This'll be contentious for some...

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This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Red5 »

Interesting read attached on the MCN website. Maybe I'm a bit of a fuddy duddy but you can't argue with the article. I know enough will though...

https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/201 ... stigation/

I'd suggest before being vocal and righteous, go and challenge yourself to a police bike safe day or even an advanced training course.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by The Muppet »

interesting Read :-)
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by TLS-Moose »

No one can argue with saving lives. No one can argue with punishing those who break basic highway law - No issue. Failing to hear cops following with blues & two's for over a mile? They kinda deserved what they got.
The witch hunt on pipes/plates? They make you more likely to crash? Cameras can't read them? Really? Have you heard how loud some standard cars are now?
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by menzies3032 »

Got to say the police are there to do a job and save lives and my own personal opinion is as a rule they are fair and do a great job. Also from doing the police Bike safe course it helped me to perceive dangers as well as better understand road markings and why they are there.

My number plate is correct size
My exhaust is loud but it past an mot
I ride a thou sports bike and have been known to twist the wrist from time to time

You have got to say though if you really feel the need to Cain your bike every time your on it. It might be better to convert it to a track bike and go do it somewhere safe.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Scotty »

I was pleasantly surprised by the fairness of the article, I was expecting some kind of MCN hysteria about oppression and unfairness but it was very balanced and the point is well made. They're public roads, if anyone wants to push their luck in North Wales, go to Anglesey circuit to do it.

Their correlation between small plates and crashes is tenuous at best, it's nothing more than coincidental. Small plates are often fitted by sports bike riders who get carried away and encounter the Talent Gap far too often - most of the time the reason for the incidents is because they're riding like eejits and happen to have a small plate fitted. The plate itself didn't cause the crash, that was due to the organic bit between seat and bars. Small plates do look neater, that can't be argued, but they are, sadly, illegal. I've had two bikes fail MoTs in the last year due to small plates, one of which is an off-roader. The rangers on Salisbury Plain will stop you and issue a ticket for a small plate there, in the middle of fecking nowhere :roll: I recently got a new bike and it has a tail tidy fitted, but I won't bother with a small plate, no point in getting a fine and unwanted attention from the plod...
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Gimlet »

menzies3032 wrote: Aug 6th, '18, 22:18 Got to say the police are there to do a job and save lives and my own personal opinion is as a rule they are fair and do a great job. Also from doing the police Bike safe course it helped me to perceive dangers as well as better understand road markings and why they are there.

My number plate is correct size
My exhaust is loud but it past an mot
I ride a thou sports bike and have been known to twist the wrist from time to time

You have got to say though if you really feel the need to Cain your bike every time your on it. It might be better to convert it to a track bike and go do it somewhere safe.

I did a Rapid training course a few years ago. Not the same as Bike Safe but it's run by former and serving police riders. Greatest benefits were a huge improvement in visualisation skills and road positioning. You cannot beat having an expert pursuit rider following you, analysing everything you do and correcting you through a headset all day until getting it right becomes second nature and permanently wired into your brain. The irony is it makes you faster. Safer, but faster.

Against my better judgement I went for a ride the other night with a lad I know. He does about a thousand miles a year I would think and he's got the very latest and fastest litre sports bike. His road positioning is awful and his cornering hesitant, lacking smoothness and his lines odd. Unfortunately he's also the worst willy-waver. As soon as a straight comes into view he'll put his nose on the tank and nail it a straight line with zero consideration for speed traps, emerging tractors or tyre damage, then when the bends approach again it's back to wobbly fifty pencing. When we stop he'll tell anyone who'll listen how mighty and fast his bike is and how nothing else on the road, including mine can keep up. (Had he chanced to glance in his mirror during his heroic straight line dash instead of keeping his eyes glued to the speedo for bragging rights afterwards he might have noticed I was up his tailpipe throughout and coasting behind him in boredom mode through the bends).
He relies entirely on the TC to keep him sunny side up, never rides without it and will bore bystanders to death clicking through his on-board data-logger to show them how many times his TC kicked in during the ride. I was on his tail all the time and my TC wasn't switched on but the significance of that escapes him.

