how well do you ride on the road? sensible, good, bad or just on the limits.
 

having looked through the site during today, it looks as though a large proportion of the member are of the, lets say , more mature rider group.
Does this effect the way you ride, either by yourself or when in a group.
do you ride more sensibly , or take more risk because you have more experiance on a bike, in more varied conditions.
It's probably safe to say that ducati's have a good safety background, but do you exploit this.
I have some friend who love all bikes, but are total looney's on two wheels.
does age make you a better biker or a bigger risk taker.
interested to hear your views.

K

Flat out until i see God then "BRAKE":D

when i was younger i used to see God, wait 2 seconds then brake:D

getting older every day :cool: and wiser me thinks.....mav;)

:lol:

Mav, you're a clown!

Love your sig by the way ... click here nob head - priceless!

I'll take the 5th on that

Tp be carefull;) i might be the "suprise guest" at the DSC bash;):cool::smug::D:lol::lol:

and i might bring me mates with me:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Edited on 20-10-2005 by madmav]

:lol:

Just let me in the door ok!

Scary thing is Mav your the one on the right!!!:lol:

I dont want to get hurt
I try to ride accordingly
every time I think "failed again"
but I think i'm starting to get a bit slower
every time the red mist descends i think of the kids and back off a bit
mile up the road i do summit silly

as for age, every one knows your immortal when your young

Depends whether we are going to or from a meet - sedate there, sedater back!!!:)

usually just behind skids...so I'll take the '6th' !!

Swift :cool:

Well I think I've slowed down a lot on the road since I've been riding more on the track - especially after starting racing.

But then I noticed my speedo telling me that it might just be that I'm more comfortable with braking hard, the handling of the bike and generally just carrying more speed etc?

So I don't know really. I do think I'm a lot safer on the road than I was. But then that's not hard, I'm surprised I'm still alive!

way too fast.


but its just so easy. really have to pull myself up on ocassions. i dont think any of really realise just how fast we go on the roads.

i recon if we saw some vidoe footage of us overtaking cars and disappearing into the distance we would be shocked at the speed.

good fun though. :D

I used to ride like complete ****, fast as possible everywhere.
But one day I had an experience (not a crash) that made me promise myself to either ride sensibly or get rid of the bike.

From the next day 'til now I've kept racing for the track, most of my rides are like I'm taking my test - although on a few occassions I'm still allowing myself to open it up a bit where I feel appropriate and hoist up the occassional front wheel, but make a concious effort to keep safe and not **** anyone off.

I WAS imortal when I was young, I can prove it... I'm still alive!

Fairly quick,but safe,.....I think!:burn:

"fairly quick"
understatment
I will give you safe though

I like to think I ride quick but within my limits and I always ride to get home in one piece, but I have been told I am a nutter :o so maybe I need to slow down a bit more.

To the prevailing conditions..... safe, smooth & progressive is what I aim for.

I'm gonna be sick.....................:burn:

1% slower than keefy or fordie.....which 2% off lunacy! :lol:

Thank god I haven't got more power.....

Thats a difficult question to answer as to giving things a limit when riding the bike,for sure there must be a limit at all times, much depends on conditions on the day and how you feel. Other factors are whether you are riding alone ,leading a group, tail end charlie, got the missus on the back seat.Im sure age does make a differance,but with age comes experiance but if your experiance is limited in the first place then it counts for nothing. There is no better factor in bike riding that getting out and riding the thing. I have found it invaluable to be out riding with other riders often faster than you who you can learn from, but understand the risks involved. This should be a slow process for every bend that you enter and exit at the correct speed is a lesson in survival
get it wrong only once and ,, well Ill not go down that road.
Do I as an older rider whey up the dangers more than a young rider , possibly I do,may be Ive seen more accidents than some of the younger ones and that will effect my judgement , I can tell you when you do make a mistake and go airbourne as I have done, it tells you you do not want to do it again , cause it bloody hurts and thats the best lesson of them all. I feel save and confident when riding fastish other wise i would'nt do it , but there is riding fast and racing thats when I draw the line (on the road) 4D

What's fast for one can be slow for another.
What's safe for one can be scary for another.

