Got a link to this article in my email today from the bike club/magazine which is organising the big bike multitest open to all in May (I think it is). They are obviously keen that people won’t go bonkers when testing the many bikes on offer over that weekend. The translation reads like this: "A motorcyclist flashed à 193km/h (120 mph) on a road limited to 80km/h - Via Sicura will hit hard! A man born in 1992, from Bercher (VD), domiciled in the canton of Geneva, was arrested for offences under the Road Traffic Act. Friday, March 20, 2015, shortly after 9:00, police installed an unmanned mobile radar on the Route de Chancy, at the intersection with the Chemin des Manchettes. It should be pointed out that the prescribed speed on this stretch is 80 km/h (50 mph) At one point, the speed of a motorcycle traveling on this road towards the city centre was measured at 193 km/h. The legal deduction being 7 km/h, the speed of 186 km/h was retained for the offence, more than 106 km/h higher than the speed limit. Summoned to appear at the local police road safety brigade, the rider showed up and admitted the facts alleged against him. His vehicle was impounded. Given the above, the person has been reported to the authorities. According to the Via Sicura fee schedule, this biker risks a 1 year custodial sentence." I have used Google maps to try and get a look at where the speed trap was cited, but there is no mention of the Chemin des Manchettes. The 80 kph speed limit is the national speed limit on non-motorways, so there is no reason to suppose that the offence was in a built-up area. The fact that Google can’t find the place, and the fact that the police weren’t present to intercept people indicate that it’s probably in the countryside. Now, we might agree that opening up your bike in a couple of gears isn’t wise on a public road, but it’s very easy to do and I suspect most of us do it on occasion. What is a redline for? And we all know that if you give the bike the beans for a few seconds, you are very likely to be travelling at not far off the speeds the biker was doing. I find it alarming that this behaviour merits the confiscation of your bike and a custodial sentence, giving you a criminal record, making you lose your job and quite possibly ruining your life, all for a few seconds of exuberance which actually harmed no one. This I find deeply depressing. No wonder I spend more of my time gardening than bike-riding these days. At least in the garden I’m not being spied on electronically or having the law breathing down my neck. This form of draconian policing really has sucked the life out of my favourite hobby. The Bol d'Or is back on at the Circuit Ricard in the S of F in September. I am looking forward to it and intending to ride down to it over the magnificent Col de la Croix Haute. But 10 years or more after I last made this journey, I bet I can guarantee that there will be speed traps and bookings aplenty so that we all creep down at 55 mph. What, I ask you, is the point?
have you been mowing your lawn without your garden licence and your safety course mower licence..............whatever next. seriously what next? as a plumber I can carry goods to a house to carry out work but once unpacked the packaging is classed as rubbish and to carry it in my van I require a licence which can be BOUGHT from my local council.
I like track days but there are no tracks near me and they are expensive. Plus, I just want to use some of the performance of the 999 - I'm not even talking about using all of it. 7000 rpm and my entire life might go into freefall. I find this worrying and it's cramping my style - which, I suspect, is the whole point.
I have long thought that the halcyon days of motorcycling are well and truly behind us. Our bikes are more powerful and capable than ever but we have fewer and fewer opportunities to stretch them. That George Orwell bloke knew a thing or two didn't he? All the things that were great about life have changed beyond recognition. Biking, rock music, promiscuous sex ... but we soldier on manfully because the alternative is so depressing.
@finm I'm sure you could evoke the ire of your local rozzers on a Scrambler without trying too hard. I know I could!
If it's any consolation, you can still do rock music. Just buy a guitar and a loud amp and find someone who wants to bang away on the drums. It really hasn't changed, just what you might hear on the radio has changed. And we play all the old songs too.
