Went out for a ride today - first time in years

Ok, so not the first time I have ridden my bike for years (but was for a week or so ), but it is the first time I went out for a 'burn' for years. i.e. purely riding for recreation, no real destination in mind, just out enjoying the ride.

Now I used my Blue SV for commuting, so did the same run every day, sure I rode like a bit of a tool at times, but I had become so used to the route, I didn't think much of it ...

However I went out for this burn today ... me being me I tried going as fast as possible ... it actually concerned me how dangerous that was and I found myself constantly backing off/being more cautious ...

Road riding - burns - How is that fun people?? its just fecking dangerous when the pace builds!?


If only I could make myself ride sensibly and dawdle, I'd prolly enjoy it a lot more .. but for some reasons, get me on the backroads and I get my 'head down'

I am always pretty good through 30s, 40s and the motorway, but get me on twisty NSL and I want to ride like a cnut!!

Has anyone suffer from the same affliction and adopted some good self control techniques?!?! ... of do you lot simply not care you are riding like a cnut and not consider the consequences of doing so??

Excessive Fern Britton'll drive you to that....

Originally Posted by Sosha

Excessive Fern Britton'll drive you to that....

eh? {goes off and googlefoos Fern Britton to see what the feck she is on about}



Ah ... this is you insinuating I sit and watch daytime telly

You are so lame Sosha, come up with some new material

p.s. I find it funny/ironic you know who she was and I didn't!!

[G]

I ride like an idiot where if something went wrong I think the risk of serious damage is minimal

Otherwise I often think of bigapes thread and imagine myself wrapped around some armco or my girlfriend having to come and see me in a morgue potentially not identifying me from my face like what happened to our friends......soon slows me down pretty quickly

I have found myself so much calmer on the road nowadays. I have my odd stupid moment now and again but I've not really pushed it for a long time. I aim to keep it that way too. The road is just too damn dangerous to be taking dodgy risks.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

, but get me on twisty NSL and I want to ride like a cnut!!

taking this one point, am I right in thinking that the road is twisty enough that your speed is not far over 60? If so, what is the problem in riding to your ability? Or are you riding above your ability*

*ability includes being able to deal with other cnuts on the road.

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

... me being me I tried going as fast as possible

, but get me on twisty NSL and I want to ride like a cnut!!

Has anyone suffer from the same affliction and adopted some good self control techniques

I'm exactly the same mate,but when taking my 7yr old out on the back always makes me slower and sensible.

Originally Posted by Stu

taking this one point, am I right in thinking that the road is twisty enough that your speed is not far over 60? If so, what is the problem in riding to your ability? Or are you riding above your ability*

*ability includes being able to deal with other cnuts on the road.

Bearing in mind all the back roads round here are pretty thin and have tall hedgerows etc and carp surface, my point is that I find myself going into turns, where I want to go much faster, but have backed off a bit as I can't see round it (if there is a car broken down/on the wrong side of the road, or a pile of horse carp etc)... yet I realise that even though I have 'turned it down' a fair bit, each corner is still a lottery if there will be something there that I could stop/avoid it ...

So not only am I riding slower than I want, I am pinching my @ss every corner there is gonna be something there ... where is the fun in that?!?

Summin funny going on with my chicken strips too

Time and a place. Roads round here are the same kind. 4 out of 5 corners are pretty much blind. I don't pretend to have a real limit as fast as you, but nothing makes me back off like a blind corner or something on the road. I was thinking about this myself the other day, and on the routes I regularly do there's only a handful of corners (out of the great number) which you can genuinely "attack" with confidence.

It always makes me laugh when someone says "yeah, I reeled in this R1... he was faster on the straights but I made up for it in the corners huhuh!". That tells me nothing about either rider's ability. Most likely the R1 rider has simply got his sensible hat on and the following rider is just braver or more confident there's no hazard because he's following. In reality riders that take it steady round the corners and give it beans down the straights are much safer than the knee-down corner heroes, and yet they're the ones that get so much stick for not being very good. Put it this way, if I had to get a little baby from point A to point B on the back of a bike as fast as possible, via a twisty B road through woodland and along parish borders, with many blind corners, it wouldn't be in the corners where'd I be pressing on to make up time.