This is all affected by so many different factors other than road conditions. As Fordie said, experience counts for a lot, so does training. Despite the boring image associated with Institute of Advanced Motorcylists, it really can help you to go faster, safely; as i'm sure Rushjob and ANdyB would confirm. Also track based training like CSS, doing track days, and racing.

Off road experience is very good for throttle control, experienceing the bike bucking and sliding.

Despite the track being a safer environment, i feel happier on the road, probably because of the mileage i've done over the years, whereas i only average 1 or 2 track days a year.

I think i ride at a reasonable pace when conditions allow, but thats subjective as i've only ridden with a few of the local group a few times. Most of the time i'm out with the 'Alternative Tour de France crew' the same group who have ridden together on and off road for years, so we know and trust each other. Other than that a lot of my miles have been done on my own with despatching, thats not really a group pastime.

In answer to your original question i was a lot wilder when i was 18 on a bike and took a lot more risks, but wouldn't say i was actually much faster, madder yes. I can cope with someone being faster than me now, or passing me now, whereas it used to be red rag to a bull.

Having said all that i enjoy going fast, the mental buzz of a good long hard ride is something special ( i love a week hunting bends in France) but it's not worth killing yourself for, and as Glyn said you always want to see the kids again.

[Edited on 20-10-2005 by BDG]

That'll no doubt be because of all the bumps as you go across the grass again then will it ??
:P

I see God when I look at my bike, I'm the Devil when I get on it, and up to now the Holy Ghost has protected me.

Me - dog slow on the road, which annoys the hell out of me, I used to be fairly confident on the road, used to be good at reading unknown roads, but over the last year or two I hate leading on the road to the point where I just can't be bothered with road riding because I don't enjoy it, but stick me behind someone and I suddenly become smooooth????? :puzzled:

You just like looking at Lilys rear:lol:

....well there is that ;)

Slower than I was, for sure, but it is a psycholgical thing. It's down to experience pure and simple.

One of the things that has made me a lot slower on the road is having had a couple of lowsides on track - on both occasions I didn't know anything about it. There was no warning that the front was going to let go, it was just cranked right over with both tyres going grip, grip, grip, grip then suddenly I was sliding down the track on my arse watching my bike shower sparks back at me. On the track, on both ocassions, I just slid down the road, gently over a flat kerb and onto the grass, the only injury I sustained was a very small graze on the heel of my hand where my glove wore through. On the road, the chances of coming off without hitting something hard, or firing yourself through a hedge are remote. If you do come off, chances are it's gonna hurt big time. So trusting the front end is a big psychological barrier to me.

Having said all that, I still ride quickly on the road, I'm a little bit rustier than my riding mates because I haven't been able to get out as much this year and because for the last few rideouts I've been getting used to a completely different bike. Maybe it's because I haven't been out riding with them so much that I'm like Ali and a good few percent off the pace, but I am riding within my comfort levels rather than pushing beyond them for the sake of being macho.

Another thing, as I told Glyn on Sunday, one of the things that plays on my mind now, when I'm out riding in the middle of a group, is that I hope to God that I don't come round a corner one day and find that one of my mates in front of me has had a big one. I also get a apprehensive when I've put a lot of distance between me and the guy behind, when we slow down or pull over to wait for someone to catch up (especially if they've fallen a long way back) I always breath a big sigh of relief when I see their headlights in my mirrors. I know I should concentrate on my own ride and let everybody else be accountable for theirs, and it's only something I've started to think about recently. Who knows, maybe it's because my kids have both left home and I need to worry about somebody :lol::lol::lol:

I've also caught myself being cranked right over on a fast sweeper, and glancing down at the clocks to see them well into the 'go straight to jail' territory....hmmmm, makes you think!

smooth and brisk!!!:burn:

although I do have a red mist problem...
(more tame than I used to be though - but not much)

Les

All depends on how many points you have on your licence......6 now for me. B.u.g.g.e.r! I do a lot of driving (35,000 miles per year average) on A and B roads here in Bonnie Scotland. Im starting to lose count of the number of times Ive come round bends and there is tractors, caravans, cars on wrong side of the road etc and thats in a Ford Escort van......christ knows what would have happened on the bike...id hate to think. Always keep it defensive.

