What to ride

What does a proper motorcycle look like?  Unlike many other aspects of your life wherein control is a comforting illusion, you are in control of your motorcycle.  This is a combination of your skills and it’s performance envelope.  This envelope can be described in 4 terms.  Kind of like an airplane minus the climb.  You have acceleration, braking, turn rate ( how hard can you turn which is a combination of lean angle, weight and tire quality), and roll rate or agility as in how quickly can you change directions.  These attributes are also highly influenced by your position on the motorcycle.  Acceleration can be used to get you out of trouble and it is important to have enough.  More often than not, however, it is used to get you into trouble that you are going to need plenty of one or more of the other attributes to get you out of.    If we want to look at motorcycles that have the ideal amounts of these qualities we only have to look to racing.  Racing can be boiled down to three types disregarding surface.  Racing where you turn in both directions (road racing, motocross, scrambles, enduro), racing around in circles, (flat track, AMA Grand National, speedway) and racing in straight line (drag racing, speed trials)  We will ignore drag racers and speed trial bikes because these bikes aren’t designed to turn at all and brakes aren’t much either.  No one makes motorcycles that are slow to accelerate, slow to stop and hard to turn to compete in the other forms of racing.  When we look at these various forms of racing we see two general types of motorcycles.  For really high speed road racing we have this:

My man Valentino Rossi with his Yamaha MotoGP bike.   Sportbikes look like this, not just because their riders want to look like racers, but because this is the best general layout for high speed, high turn rate and good roll rate.  The rider is tucked in out of the wind and centered over the bike for weight balance.  There is plenty of ground clearance for lean angle.  These guys scrape their elbows in the corners.

For low and medium speed competitions we see bikes more or less arranged like this:

Yes, the suspension may be lower, tires different, etc., but the basic layout is the same.  Sitting upright near the center of the bike, feet underneath you, nice wide bar for turn leverage.  This bike isn’t as quick, still stops well, turns pretty well, and has the best agility.  It gets really tiring at higher speeds unless you have a windshield or fairing.

The further you get away from either of these ideals, the more likely your steed will fail you when things get hairy.   Back when I started riding most bikes were some version of the second example.  More cylinders, more weight, but the same basic layout.  A touring bike is a big one of these with a fairing.   Factory sport bikes started getting popular in the 80’s and sport touring bikes that are kind of in between spawned from that.

Adventure Touring Bike

These are the three bikes I currently have in my garage.

Now you cruiser riders are thinking: “ This guy knows nothing. My bike is the perfect bike for how I ride.”    I am sorry to say that all cruisers are compromised in some way to provide a certain look.  Some less than others.  Unless you are vertically challenged and really need the low seat height of these bikes you should either not ride one or at least pick one that is close to a “normal” motorcycle.  You simply need to  have your hands in a comfortable position and your feet under you to safely operate a motorcycle in all conditions.  I would not own a bike I that I could not raise my rear off the seat without having to haul it up with the handlebars.   The HD Dyna series, FLH, and Sportster Roadster all at least approach being a normal bike, albeit way overweight.  Other manufactures make similar machines.   As far as the ridiculous assemblage of bovine excrement shown below, I can’t believe they are even legal to sell.  We are getting all up in arms over some weak springs in a GM ignition switch that at most should be an aggravating inconvenience and we let people sell these deathtraps with impunity.

Let’s count the number of things wrong with this.  Skinny front tire with no weight on it = no brakes.  Long wheelbase and lots of rake = no maneuverability.  Big fat rear tire would equal scary handling in the curves if it had enough ground clearance to actually turn.  Footpegs way out in front and no rear suspension so you can get a nice spine injury from simply hitting a pothole.  The only way this could get stupider would be if you put some nice 3 foot high apehangers on it.  People that ride these things tell me it is because they attract beautiful woman like hummingbirds to a flowering bush. I’m not sure I believe that and I can’t see risking one life to test that theory.

The bottom line?   Ride what you like but consider the purpose of the motorcycle and choose something that is competent to that purpose.  I would hope the purpose is to ride it, as looking at them is enjoyable, but pales in comparison to riding them.