What size road bike should I buy (or should I buy a 1000cc bike)?
by
, 15th May 2012 at 20:04 (3279 Views)
I've come to realise if you ask this question then your approaching the problem from the wrong angle.
There is something known as the man-machine interface. The basic concept is that your sensory experiences can be extended by tools.
For example, while operating a hammer your senses can extend to where the face of the hammer strikes the nail. You don't think of how you operate your hand, but instead of how the hammer will strike. Once your interface has extended like this you can become an expert in using the hammer.
The motorcycle is just a more complicated "tool". To truely become an expert rider you need to bond with the motorcycle. You need your sensory experience to push out to where the wheels meet the ground (to feel traction), of the throttle response (as opposed to your hand on the throttle), to feel the space around the motorcycle (as opposed to considering the space around you and the motorcycle like they are two seperate things). I hope you get the concept I'm trying to get across.
So what are you looking for in a road bike? If you want to have that "magic" flying experience, of being one with the machine, they you need to find a machine you can "bond" with. One that feels "natural" for you.
Now the ability to extend your sensory experience on a motorcycle is not a natural experience for the majority of us. The last 60,000 years of brain development never prepapred us for something like a two wheeled vehicle. It is something that is learnt through repetition. You need to put in lots of riding time, and you need to be doing riding that requires you and the machine to move together (so not just lots of straight line riding). You need to make sure your senses are extended over a broad range of riding - slow, fast, braking, leaning, turning, cornering, etc.
So what does this mean? You really need to take a bike for a ride, and see if it feels "right". Perhaps you'll experience this in a 1200cc cruiser, or perhaps on a 250cc Japanese import, or perhaps on that 1000cc superbike - but choose the bike that you think you'll be able to bond to. It's like a marriage, and to be a truely accompolished rider you need to reach a point where you can be one with the machine and you don't think about operating it, you just think about what you want to happen and somehow as if by magic the bike just seems to respond and it happens.