leaders event tonight.. so decided to have supper with gerald and co. 11 days. *shakes head* starting to get just a bit.. i dont know. anxious? frantic? ------------------------
i realised that i was really naive about motorcycles until i got this one. i thought that a sportsbike was the way to go if i wanted speed. well i was wrong. cos i'm cornering faster and lower with this one, grazing my footrest againt the road if i'm not careful. recently on the way to woodlands polyclinic i dived into the left-hand corner and grazed the left footrest, causing it to fold in and throw up my slipper, which landed a couple of feet behind me after doing some aerial acrobatics of is own. and that was when i realised that cornering is not wholly about the bike. true, the tyre profile matters( mine presently is supposed to be terrible for fast corners), but the skill(line, angle, accelerating and braking etc) and guts do matter.
today on my way from my "home" camp back to another camp, i "raced" an RGSX. you see neo tiew road has a couple of lanes that can bring you out to kranji road and the road that will lead you to sungei buloh.so after the T junction out of my camp i took the lead. it was at the apex of the slope that he overtook me, and he chose to take lane 2. i crested to the next apex and took lane 3( my favourite) because the nature of the lane allows one to travel round the bends really fast by merely taking a good line across it. lane 2 however is a great for bikes/vehicles with a fast pickup cos most of it is straight, before u meet a hump and a right turn prior to exiting kranji road. heart-thumping, i glanced to my right as i exited lane 3, to see (with glee) that he was behind me- i didnt expect to see him behind me, him being a big bike and all, and i glanced at my mirrors to confirm that it was indeed him. needless to say, he caught up( he's such a big bike). and pulled away on the long stretch of kranji road, before he got hampered by a car, allowing me to catch up. then came the hump at the reservoir, him probably being unfamiliar and taking it too slowly: i took the lead again. again, a couple of seconds later, he was pulling alongside me and overtook me again at the long stretch along the reservoir. but the next traffic light saved me again, and i regained the lead cos i knew the timing of tha traffic light and stayed moving on my bike long enough to wait out the green light, giving me the faster pickup. and he overtook me again, but finally we reached the same camp together- a coincidence, because i dont know who he is. but i learnt a couple of things from that little trip: 1)singapore really has a lot of traffic lights. 2)you dont need a fast bike to be fast. it's knowing the environment you have to "race/ ride" in that makes the difference. 3) there's really enough speed on any bike for all new riders- you DONT have to get a sports bike. it's not as fuel efficient as road bikes are anyway. so what if you have a top speed of 250kph on ur sportsbike, useable speed for the road say is 100, most bikes can touch that. and this is where the engine displacement of a motorcycle matters less. the smaller bike would just lose to the larger one in terms of straight line speed, when the power difference due to acceleration is prominent. for corners, that case is definitely not true, because how low u need to go and fast depends on the individual's guts and timing. and that's where the small and lighter bikes win.
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wow. long post. havent written so long in ages. kinda tired, reached church just in time to play too. zz... my brain's shutting down soon.