He's exactly the kind of rider who could do with a brush with the law to have it brought home to him how much needs to leave his ego at home and go back to basics and learn some proper riding skills on a training course or get some proper tuition on a track day. But no. He won't. And it's ego that's the thing. He's got the bike, got the kit, got the latest gizmos and thinks that means he's got the skills as well. I like the bloke but I hate riding with him and I fear somewhere there's a wooden overcoat waiting for him with his name on it.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by menzies3032 »

Gimlet i have to agree have also seen this a few times myself. I have also found that the new generation of riders ride all the time using the safety aids that are supposed to save them in an emergency situation. If it had a £1 for every BMW1000RR that high sided as the traction control ran out of talent (i.e. the rider didn't have any to begin with) then i think i would have enough to pay for another track day......

The basics are so important. How to go round a bend, Where to look, What to look out for, Read the road......
Not to say anybody is perfect myself included but for the love of god give yourself a fighting chance.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by ptolemyx »

Small number plates = crashes. That's thinking along the lines of, "famous people eat cruncho breakfast cereal so if I eat cruncho I'll be famous"

BTW I've never been stopped for my 7" x 5" plates, maybe because I have stock lettering, not stupid tiny daft font letters. Or perhaps the cops are afraid of being deafened by my musical exhausts :twisted:
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Gimlet »

menzies3032 wrote: Aug 7th, '18, 14:41 Gimlet i have to agree have also seen this a few times myself. I have also found that the new generation of riders ride all the time using the safety aids that are supposed to save them in an emergency situation. If it had a £1 for every BMW1000RR that high sided as the traction control ran out of talent (i.e. the rider didn't have any to begin with) then i think i would have enough to pay for another track day......

The basics are so important. How to go round a bend, Where to look, What to look out for, Read the road......
Not to say anybody is perfect myself included but for the love of god give yourself a fighting chance.
The guy in question is actually proud of how many times his TC kicks in. If he was backing it in, doing controlled slides, wheelies, stoppies etc at least he'd have something to brag about. But he's not controlling its input or using it to make the bike do things. He's got no idea when or where it has intervened until he stops and scrolls through his screen. He hasn't the skills to analyse through his hands, feet or the seat of his pants what's happening underneath him. I don't expect he knows what his core is. He's just looking at a data readout and thinking, wow, my bike's fast. He points proudly to the screen as if it's a record of his bike's power and magnificence, but it isn't, it's a record of how many times he lost control of it during the last ride and needed electronic assistance to stay on it.
He's not riding his bike, he's a passenger on it, and worryingly, he seems proud of that.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by menzies3032 »

Gimlet wrote: Aug 7th, '18, 15:32 He's not riding his bike, he's a passenger on it, and worryingly, he seems proud of that.
Scary Stuff :roll: :shock: :80:
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Scotty »

Gimlet’s riding buddy sounds like the classic accident looking for somewhere to happen... can you not convince him to try strutting his stuff on a trackday? He’s probably convinced that he should be in the Uber Fast group and seeing him realise that he’s not the Riding God that he believes himself to be would be worth the price of admission alone... wouldn’t you just love to see him get handed his arse on a plate by a young lass on an R3 or similar.

Go on, start persuading him and keep us posted...
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by billinom8s »

Bring him to llandow.

Wait for the excuses to flow.
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Scotty »

I'll look up the ISBN# for The Book of Racing Excuses so he can pre-order and have it with him ready for the day.... :))
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by badgerKDD »

Scotty wrote: Aug 8th, '18, 06:55 I'll look up the ISBN# for The Book of Racing Excuses so he can pre-order and have it with him ready for the day.... :))
:)) :)) :))
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Re: This'll be contentious for some...

Post by Fozz »

Biggest crims in my opinion were the couple who were stopped,him in jeans and tee shirt and her in jeans vest top and flip flops!
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