TT

23 Comments

1. Nice action pictures.

   • Seeing them heel over on corners like that puts butterflies in my stomach!

2. The physics and technology of those bikes are amazing.
   Although the bike is turning a sharp corner the handlebars are set for straight ahead. It must be the profile of the tyre in contact with road. At that angle the tyre is conical section. So the wheel diameter on the inside of the bend is less than diameter on the outside road contact. So the wheels, back and front must follow an arc. Probably old news to you LR, but those photographs make it a revelation to me.
   As for the riders………..wordless. (Well, I am not speaking.)
   Enjoy.

   • It’s all done with counter steering.

   • I remember, when I still rode a bike, that if you physically pushed the left handlebar forward, you’d turn left

3. Didn’t a famous rider, some years back, show that you could ride a bike with the front wheel fixed so that it couldn’t steer?

   Apochryphal or not, it still makes me wonder at how they stay on the road at that angle…

   • The spinning forces in the wheels come into conflict with inertia when the rider presses on the bars. The steering acts like a rudder. Friction between the tyres on the tarmac holds it all together.

     • Good pics. Worth reminding your readers the IOM is one of the few true road circuits and consequently very dangerous compared to a track. My respect to all racers there – they’re much braver (or maybe madder?) than I’ve ever been.
       Tracks only for me I’m afraid.

4. Great pictures!

5. Like the pictures, don’t recognise the corner, but it’s a long time since my last mad Sunday.

   • Parliament Square.

6. Not an expert but I understand that on sharp turns the amount of rubber in actual contact with the road equates to around the size of a large man’s hand. At 130 mph. Mental.

   • About that, yes.

   • 135 mph is average lap speed. In 2015 James Hillier set the fastest speed ever recorded for a motorcycle on closed roads, on a Kawasaki H2R, at 206 mph. That was on the Sulby straight.

     • Michael Dunlop just broke the superbike lap record with his 23rd win. 135.445mph.

       • Saw it on Youtube a couple of hours ago. Unfortunately for me, work and other things have prevented me from going for quite a few years now.

7. Did you take a bike?

   • The FTR.

8. My late uncle (2 silver replicas, 1948, ’49) watching a race with another rider at a corner like that exclaimed “Xt, that idiot’s going to kill himself!” His friend replied “Ian, you’ve never seen you come round that bend.” I think that was when he decided he’d done enough.

9. This is a nice video on YT showing one of these guys doing a lap of the course. Brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFJSVtsckyI

   Now I rode like an idiot when I was younger and even though these roads are clear I could never have driven like these guys do. Absolutely amazing.

   • Thanks for the vid. Just astonishing. Is there big prize money involved? These guys are obviously professionals, and the bikes and crew must cost a fair whack?

     I’m amazed more spectators are killed.

10. An OT post is now needed because this all looks too positive and jovial. I’ll ruin it.
    On Friday I had a beer at the gin bar terrace on Elvet bridge in Durham. Good place to sit down and watch and criticise/judge people. A proper police woman walked by, not a community officer or such, she was young but as frail as my 80 year old mother, arms full of tattoos, face full of metalwork.

    FFS, no wonder people dispice the police farce. My mother could’ve knocked her block off.

11. https://the-race.com/motorcycle-racing/the-bizarre-adventures-of-breaking-down-at-the-isle-of-man-tt/