As I embark on this journey, there is one piece of advice that has been given many times by people I respect. Develop the skills THEN buy the bike. Obviously you need a bike to practise but the point is that you can develop on something capable before heading out and buying a new superbike with 200bhp and approaching that number as a top speed.
This makes absolute sense. Going fast on track involves many new skills, or at least adaptations to existing ones significant enough to count as new. Reference points for braking, turn in, apex and exit. Vision, dealing with hard braking and equally hard acceleration, dealing with roads designed to challenges rather than make life easier. Moving on and with the bike and so much more. And beyond this there is processing information at speed and at angles of lean beyond what would sensibly ever approach on the road.
The latter is a case in point. Humans are adapted to be comfortable at up to 20 degrees off vertical. This is the angle we require to remain upright when turning at a fast running pace. Anything beyond that is unnatural and therefore needs adaptation. Riding a motorcycle over many years means I have adapted but not to the angles required riding on a track. Nor is there need to hang off a road bike to maximise tyre contact and yet still turn a bike at speed. I can write all this stuff but not yet do it. I may not be able to do it at all, 40 years of experience has built in programmes that will need to be unlearnt for this new environment.
And so, to go back to the start of this piece, it is sensible to do this on a bike that is not itself a thing to be learnt, a big stretch beyond the familiar.
Meet my new bike…
peteryder2003 