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Philip's Ravings

What size road bike should I buy (or should I buy a 1000cc bike)?

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I've come to realise if you ask this question then your approaching the problem from the wrong angle.

There is something known as the man-machine interface. The basic concept is that your sensory experiences can be extended by tools.

For example, while operating a hammer your senses can extend to where the face of the hammer strikes the nail. You don't think of how you operate your hand, but instead of how the hammer will strike. Once your interface has extended like this you can become an expert in using the hammer.

The motorcycle is just a more complicated "tool". To truely become an expert rider you need to bond with the motorcycle. You need your sensory experience to push out to where the wheels meet the ground (to feel traction), of the throttle response (as opposed to your hand on the throttle), to feel the space around the motorcycle (as opposed to considering the space around you and the motorcycle like they are two seperate things). I hope you get the concept I'm trying to get across.

So what are you looking for in a road bike? If you want to have that "magic" flying experience, of being one with the machine, they you need to find a machine you can "bond" with. One that feels "natural" for you.

Now the ability to extend your sensory experience on a motorcycle is not a natural experience for the majority of us. The last 60,000 years of brain development never prepapred us for something like a two wheeled vehicle. It is something that is learnt through repetition. You need to put in lots of riding time, and you need to be doing riding that requires you and the machine to move together (so not just lots of straight line riding). You need to make sure your senses are extended over a broad range of riding - slow, fast, braking, leaning, turning, cornering, etc.

So what does this mean? You really need to take a bike for a ride, and see if it feels "right". Perhaps you'll experience this in a 1200cc cruiser, or perhaps on a 250cc Japanese import, or perhaps on that 1000cc superbike - but choose the bike that you think you'll be able to bond to. It's like a marriage, and to be a truely accompolished rider you need to reach a point where you can be one with the machine and you don't think about operating it, you just think about what you want to happen and somehow as if by magic the bike just seems to respond and it happens.

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  1. scracha's Avatar
    Must be one hell of a marriage :-)
  2. GrayWolf's Avatar
    Very well thought, and I would agree. Unfortunately for most the only 'sense' they want to be aware of is the adrenalin rush of opening the throttle on the quickest bike, rather than feeling comfortable on it. I've got the ZZR1.1... so why does the MT-01 feel 'right' where as much as I enjoy the Zed's performance... it doesnt 'connect' the way that big lazy V twin does.
  3. thehovel's Avatar
    Things like cost of rego,size and just how fast you REALY want to go. As you are comming from a 650cc is the top rego bracket worth it?????? My favourite bike was a K75 BMW. When I bought it the specks were; multi cylinder,shaft drive,mid range(cc),Liquid cooled, good pilion seat and a sit up riding position. Three cylinders was a bonus , So Smooth. Smoother than the K1000 and no vibration at any rev position. Regards Richard
  4. Spearfish's Avatar
    There are a lot of people who cant maintain a monogamous relationship like that...
  5. Crisis management's Avatar
    I can understand your rationale but disagree about the magical properties of it, I don't think I have ridden a bike I didn't enjoy, some of them were crap in the power stakes, some in the handling stakes but all were enjoyable and easily engaged with. I was thinking along similar-ish lines on Sunday, trail riding my 200 / 2 stroke, I liken that to dancing, the bike and my interaction is a balance of two entities, without each other it ain't going to work, and when one puts a foot wrong it becomes dancing with trees. However, I blagged a ride on a 450 / 4 stroke (I'm thinking of buying one) and it's exactly the same interaction, you have to work together to make it flow. Ok, there will need to be some adjustments to the new partners foibles but nothing that can't be learnt in a short time.
    It's the same with my other bikes, they are all different buit all give me a buzz, the 200 enduro bike because it's trying to kill me, the 640 adventure bike for it's ability to slide everywhere on every surface, the BMW because its gentlemanly, sedate and old school and the bucket cause I can be Rossi for a day.
    Not one of those bikes shares the handling traits / power curve or riding position of the others yet they all work for me, different aspects of each bike being better than the others but I am capable of enjoying all of them, there is no way there is "one" bike for me.