"... On those nights the air tantalises
with its nameless promises ..." To:
Nigel, Paul, Les, Kym, Dave B, Dave S, Jackie, Michelle, Maria (Misty), Penny, Helen
The larger machines brought with them increased stability, far superior braking (trying to brake a light-weight at speed you lost traction too soon, the heavier machines added some decent down-forces to the equation - far more bikers were killed on fast 250's than anything else in the 70's and early 80’s) but much more importantly - you didn't NEED to ride so fast on a machine that was OBVIOUSLY very fast. I guess it's a man thing.
Footpegs on these brutes were shaved down the edges by friction with the tarmac - heeling over at night, exposing acres of exhaust plumbing - the footpegs are the first items to ground-out, sending showers of sparks across the carriageway.
On those nights the air tantalises with its nameless promises, and the nearness of the Purbecks, and unlit highways beckon – the round-harbour run is about as much as you need for a minor home-time diversion between, say, the town centre and, er… Moordown. Believe me, these machines were time machines – something you’d never consider in four wheels– through mileage or time, becomes nothing – absolutely nothing, to a time-machine, a mere 20 minutes added to your journey.
So how do you stay alive on a vehicle capable of shifting from standstill to 80mph in less than four seconds? To be in your mid-to-late twenties aboard something that out-accelerates a Ferrari, with precious little protection and even less experience? Unless you’re blessed with unbelievable luck, you will almost certainly die.
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This is for highly illegal antics, not for pottering along in the traffic, or the occasional blind ‘though the middle’ stuff we all witness daily; this was the searing, weaving, screamingly accelerated time-shift biking that has all but left our roads today through cameras – but more, sheer volume of vehicles on our roads.
You evolve a multi-split focus, encompassing literally scores of constantly shifting variables:
(1) Foreground/split: Road-surface, engine noise, gear, tyre condition.
(2) Mid-ground: to say, 800m, immediate traffic (including intensely specific vehicle situation four-to-five cars ahead – if a vehicle so much as twitches a millimetre – four cars ahead – you’re alert), side-roads, pedestrians, surface condition changes, manhole covers, police.
(3) 800m to infinity – brake lights half a mile away (at these speeds you’ll BE THERE in a few seconds), bends, patterns of spacing (vehicles) proximity of side-road entrances, locality, police possibility (parked patrols), fast cars that might take-up the chase, weather. And, of course – alongside all this – the FEEL of your mount - its merest glimmer of oddity transmitting itself back to you as a full-scale emergency.
My God, you even get to recognise driving patterns from the time of day (evenings, older or customised vehicles – younger drivers = alcohol), day of the week (weekend drivers don’t possess the ‘flow experience’ of business day traffic and panic more quickly), locality (is this location known? Do the inhabitants expect traffic at this speed? Where are the local dangers?), type and age of vehicle (this always signifies the probable mindset of the driver), age/sex of driver (the females can be more aggressive – yet less skilled at keeping to lanes, judging braking distances) the males will ‘have a go’ but give-up sooner.
Road markings and signs don’t count (you can’t afford to see them at this speed) – it’s the curves and cambers that affect you, and TIMING. Those lights coming-up toward you (you’re on their side of the road), and THAT GAP 600 metres-up – calculations rip through your subconscious, as the wind tears at your visor, a ceaseless symphony of rising and falling notes against the tinted perspex.
The machine answers, four carbs suck in gaping lungfuls of air to mix with your fuel and four tailpipes howl in complaint, tyres scuffing in momentary blindness though a hasty shift-down or chain-lag causing a transitory rev-drift at a hasty shift-up. Sheer brutal pressure, as real as a dozen hands pummelling your chest as the beast accelerates through its own power-band, the scenery blurring, the wind now purely that of your own head-stream – you’ve entered the realms of time-shifter, everything a fraction lighter, now is mere light, shape and effortless motion. A gentle lean left – and a mile of tarmac vanishes – a lean right – and you’re starting to brake for the next village, half-a-mile,17 seconds of blurred light away, swinging with an almost audible THUMP back into focus as the machine lands back into real friction, real wind, the real world.
