Losing the buzz?

[R6_kid:Me]

The ancient Moto Guzzi is a truely classic motorcycle. It was built but people that understand what I've just described and it is NOT user friendly at all. You have to be prepared to sacrifice skin, money and time to the spanner gods because most dealers won't touch it with a 10 ft pole. You have to learn not only the lore and how to work on it but how to ride it and more importantly, learn to ride around it's obvious defects. Every ride is a challenge and frankly I still stuff up more corners than I get right but every now and then, you get everything right and once in a blue moon, you get a sequence of things right. Then it flies and it takes your soul along with it, the weight of ancient heroes ride at your shoulders in a glourious wail of gears and fire. Diving in just a bit too hot, trail the linked brakes while the too heavy rear drive starts the rear wheel skipping, ease off the front and foot, crash through the straight cut box while the engine screams like a Spitfire diving on Berlin as you clip the apex and wrench open the throttle that feels connected to the engine by a steel bar as the big carbs gulp a lungful and the whole plot leaps forward like a startled hippo spearing towards the next bend as you wonder if you have enough brakes left to take it. What the hell, at least you will die like a man! You realise you can feel every stone on the road and every pulse of the engine and try to remember when you last felt so damn alive. It's a drug like no other because a little piece of you joins the ranks of the immortals every time the needle strays into the orange zone.

I want his drugs...

[Fishy]

next time i see you im punching you and stealing your missus!

hahaha good on ya boy.

[Ixion]

Lose the fairing and go naked - makes 100kmph feel like 200kmph!

Lose the modern machine and go retro e.g. '80s or '70s musclebikes like CB750K or Z1000 or GSX1000. The handling alone should keep you on your toes!

This is very true. Nothing quite matches the excitment of taking something like an XS750 or a GT750 through a corner. See, y'get triple the excitement of someone on a modern bike, cos first you get the excitement of the front end going round the corner.(Or, not going round the corner, without a good deal of argument ) Then you have to figure out where the back end of the bike has gone to (often as not it's wandered over to the opposite verge and is picking flowers. Or else it's scrambling along several bike lengths behind, lunging up and down like a 17 year old chick in heat), and getting THAT round the corner. Then while you're doing that the front will have decided that its not going to waste time hanging around waiting for the back end to catch up, so it's gone off in a totally different direction. So you have the excitement of finding it and getting it back on line.

Modern bikes are too easy to ride. I know what Mr Paul in NZ is talking about, with older machines every corner is a battle of wills between you and the bike. Sometimes you win, sometimes the bike wins. On the rare occasions when you win a whole series , it's a real buzz.

The BMW has a similar sort of thing - sometimes it just seems to be in a (relatively) good humour, and drops into what I call its schnell-panzer mode. When it seems to rumble relentlessly and irresistably along , not so much taking a line through corners, as just refusing to acknowledge their existence. And I just hang on , pray, and accept that for the moment I'm just baggage. Now that's a buzz alright when it finally runs out and the brute settles back into normal teutonic muttering and obstinacy. And I take stock and decide that I am still alive.

[avrflr]

I have the solution. Sell your bike/s. Nothing will make you desparate to go for a ride like not having a bike. Every time you hear one screaming past it will be like it is mocking you. You will start to feel physical symptoms of withdrawl. (If you can last a month like this you will have done better than me.)

Then go out and tick up a new bike. Nothing beats that warm rush you get when you've gotten clean then relapsed.

[texmo]

Fix your px150 gareth and try keep up on a kiwibiker newbie ride.

[N4CR]

Fix your px150 gareth and try keep up on a kiwibiker newbie ride.

DON'T YOU MEAN PASS PEOPLE AND HAVE FUN ON A NEWBIe RIDE

[texmo]

DON'T YOU MEAN PASS PEOPLE AND HAVE FUN ON A NEWBIe RIDE

Lets not remind spankme of how he got passed by a scooter please.

[mr me]

DOnt be a soft cock just get out and enjoy each ride for what it is mate.

[Toast]

, the biggest thing that can help you is too ride with some fast or faster guys, some one you can push just that little bit more to stay with, this is one of the best ways to learn i believe, the if he can i can (don't always work though) can help a lot in confidence.
Getting out on the track more is another that can help lots too.?