I used to ride as tail end charlie but found I was taking more chances than the riders in front in an attempt to keep the pack in sight.

The thing which influenced me most was travelling home from a business trip in the car during the summertime along a country A road and coming across an accident which had just happened to a guy on a 748.

He was one of three riders who had gone into a fairly tight bend at I assume about 60mph only to be confronted by a woman driving a small hatchback out of a farm entrance. Riders 1 & 2 had made it past the car but the guy on the ducati hit her and knocked the car into the hedge with the force of the impact. His bike literally disintegrated into hundreds of pieces.

A few of us did our best to assist until the police & ambulance turned up but I
was later told that he had died. Apparently it was due to be his daughters christening the day after the accident....

I didn't touch the bike for months after and now ride either alone, or with one other rider and hardly ever go over 70 on an A road. I have had people skit at my riding ability as a result but as far as I am concerned my first responsibility is to my loved ones.

I'll get off me soapbox nowl :burn:

I'm kinda with Philthy on this one. I'm completely dog slow, only been riding for 5 years and I'm super safe. I take no risks - I ride at my own pace on my own most of the time. My tyres have chunky chicken strips and it doesn't bother me at all. I'm 30 years old, recently married, and I want to have a long and happy life before I die.

Just because I don't thrash the nuts off it everywhere, it doesn't mean I don't love riding my 749S :)

I used to ride (and drive) a lot faster, but the traffic in sussex has really gone up in the last 10 years, and the 30/40 speed limits have been creeping further everywhere.
Since starting racing, I dont find I need to get a fix so much, but, like TP says, sometimes you dont realise you are going the speed you are cos your abilities have improved.
I think I'm probably more dangerous going to work on my 1959 velocette 350 than on the 748sps, cos I _have_ to cut up traffic more to get past :D

I had a wake-up call of a strange kind last year - I was coming home from work after a weekend's racing, and was on my old 1982 900ss bevel at the time, and touched a silencer bracket down around a roundabout.
Now you have to see the ground clearence on them to believe it, and I had never touched it down before, and I didnt feel as if I was going fast.
I've gone off bikes that make going fast too easy since then :saint:

I've just thought of another reason why I don't ride as fast. It's because I work at home.

What's that got to do with it? Well....

Time was when I would get up at 5:30 every morning for a 1.5 - 2 hour journey to Bracknell and join the race down the motorway, or alternatively cane the ass off the car I had at the time - usually a GTI or V6 something or other - across the backroads. I used to do a bit of rallying and sometimes this was at special stage speeds. If you do that everyday, going megafast just seems normal to you.

Working at home, I don't drive very far these days - haven't needed to touch the car for two weeks now.

The effect is like a weird experience that I had after a very lazy canal boat holiday - after chugging about at 4 mph for 10 days, driving the car home at 60 seemed to be bordering on suicidal.

Think i'll join the canal boat sporting club next

:puzzled: well that will be because your observation is staring down at the tarmac in front of your front wheel.....!;)

In fact the majority of riding problems can be traced back to observation! you dont see so your going too slow or too fast. you dont read the road so your in the wrong position at the wrong time.etc etc etc....

too true Andy, everytime i do an advanced road course i am amazed at how much the trainers are taking in, i consider myself a quick'ish road rider with good observation but its only when you go out with radios in you really appreciate what others can do.

I spend most of my time sitting behind a screen (based at home) and therefore dont get many miles in (like Jools).

Problem is, I get enought stress from my job (usually stupid deadlines and the odd impossible ones too) and the pace on the bike is a way of me relaxing..:o

must agree with gizmo - best money spent is on advanced road riding...

raises your vision - also makes you realise how a lot of riders don't look ahead enough - not that any do it on here, just a general comment:)

les