It’s all in your right hand...

Whether it is a fancy fly-by-wire system or just a plain old cable, whether they are hydraulic or cable, the controls you have in your right hand has a HUGE effect on the bike you ride.

These controls, the throttle and the front brake, only do two simple things:

1. One of them makes the bike go faster or slows the bike slowly
2. The other makes the bike slow down quickly

Simple.

So why is it that we (the riders) have some much difficulty in using them correctly? You see, although they have very limited functions, they will have a very big effect on the rest of the bike. They will affect you, the fleshy bit on top, they will affect how the tyres feel and work, they will affect how the suspension works, and they will affect how the chassis works. In short they will have an effect on the whole of your bike and you.

This suddenly makes the first two simple points somewhat more complex.

The most powerful tool of the two is the brakes. A motorcycle can decelerate faster/quicker than it can accelerate. That’s a fact.

This will and can put a huge amount of force on and through your body. It will also put massive stresses on your tyres, your frame and your suspension. Now it is irrelevant what the bike is. It can be a drum braked BSA which needs you to use your whole hand to brake with or it can be a radial six potter on a Yamaha R1 which you use 1 finger. The stresses on the bike will remain the same and will be relevant to the bike. If you put the sixers on the BSA the forks and frame might well break under the strain!

What has changed are the forces created. Massively. And thankfully tyres have moved with the designers and will handle all that force and grip, unless you’re a ham-fisted gimp boy of course.

These forces are a result of having an engine and therefore the throttle to control the engine. The faster we go the more force we need to use to slow down, particularly if we what to go faster.

So, a more powerful engine will need more powerful brakes and a stronger chassis. The more powerful the engine, the heavier the bike, the more inertia to slow down.

Now the twist.

As far as I can see Rossi is no bigger or stronger than Mike Hailwood was. Riders have not developed over the last 100 years to deal with the progress of the bikes. We might have a better understanding of fitness, a better understanding of the need for space and better vision, even the understanding that we might need faster reactions and all of that is good.

But I don’t see ANY riders who was born, phycically, mentally or visually to ride a bike. It’s just not natural. Runners, yes, swimmer, yes but riders? Nah!

So if we are not born to ride then if we are to handle bigger, faster, lighter, more powerful bikes, better grip, more speed, more acceleration then we had better do something about and just looking further ahead is not the answer.

To deal with today’s brakes you need to think about locking into your bike correctly, or you will be adding to those forces on the bike when they are not needed. You also need to think about how you lock in when you are leaning over in the corner.

There is no such thing as too much, just an ignorance on how to handle it.