Ton-up

Illegal Speeding

I own a bike reputed to top out at around 140mph; which wobbles in a head wind at 80mph, and which is known to have a proper wobble above 80mph if you leave the screen up. So, what's it like?

I don't know. The kind of speeds I see many riders bellow along at frighten me - even if I do sometimes scoff at how they're trying to hide from being blown off the bike by the rush of the air past them. What's the point in a quick bike if you have to lie down on it and can't sit back to enjoy the ride, anyway?

So, having not achieved 100mph I can only guess what it would be like to blat out of Droxford, say, along the straight there at 3-figures and up. Well, I guess the acceleration would please me as it always does, but rather than topping out at 80mph I'd keep the throttle back a short part of a second longer. The hedgerows would retract into a cartoon of blurred speed - tunnel vision taking over where all's a smudge except the far horizon. The wind noise would increase and the steering feel a little lighter. I reckon the engine would sound great, too, with that higher-rev snarl coming through from between Shadowfax's bit; 3rd gear giving its all into 4th, which would pick up as violently as second ever could. I'm certain I'd get a real thrill as I bullet up behind the cars at the far end of the run; each already doing 70mph but now looking like Sunday blue-rinse dawdlers. I think, too, that the inertia into the sequence of bends at the close of the straight would give an opportunity to overtake quite quickly before dumping the speed through the engine and disks down into the sharper right-hander with the scary crossroads across it. I've a feeling this could all leave me quite breathless and hungry for more.



Hmm. A nice dream. It's as well I'd never be tempted to give it a go.