An article in CiF that celebrates the open road on a motorcycle.
My bike effortlessly unzips the landscape – now becoming the dry yet luminous summer green of the Loire valley. I twist the throttle and the giddying surge of power sheds the bike of its slow-speed weight, firms the balance and allows me to pitch and roll her around a snaking convoy of traffic with the poise and ease of a ballerina. The road is baked smooth, and thoughtful in its benign meanderings. It’s a biker’s road, endlessly stretching and courteous, and complicit in the playful harmony of man and machine that is being celebrated upon it.
France, of course, is full of biker roads. My own preference is the snaking D road that meanders through the towns and villages. You can ride for miles and not meet another vehicle. Stopping for a break or lunch means pulling up at a roadside bar or café.
My own bike is a BMW R1150RT. While large, once on the move it is nimble and belies its weight, so well balanced is it. I can throw it around as I would a smaller machine and enjoy a twisty road or the blast of an empty motorway.
If you’ve never done it, you wouldn’t understand…
Of course there are commenters who don’t understand. The hard of thinking who regard them as dangerous (they are not) and a surefire way to hospital food or organ donation (they are not). A bike, like any machine is as good and safe as its rider and nothing comes close to the experience.
dude, some stuff…
“The hard of thinking who regard them as dangerous (they are not) and a surefire way to hospital food or organ donation (they are not). ”
nah, they are quite dangerous… even if you are a good rider, its not all down to you, there are many idiots on the road.
but really what is wrong in doing something that may entail a little risk?
I don’t ride, and rarely go to france, but certainly would like to combine the two and imagine it gives a good sense of exhileration and freedom. Why the need to defend that it does entail certain risks? Risks and all … I’m in 🙂
O… ka… y
You can be the best rider in the world but you cannot compensate or anticipate for 100% of likely happenings for 100% of the time.
I may agree that bikes per se are not dangerous, remove all other road traffic and bike accidents would fall dramatically (obviously) but the world a biker inhabits is inherently so.
Whilst you may not have made the aquaintence of Mr ‘Sorry I Didn’t See You’, others have not been so fortunate. Another meeting that may have eluded you is the not so friendly greeting of black ice. Yet another is a kamikaze pheasant and a lost the will to live fox.
Does this make bikes dangerous? They certinly disadvantage you more so than a four (or more) wheeled mode of transport in those circumstances.
I had to give up biking in the end, not due to the accidents but due to the fact that trying to deal with all possible scenarios at any given time was sending me round the freaking bend (NPI). Each journey ended up like a bad acid trip of wild imaginings, could be’s, may be’s and possibilities.
Still, looking on the bright side I had many great times on bikes and I’ll probably be scrapped rather than cremated or buried. I can’t see titanium losing value any time soon.
Still prefer to ride IN something, rather than ON it… 😉
Never heard of any one having to be cut out of the burning wreckage of a motorbike.
As to the “figures”, I once was working on chopping a Norton Commndo. The exhaust had just been welded, unknown to me, and was still hot. Picked it up. Swerious burns on my hand.
Hospital puts it down as “a motocycle accident”.
You smokers (Leg Iron, etc) think you have it bad?
Bikers have been getting this kind of shite since the 20s and 30s. Where were the “smokers” supporting US then?
Welcome to the ball game newbys.
I am no more likely to have an accident riding the bike than I am driving the car. I am the same person, making the same assessment of the prevailing conditions and hazards. If I have an accident, then I am more likely to be injured or killed on the bike than in the car. That doesn’t make the bike dangerous, though.
Yup, I’ve had plenty of encounters with drivers who didn’t see me – on the bike and in the car. I have, however, managed to avoid hitting them. The best way of staying alive is defensive riding and to anticipate such behaviour. Advanced driving/riding is the art of avoiding other peoples’ accidents. I only ever came off once on black ice about thirty years ago. No, you can’t be 100% certain. But then nothing is 100% certain. I’m still here after 30 odd years so I must be doing something right 😉
Bikes are not dangerous, people are. Ultimately, while it carries more inherent risk than driving a car, motorcycling is as dangerous as you choose to make it.
FT is right about the attitude towards us being like that experienced by smokers. We’ve been putting up with the self-righteous bansturbator brigade for decades. And like many other bikers I’ve been turned away from pubs because of my choice of transport. I long since stopped going to them. They need customers more than I need them.
Bikes are not dangerous, just vulnerable.
Been through France a few times and did the 94 Euro-Demo in Paris sans casque.
