Anyone interested in motorbikes?

I had it as a hobby for about 10 years recently. Rode a ZR-50 and TS-125 as a teenager, never took my test, then did a direct access test in 2008 and bought a GS500. From there through TDM-900 which took me through my advanced test in 2011, to a K1300s. I qualified as a national observer with the IAM on that, did a couple of short tours in France, then traded it in for a brand new CBR1000rr Fireblade in Autumn 2016, obsessed myself over the power curve and got annoyed that I couldn't access its full power legally on a road (I could do so legally for about 2 seconds on the K1300s!) and ran out of enthusiasm for biking 6 months later. I'm now driving a Mini Cooper!

For me, I loved learning the techniques, and the "flow" state of a good advanced ride. But to be honest I got bored after an hour or so.

Hello. That's interesting. (What does an 'observer with the IAM' mean(sorry))? Why is it you think you got bored, after an hour? Envious that you got hold of a brand new Fireblade, but yes, I can see your point about getting bored, once you've mastered all there is to learn, and tried a load of different bikes out, like you did.

Hello. That's interesting. (What does an 'observer with the IAM' mean(sorry))? Why is it you think you got bored, after an hour? Envious that you got hold of a brand new Fireblade, but yes, I can see your point about getting bored, once you've mastered all there is to learn, and tried a load of different bikes out, like you did.

I used to find that the greatest cause of absenteeism amongst local young guys (& women) was falling off or crashing a motorcycle. And sure enough they would invariably arrive a few days later hobbling along on crutches. The local tradition is to try and do everything you would do in normal life on a moving motorcycle. (And I mean almost everything. And with no protection.) It is quite a laugh (I shouldn't but I can't help myself) to see someone actually riding a bike with a crutch under one shoulder, in case they have to come to a halt or have to do some drastic 'pole' steering. The more careful ones might ride pillion with crutches, but it would often be side-saddle to avoid having to get their broken leg over the seat. 

There are old motorcyclists and there are bold motorcyclists but there aren't many old and bold motorcyclists they will tell you.

Then there's me. I'm just stupid, lucky, and when things go wrong, it appears I never stop working the problem...

I'm sixty. I ride an FZ750Genesis 1A1. It can get up to eighty and stop within the length of an aircraft hangar, and I've only been passed twice in the last 18 years when I was getting a ripple on. And one of those times was because I remembered I had a badly worn front on, after initiating "combat". Haven't ridden for the last couple of years due to money and mechanical issues, can't wait to get back in the saddle. 

I attribute much of my longevity to having instinctively developed a basic psychic survival ability in the eighties, which I call "the cone of hatred" which makes me much more visible to other motorists who have the misfortune to be in front of me.

It's the only real positive use I have found for the emotions of anger and hatred. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "mirror breaker" type of hater. I just hate on the danger you represent to me whilst you are in that area, and the hatred vanishes as soon as you are out of that cone. 

Explanation: My research into the matter suggests that if one is feeling unusually combative or taking a genuine instinctive sexual interest in a stranger at a distance there is a very high probability that they will abruptly take a look in your direction. It's one of the few psychic phenomena that can be easily tested, using a down hill stretch of road with a bus stop, a pretty girl sitting reading a book whilst waiting for a bus, and a well placed observer. Who can observe and record how often the girl looks up from her reading instinctively to check out a car driver who will always turn out to be fairly obviously checking her out. (My mate devised this experiment after I'd been telling him about this sort of stuff, which I'd just discovered that a guy called Rupert Sheldrake also talks about, but there is something to it. All I know is that people don't pull out in front of me any more, and it works for me. (although I still cover my brakes, and I only really give it the beans when there are no side roads...)

Motorcycling has been really good to me, I'm not really fast, I'm not really "good" but I have been able to crash much better than any one else I know.. I got one scar on my shoulder from when an ill advised overtaking manoeuver on an RD 250 caused me to clip the A pillar of the mini turning left with said shoulder as I somersaulted across it's bonnet, but I didn't actually break anything. Except that the blow to the cars A pillar which the window, giving me a pretty visual effect I remember passing through, although I was already tucking into the roll as the ground came up to meet me and also twisting to avoid the curb... 

I've had more than fifty cars and bikes, around a 50% split, I guess, most of them knackers that I have fixed up, used, then passed on at a profit or scrapped, depending on what I've found during the period of use. Eventually you find the vehicle that just does what you want, and you never want anything different. With a bike, if you are willing to put in the work, you can have that. With a car there is always inaccessible rust and the need for special equipment in a big empty room to get underneath it working against you, whereas a bike, not so much.  

Yes - the act-of-God stuff like oil on the road, blind BMW driver, tractor pulling out of a field, the U-turner, light jumper, lane changer etc. - it's all too risky out there.

In a 40mph head-on crash, there's a good chance that I'll just step out of my mangled car.  Not so lucky for a biker.

The problem is I really like the technology & design of bikes.  I like the lightweight engines, the suspension technology and the clever frame designs.   I'm tempted to take up bike restoration.

Yep - & when I heard of advanced bikers getting injured and killed by situations where there genuinely was "Nothing they could do", I decided that I had had heaps of fun and would quit whilst I was ahead :-).

The injury thing was what made me not do it. 

Many years ago, I visited a school friend in hospital - he had a cyst on his femur so he was in the traction ward of an old Victorian hospital - it had the classic long ward with maybe 10 beds each side and in each bed was a 17-year old lad with his right leg in various forms of complex traction with pins and brackets holding it all together.   All had come off their motorbikes.  

It's an image that burned itself into my brain.

It means I'm qualified to teach advanced motorcycling. We get called "observers" because we follow students around and "observe" what they are doing and offer advice on how to do it better so that they can take a test that's at a higher standard than the one used to get their license.

I think it was exactly that about getting bored with motorcycling, and there was the ever-present nagging about how much it would hurt if something went wrong. Eventually I decided to leave on a high after ticking all of the boxes (how I finish most hobbies!). But I also got bored even when I was in the peak of the hobby, after being on the road for an hour or so. I get bored easily.