Or you can ride alone. That way, you focus more on yourself and your bike, and getting the most out of it. Riding doesn't (shouldn't) involve contacting you opponents or mates, it's just about you and your bike getting down a piece of road or track at a certain rate (not counting real racing here, where you've got to not just be faster than someone, but pass them), so learning more about your bike and how to ride it needn't involve others...but then you'll feel like some company after a while...and that's what KB rides are for

Track is the shiz for sure, and I'd be there every week if I had the time and $$

[Jackrat]

as in 'tis just phase?

A phase??
Bugger off,getting old ain't a phase Bro'
Get used to it,it ain't going away

[justsomeguy]

Lets not remind spankme of how he got passed by a scooter please.

Wanna bet $10,000 that you can't pass his GB on your scooter again on a fast ride or on a track - NOT - a newbie ride.

[justsomeguy]

This is very true. Nothing quite matches the excitment of taking something like an XS750 or a GT750 through a corner. See, y'get triple the excitement of someone on a modern bike, cos first you get the excitement of the front end going round the corner.(Or, not going round the corner, without a good deal of argument ) Then you have to figure out where the back end of the bike has gone to (often as not it's wandered over to the opposite verge and is picking flowers. Or else it's scrambling along several bike lengths behind, lunging up and down like a 17 year old chick in heat), and getting THAT round the corner. Then while you're doing that the front will have decided that its not going to waste time hanging around waiting for the back end to catch up, so it's gone off in a totally different direction. So you have the excitement of finding it and getting it back on line.

Modern bikes are too easy to ride. I know what Mr Paul in NZ is talking about, with older machines every corner is a battle of wills between you and the bike. Sometimes you win, sometimes the bike wins. On the rare occasions when you win a whole series , it's a real buzz.

The BMW has a similar sort of thing - sometimes it just seems to be in a (relatively) good humour, and drops into what I call its schnell-panzer mode. When it seems to rumble relentlessly and irresistably along , not so much taking a line through corners, as just refusing to acknowledge their existence. And I just hang on , pray, and accept that for the moment I'm just baggage. Now that's a buzz alright when it finally runs out and the brute settles back into normal teutonic muttering and obstinacy. And I take stock and decide that I am still alive.

Saw it with my own eyes following Frosty on Boing.

[beyond]

Some really good replies.

Hitting the Zen factor is awesome. Not often achieved but when you are "in that place" it makes months of mundane motorcycling all worthwhile. When bike and mind become one and every corner is taken at the optimum level.

The biggest key is this: you can go fast in a car as well as on a bike, but what in the main, separates a bike from a car, aside from the million dollar exotics? Corners of course. Bikes were built for corners. Anyone can go fast in a straight line and yes it's fun but nothing like motoring through a favourite patch of twisties and the tighter the better. Looking at the world from 45 degrees puts a whole new perspective on life.

Naked bikes are a help here. Yeah man!! I know I'm doing 120kmh, 150kmh, 200kmh ... oh boy do you know it.

That is why I just love my 14. I get a full gym workout riding that sucker through the twisties. A quarter tonne of heavy metal at my bidding and man when you get your corners right on that thing, it really does bring a smile to your dial. Stuff up and you know it too.

Most modern bikes are well within there limits when ridden hard but a naked 1400, you are riding the edge. That 1.1g of cornering force, before things start to shift around, comes up real quick on a heavy bike and you have to really 'ride' it. Very very satisfying. Oh, I'm not a 1400 salesman by the way.

Oh, can someone redesign the roads to give me just a teeny bit more ground clearance please??

[Motoracer]

Sure I've had my days where it doesn't feel as good as it can do... but... I don't know... Its always the one thing that can always make me happy. So I don't think I'll ever give it up really...

There's just so much to do with bikes and so much to learn... I must have only uncovered a small portion of what you can get out of motorcycles... It's one of the few things in life that'll never bore me I reckon.

Like you though, I reckon the people have made it as good as it is. Without the social comunity of bike riders, it wouldn't be that much fun at all...

You don't need to go fast or pull wheelies... You just need to make sure that you are having fun doing what ever that it is, you are doing on a bike. If you aren't having fun at all, then you need to start thinking...

[justsomeguy]

Looking at the world from 45 degrees puts a whole new perspective on life.

Oh yeah.


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Gareth what's happened?? You don't sound like the chap I've ridden with. I think Loosebruce makes sense (no really). Find some more challenging riders to ride with that should make you concentrate a bit more and make your rides more interesting.