To Ride Fast or Not To Ride Fast, That is the Question?

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by G

Riding fast is bad you can damage things and hurt yourself

Or was it just down to efficient cbr brakes/crap on the surface?

i ride within my limits 90% of the time then push it with the other 10% when i think the conditions are good and i can get away with it, gets the old adrenalin pumping

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

i ride within my limits 90% of the time then push it with the other 10% when i think the conditions are good and i can get away with it, gets the old adrenalin pumping

Hmm. I wouldn't say I go that far. Today I didn't push it much, the back was hopping out quite a bit cos the roads still have leaf **** on them. But the A5 was a blast

Originally Posted by G

Riding fast is bad you can damage things and hurt yourself

Depends what you define as fast - I define it as making progress and up to the speed limit - if you're going much faster then you won't have the required reaction time etc etc

[yorkie_chris]

The speed limit doesn't even enter into my considerations of "fast". It's an arbitrary number with zero correlation to the safe speed.
Only time I think about the numbers is when I smell bacon.

[G]

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

Depends what you define as fast

I guess I define fast as somewhere close to the edge of your abilities... whether that be 50 or 150mph

Or 100+ish yesterday lol

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

i ride within my limits 90% of the time then push it with the other 10% when i think the conditions are good and i can get away with it, gets the old adrenalin pumping

Yep,i'd probably say something similar.

[Binky]

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

Depends what you define as fast - I define it as making progress and up to the speed limit - if you're going much faster then you won't have the required reaction time etc etc

G defines it as trying to hit every apex right and braking as late as possible.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

The speed limit doesn't even enter into my considerations of "fast". It's an arbitrary number with zero correlation to the safe speed.
Only time I think about the numbers is when I smell bacon.

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

But you have to be very fussy and careful about who you ask - the only people I completely trust (even above my other half's opinions which I value greatly) is my local advanced training group - especially my own Observer.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

I generally accept advice from people I reckon are qualified to give it. I didn't get that feeling from the IAM guy I went out with as at his speeds you weren't exactly going to hurt yourself if it went wrong!

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

Okay - well...good luck

Sorry AL, but your posts seem to be a bit contradictory here? I agree with both of you. But by your own advice you say you need to be careful who you ask, but then seem to take exception to YC dismissing the IAM instructors advice.

I realise your issue was probably the comment about speed, but if the IAM instructor was the type to pootle about and YC isn't, then that guy isn't going to help YC ride safer, by training him at a different speed to the one he's going to use when riding on the road. He needs to change his style or YC needs to find a different instructor. Lots of advanced training centres around being able to make safe, but relatively rapid progress, and a rider trained in how to do this is safer than a rider who will do those speeds anyway with no training.

Getting benefit out of training actually relies a lot on the relationship between instructor and pupil. An instructor has to deal with lots of different pupils, so unless the pupils attitude absolutely stinks, which is unlikely if he has voluntarily gone for training, then it is up to the instructor to be the flexible one. To figure out the pupils personality, how he is going to absorb and learn best, how that translates into his riding style, and adjust his own style of teaching to suit.

I went for a bike safe ride. At the end of it the police rider said, I don't really have much feedback your riding is OK, Bike Safe is not going to do much to improve it, but then went on to bollock me for doing 75 in a 60 limit during an overtake, of a car that was doing 55. I did it because he had already bollocked one of the guys in my group for not making progress by sitting behind a car that was doing 55. I said I didn't want to spend an unnecessary amount on the wrong side of the road, to which he replied "why not, there was nothing coming the other way you could have taken your time". NO positive feedback from the guy at all! So just because he's a trained professional rider, that doesn't mean he's any good giving people advise.

Similarly I know someone whose GF recently passed the IAM test, but I would not class her as an advanced rider. In fact less than a couple of years ago she was a downright incompetent rider, and has gone through the training in order to improve, now has the confidence to get up to the speed limits, and has learned what she needs to do in order to pass the IAM test, and within her own limits she is doing well. But she still doesn't have the confidence to go above 60mph on an A road or 70mph on a motorway (whether she should be doing so or not is irrelevant), and doesn't have the confidence to overtake. She has an SV in the garage but it goes nowhere because she doesn't have the confidence to ride it. She uses her old bike because it's less powerful and doesn't have as sensitive a throttle response. I don't class somebody who is lacking in confidence and still a bit scared of the bike as an "advanced" rider. So IAM doesn't mean an awful lot either.

[yorkie_chris]

To quantify my earlier statement, the IAM bloke was actually a really nice guy and did give me a few helpful tips. But I just wasn't his sort of pupil, he said that most of the riders in his IAM bit join because they have no confidence,* whereas I was/am opposite with confidence in my riding and the bad habits of all those cagers right in the f'in way... Oh I mean a bit too much aggression!


* And is this the right reason to go in IAM? Do you join because you are too slow, or because you are too quick and want to do it a bit safer. Most women I suspect fall into the former category.