It's certainly a vexing issue. But is it the riders or their selection of bike?
Those great big, ugly Harleys and the various look-a-likes are horrid bikes for most New Zealand roads, except maybe the motorways.
It seems to me that the Japanese, particularly, would not have spent gazillions of dollars designing very fast, very capable bikes with the seating-to-grips positions requiring the rider to be...at some level...leaned forward. And with significant ground-clearance. Moreover, just looking into the corner makes the bike follow.
Yet with the Harley look-alikes, you look into a corner and end up in the opposite field, or gully, or bus, or lamp-post.
Earlier this week I watched a Harley-Look-a-like rider traverse a very mild corner. There he was, leaning way back, feet on his foot-plates (as opposed to pegs), no knee-contact with the bike, and semi-apes. He rolled into this mild corner at about 60Ks and his bloody right heel was scraping the road. He obviously recongised this and stood the bike up a bit and damned near hit the kerb.
So here's a question. Are Harley (and variants of design) more or less dangerous in the hands of returning, aging bikers, compared a well-balanced, sports tourers?
Remember, when we old floggs started riding back in the sixties we rode great clumping bikes with the performance of a Eunuch in a Harem, some of which were sit-up-and-beg, but most of which required a certain amount of forward lean.
But in between times, we old-floggs have been inundated with push-button everything, and a resulting expectation that everything should work as the ads say they should; especially those of us who have earned enough to indulge a whim such as a flash bike.
Notwithstanding, we old-floggs do a good line in desperately attempting to replicate our youthful days. The fact is, we may look 50 or 60 but we still 'think' we're teens, and we hate the fact we are not.
We've done our duties as regards marriages and children, and now it's time for some rejuvenated freedom from our carefree days.
Many of us have an ideology which is not congruent with reality. We remember the thumpty-thumpty-thump of the bikes we rode as kids. We want to go back there....At least the incautious do.
Me? I did the thumpity-thump bikes in the sixties. But I know, now, that my old Team Zimmer-frame, far from being the executive jet of the bike world, is still a way better designed bike for a slowing of thought, full of ego, aging biker than some American Highway inspired thumper.
Maybe we need to look at a new licence standard. One which requires every rider to complete track-A at???? Puke/Taupo/Manfield, within a certain time, before getting a full licence. And do so on the biker's bike of choice, and affixed to their licence, just to stop the clever-arses cheating.
Maybe AMCC needs to look at offering seriously discounted deals for aging Harley and Harley-look-alike riders to do some track-days.
I'd love to see the stats on crashes as regards rider age and type of bike. I'd bet that would be revealing.
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Originally Posted by dpex
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