Neutral: A Control Theme
One of my other main riding style themes is to be as neutral to the motorcycle as possible. Everything I do comes back to this idea, of my not interfering with the machine doing its designed job.
In Japan, Europe and around the world, there are incredibly talented engineers designing motorcycles who will never know you or me. They build great handling motorcycles in a vacuum with no knowledge of our riding styles or habits. They design the bikes to handle perfectly with precision we can only dream about as riders. When we engage the motorcycle there is a primary concept that we riders must remember - anything we do to interfere with the handling of the motorcycle is a contradiction of what those designers intended. If we create artificial input, it should be done with a specific purpose in mind not just as a series of bad habits we fall back upon because we do not have the courage to observe and improve our own riding behavior.
What an interesting concept, upwards of seven hundred pounds moving at high speed - balanced on two wheels. It is that vision that makes our effort of obtaining maximum control over this action so critical.
Pretty scary when we see it that way, but let’s step back and see the same vision at a greater distance and what we as riders can bring to the “control” table. Most of us see control as the physical act of forcing things to go our way. It works, but leaves a huge percentage of available control buried by the effect of our demanding direction control.
In Japan, Europe and around the world, there are incredibly talented engineers designing motorcycles who will never know you or me. They build great handling motorcycles in a vacuum with no knowledge of our riding styles or habits. They design the bikes to handle perfectly with precision we can only dream about as riders. When we engage the motorcycle there is a primary concept that we riders must remember - anything we do to interfere with the handling of the motorcycle is a contradiction of what those designers intended. If we create artificial input, it should be done with a specific purpose in mind not just as a series of bad habits we fall back upon because we do not have the courage to observe and improve our own riding behavior.
What an interesting concept, upwards of seven hundred pounds moving at high speed - balanced on two wheels. It is that vision that makes our effort of obtaining maximum control over this action so critical.
Pretty scary when we see it that way, but let’s step back and see the same vision at a greater distance and what we as riders can bring to the “control” table. Most of us see control as the physical act of forcing things to go our way. It works, but leaves a huge percentage of available control buried by the effect of our demanding direction control.