There is a time and place for speeding, and with today's technology, of sat navs, and speed camera data bases, it should be harder to be caught speeding today, than back in the 80s before sat navs and Apps etc. The one we have to look out for hardest today is plain clothes cars and bikes. We even have French Camera sites etc. (although not to sure on the law regarding their placing of mobile, but in UK they have to have a License to use mobile cameras with in a the specified area) The Hard part is continually updating and making the efforts to turn them on
deffo, i notice when i am on the multy when i look down during normal riding i am always going at 66mph on the 848 i am always doing 86mph?
It's also why, if I was going to change bikes, I'd be more likely to get something like a Paul Smart rep than a Panigale. A Panigale is only going to create more problems for me than I already have and hasten my "Go to Jail. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200" moment. The whole thing really was a lot more fun in the early 90s on my 851.
There's an easy solution, just do not go to Switzerland. Switzerland is very well known as be extremely unfriendly to anyone who speeds or breaks road laws. Miss Pineapples italian sister and her husband who work in Switzerland a lot were saying that police literally hide behind bushes with speed guns to catch bikers. We went to Italy via Belgium, Germany, Austria purely for this reason (didn't know about the B500 until we got there, that would have been a more important reason!). We met three guys at the Ducati factory in Bologna who had just done a runner from Sweden. They had been seen crossing the white line in the middle of the road by 30cm! One had been given an on the spot fine of £500, the other two pretended they had no wallet with them and were instructed to visit the local police station the next morning. Obviously there was a puff of smoke and they were all out of there!!
I still go to see the Stones when they tour - combinied the experience with a nice ride when they played Toulouse a few years ago and may do that somewhere new this summer. And saw the Who, the Kinks and Sex Pistols in London - a while ago. But newer bands? The White Stripes excited for a while (Christ that was a decade ago!) but bloody tribute bands often seem to offer the best live music these days (never thought I'd say that).
It's all cat and mouse. People speed and people make a living trying catch you speeding. I'd prefer that than automated tech on the roads. You will less police about and more cameras etc.
Why not go the whole hog and get a Bantam? I believe there's a 125cc version if you're really worried!
It's this bloody stupid idea that it's speed itself that causes problems and fear FEAR FEAR FEAR. It's awful. The Orwellian comment from ST was on the money. We went to Switzerland last year and for such a naturally gorgeous place it was miserable. The bureaucracy and pernickety nature of the place was hell. Italy by comparison felt so free and alive... and people driving for the joy of motoring, old men with crazy grins on their faces hurtling along in tiny Fiat Pandas having fun! It was infectious. We can all drive/ride with a little humility and recognition that we can always do better, tidier lines and more control/mindfulness, these are good disciplines. 30/40mph zones are there to be respected because people and their cats/dogs/children live there and it's nicer when traffic isn't barrelling through residential areas. This isn't about "I want to do exactly what I want with total disregard for others". It's the demonisation of speed and the removal of the right to choose, where sensible, to make progress or to have fun, that's what I find depressing. It's the way we're sold fear, the way we're made to be frightened of everything... that is truly sad. If the roads are littered with casualties (they're not though, are they?) then it's not because the road is not safe or there is a speed camera missing, it's because there is a skills gap, or a judgement gap or a sense of personal accountability gap (just have a drive on any UK motorway and observe the woeful standards of driving...). I don't know where it's all headed. The speed awareness courses are actually not a bad thing really theoretically, if you could attend them and undertake "road craft" style training to learn how to handle speed and drive/ride quickly and safely at the right time then surely this would be a much more grown-up way of addressing the consequences of speeding? In practice though, they're a dull way of generating revenue and very few people come out with anything to report other than a bit more fear that comes from having looked at nasty pictures and hearing horrid stories. By increasing skills/licensing speed there should be a pragmatic solution where road-users who are mature and responsibly trained for 100mph motoring are equipped to do so? Oh hang on... I just described something a bit like Germany... where autobahn training, skills training and the development of anticipation and response is given thorough attention and motorists are still (for now) free to make progress on unrestricted roads, when it's safe to do so. Or even France, where 130kph is your dry weather autoroute speed compared to the 110kph you're sensibly limited to during rain. Why can the UK not take a mature approach to this subject? Angry now.
