teach it to riders whom you have watched ride and believe are up to the
job but I'm certainly concerned at its publication in this series where Andy has no control over the riders attempting to apply it. I'm very aware of this problem wihen writing tips of my own..
So, what's my take on this? Don't underestimate the risks and how far ahead you need to see. In reality, only the shallowest bends with the very best views allow a safe overtake. By all means set an
overtake up on a blind left hander, but you're far better off waiting for the next straight to actually pull it off.
Comment: 27 January 2006
Check your oil filter
If you're not a particularly high mileage rider but commute through the depths of winter, you may like to read this cautionary tale from a chappie up in Scotland who did some training with me in the
Lakes a couple of years ago.
Yesterday morning I took the bike out of the garage to give it a bit of a run (really nice day for time of year, so thought I'd blow the cobwebs away).
Wheeled the bike out of the garage, started it (first time, after 3 weeks of inactivity!), left it to warm through while I went to close garage door, put on helmet etc. Having locked
the garage, I turned round, looked at the bike and thought "that's not right!". There was a steady stream of oil coming out of the oil filter!
Immediately stopped the engine before things "developed", then swore a bit.
There is no oil on the floor of the garage, the filter casing (a bit corroded) must have given way as the pressure started to pick up.
Unlucky on one count (got to change the oil filter), but lucky on 2 counts:
1) had I locked the garage & got kitted up before I started the engine, first I would have known about it would have been as the oil soaked rear tyre slid away from under me at
the end of the garages (right angle turn to get onto the road)
2) had the filter casing cracked half an hour later, I'd have been doing 60 up the Loch Lomond road.
Guess who's always going to start the bike before going to lock the garage!
The bike concerned is a 600 Diversion, but like many machines it has a spin-off oil filter right in the middle of the line of fire of water spun off the front wheel. The filter has apparently seen two
winters and was rusty, so it's obviously corroded through from the outside. I've not heard of this happening before, but it might be something to keep an eye on.
Comment: 13 January 2006
Welcome back
If you're browsing the site, you'll probably have noticed it's a bit split personality at the moment.
It's in the middle of a makeover, and like most makeovers though mostly going according to plan it's not the quickest thing in the world. Though it seems simple enough to design a template and
drop the old content into it, inevitably there are formatting errors, colour mismatches and general moments when I think "why on earth did I ever do that?" which need to be sorted out.
And just to make matters more difficult, I'm migrating to a rather more up-to-date site editor too. Although it's the same program, it's several versions down the road from the old one and has
caused a few hitches getting used to new features and discovering why old workarounds no longer work.
At the moment, the Editorial section has had its makeover, but the rest of the site is work in progress.
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