Around here in the region of Aquitaine, the majority of cars move over for you to pass, even with in the solid white line, it is rare that I find myself in a dangerous situation involving other traffic, the most annoying thing is the lack of attention paid to sweeping up the stone chips after the road surface has been replaced, on the smaller C routes it gets entertaining as the front end slides out because the Gravillions warning sign has been put up after the start of the repair! Having a small bike business means I get to ride all types of bikes often, and ridden within the limits of the brakes ( a nineteen sixty five BSA does’nt have quite the same retardation capacity as a modern Yamaha ) I don’t get to have many moments, however modern bikes are a lot harder to fall off than old ones, but in my opinion not as satisfying to ride. I was also at the ’94 Euro Demo, that was some weekend!
Has anyone “done” the Peripherique?
Scarey enough on a bike. Bloody terrifying in a car. Like the French, I try to position myself so that bikes can get past my car easily, but that road is the nearest thing to an arcade game! At rush hour (all the time) it’s almost impossible to spot which side of me the next mad Parisian seemingly on his way to the cemetery is coming from.
Yes. Once. Never again.
My first bike was a 1963 C15SS. If I said it was dreadful, I’d be giving it too much praise. I must admit, on the occasions when I ride an older machine, I’m sharply reminded of just how they’ve developed. Not just performance and braking, but road-holding. Give me a modern bike any-day.
Not that I really care … but… bikes are quite dangerous means of transportation in comparison to other forms.
You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. So why any rider would want to argue otherwise is completely beyond me… it just makes the anti bike brigade a little more sure in their conviction that all bike riders are tards.
Surely the argument is, of course there is some danger, but the danger is primarily to me and it’s what I want to do , so fuck off.
If we are into reducing risks, which I am generally in favour of, you can tell the fat fuckers to take the steak/pork chop/mcdonalds out of their mouth to reduce higher risk of a stroke.
WTF should this be about risk for? It is about your choice surely?
I have never done a stat analy on bike accidents per bike per hour on road and have no intention of wasting my time doing so, but I imagine it would fly in the face of most bikers view of things.
Riders ride right? Becasue I/you want to. It is enough reason. The other arguments … well you/we will always lose.
There is a difference between a higher risk/greater vulnerability and dangerous. Riding a bike itself is not dangerous – the rider is more vulnerable in the event of an accident. As I mentioned earlier, I am no more likely to have an accident on the bike than I am in the car as I apply the same defensive tactics. If I have an accident then I’ll be more likely to be killed or seriously injured when on the bike due to lack of protection. It’s important to get across that difference to the “bikes are dangerous!” brigade. Bikes are not dangerous. Riders who ride like tits are, though. Drivers who don’t look where they are going, who tailgate and change lanes without planning are dangerous. The machines are not.
I have done the KSI analysis – about ten years ago as part of a risk assessment for using bikes professionally for my employer at the time. The KSI figures place the risk as about ten times that of a van or car. Unfortunately, this is exaggerated by an assumption that the average mileage for bikes is much lower than that of cars and vans and makes no allowance for multi-bike ownership. The figures are therefore skewed.
If I cannot reason with such people, then that is my final riposte.
“allows me to pitch and roll her around a snaking convoy of traffic”
Riding a motorcycle may not be dangerous in and of itself, but the way a lot of people ride them is—the above, for example.
Don’t bikers have to obey the same laws of the road as car drivers, such as staying in your lane, stopping at red lights, and driving at reasonable speeds? Bypassing slow traffic by burning rubber in the oncoming lane is, well, dangerous. Especially when it means drivers in the oncoming lane have to swerve to avoid hitting the biker. And that’s not even to mention when bikers book it up the inside instead, and plow broadside into a car that’s making a legal turn, as I witnessed a couple of weeks ago.
So it’s not the bikes that are dangerous. It’s the crazy way many people ride them, and I wish they’d stop. Not on the open road, where they have only themselves to hurt, but when other traffic is on the road and there’s the potential to cause at best property damage, and at worst get some poor bastard done for manslaughter. If bikers, as Longrider says, drove less like tits, bikes wouldn’t have the reputation they do for being death machines.
I used to have a favourite ride not far from home through an area called the Wisperthal.
…and then I had the good sense come back to the UK and just had to SORN my ‘Blade.
Yes, riders are bound by the same road traffic laws as all other road users.
Filtering – moving to the front of a stationary (or almost stationary) traffic queue if done properly is not dangerous, nor is it illegal. It is one of the benefits of being on a bike. Doing it on the nearside is suicidal.