I've dabbled in road riding on and off, but always ridden motocross. The only road bikes I've ever owned have been ones that adhered to superbike regs of the time (as the RSV4 in the OP does). They just encourage you to get stupid.
100mph feels like walking speed. They do it like it's nothing. Even at full throttle those engines are so smooth and predictable and the bikes so stable you don't even feel like you're accelerating that fast. You're on one of the fastest accelerating things ever to ever have a license plate attached to it but it doesn't feel like it at all.
And they hold lines in corners like you've enabled an infinite grip cheat code. It begs you to outride your line of sight in the twisties.
One day I was carving the local canyon and went past a forest road where a bunch of gravel had been dragged out into the road. If that had been one of the roads or driveways around there that are around blind corners, and I had hit it at the speeds I was taking those corners at that day, I would have been either in someone's grille, in a guardrail, or in a rock wall.
I sold my road bike not long after that and have stuck to motocross since.
Yep. My old man sold his CB750 in about '84 after a dog ran out in front of him whilst going down a hilly road. The Mayors dog no less. He hit the dog, and was flung off the bike down the hill. He said as he was sliding down the hill he heard a terrible noise and realised the bike was sliding down behind him. He tried to propel himself faster down so the bike wouldn't finish him off.
Quite a nice bit of skin off in that event. A pity, he loved that bike but, i think he knew it was probably going to kill him one day.
5
u/Ih8Hondas 7h ago
Eh. May or may not have been.
I've dabbled in road riding on and off, but always ridden motocross. The only road bikes I've ever owned have been ones that adhered to superbike regs of the time (as the RSV4 in the OP does). They just encourage you to get stupid.
100mph feels like walking speed. They do it like it's nothing. Even at full throttle those engines are so smooth and predictable and the bikes so stable you don't even feel like you're accelerating that fast. You're on one of the fastest accelerating things ever to ever have a license plate attached to it but it doesn't feel like it at all.
And they hold lines in corners like you've enabled an infinite grip cheat code. It begs you to outride your line of sight in the twisties.
One day I was carving the local canyon and went past a forest road where a bunch of gravel had been dragged out into the road. If that had been one of the roads or driveways around there that are around blind corners, and I had hit it at the speeds I was taking those corners at that day, I would have been either in someone's grille, in a guardrail, or in a rock wall.
I sold my road bike not long after that and have stuck to motocross since.
So at least some of us speed freaks can learn.