From the Library

[Biggles]

There are two predominant schools of thought concerning the rider inputs that cause a motorcycle to turn. The Freddie Spencer school of thought holds that the rider's position on the motorcycle is key. Spencer's arch-rival, Keith Code, runs something called California Superbike School. Code's position is that counter-steering: handlebar pressure alone- is what makes motorcycles turn.
At the Spencer school, they tend to rely on what your prof called "argument from authority" back in Philosophy 101. Freddie, they point out at every opportunity, is a triple World Champion; who ever heard of Keith Code? But over at the California Superbike School, they've gone the gadget route. They've created a motorcycle with dual controls. It has one conventional set, and a second handlebar rigidly mounted to the fuel tank. "Think you can body steer?" they sneer, "see how far you get on this."
As usual in such political debates, once you've studied both positions, you realize they are making essentially the same case, though they see it from opposing perspectives. Each chooses to ignore their similarities, and focus on their differences.
Strip the rhetoric away, and you'll initiate a turn the same way, no matter where you learn to do it. At the approach of the turn, you shift your weight forward and to the inside. Most good riders take care of this early, because it gets awful busy very soon. As you reach the turn-in point, you will simultaneously transfer as much weight as possible to the inside, by hanging off the bike. At this point, the weight of your body is carried by the inside foot-peg, and by the outside knee, which is pressing against the side of the fuel tank (For simplicity, I've left out all the braking and downshifting that accompany most turns, and throttle control which is essential to balance turning forces between front and rear tires).
Then, magic happens. You push on the inside handlebar. Momentarily, you actually steer opposite to the direction you want to travel. This causes the motorcycle to fall down into a stable lean angle, matched to the radius of the bend and your speed. Your knee makes contact with the pavement, which is usually incidental but serves as a gauge of just how fast you're going. (At this point you must be looking up through the corner, planning your exit, and you couldn't look at the speedometer even if you had one.)
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p176-7

[Biggles]

Slowly but very loudly, she tells us, "If you need a cuppa tea," she pauses, and forces a smile, as her brow wrinkles. She looks from one of us to the other to the other, hoping for some sign of comprehension, but were too bemused to react, "or summat to eat," she enunciates- if anything even slower and louder- while miming the act of eating, "there's – tea – and – sandwiches - on at the - church hall!" One last searching look, hoping for any kind of comprehension. We re dumb-struck, but manage a few nods. She walks away.
"What's really funny about that," Jim says as she turns and disappears into the church hall, "is that when she walked up to us, we were speaking English!" I guess if you're from Kirk Michael, and you see strangers in front of Collister's shop during TT week, you just naturally conclude they're Krauts, then make the assumption (common to all British, it seems) that loud, clear English is all that should ever be required to communicate with any foreigner.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p180

[Biggles]

After hearing the first few pairs of bikes launch, the line starts to move back where we are. I've worked my way almost to the front. Past the chalkboard that reports conditions are essentially ideal all the way round the course. Past the plywood sign about the helmet strap. I've charged Kris with the task of confirming that I've not forgotten to wear the vest, that my leathers are zipped up (as a final touch, we seal the zip with a strip of matching duct tape) that my gloves and boots are firmly velcroed shut, knee sliders well stuck on, and that, most importantly, my helmet strap is, indeed, done up. He inspects them all, tugging and tightening, like one of those birds that hops around on a hippo. Paul restarts the bike, and he and Kris drift away to the side.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p184

[Biggles]

If you're just riding on the road, you take the contact between your front tire and the road for granted. It rolls along in the direction and at the speed of your travel, and that's that. It's
different when you're racing. Small bumps in the pavement force the front wheel up- a moment of very good contact between tire and road- then the tire is briefly airborne, until the springs in the front forks, and gravity, return it to the pavement. Even when the tire is in contact with the road, the soft rubber compounds of racing tires may or may not be conforming to the surface on a microscopic scale. The way these special compounds work, the surface area of the contact patch can be much larger than what you see with your naked eye. (Imagine rubber stretching over all the tiniest grain of the pavement. Now, flatten those mountains and valleys out.) The rubber sticks to that surface like a Post-It note- so it will pull itself off the road and roll without much resistance, but stick tight and resist sliding when the bike is at an angle. All those variables influence traction and determine a racer's confidence that a violent steering effort will steer the bike around the corner, instead of cause the front tire to slide and make him crash. Over time (and its one of the hardest skills to learn as an apprentice racer) you get to feel, through the handlebars, what your front tire is doing down there on the pavement. This is what racers mean when they say a motorcycle is "giving good feedback ".
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p186

[Biggles]

It's about now that I start to really enjoy the ride, I lose- or at least compartmentalize- the "Oh my God this is fast" thought- I stop seeing the fences and hazards- I stop thinking how useless one hay bale is when you're passing a telephone pole at 140 miles an hour. (The only one I notice in particular, and I'll keep seeing it until the end of practice, is a bale at the exit of Greeba, which has a hand-scrawled poster on it, reading "This is Joey's famous bale". I think the story is that Dunlop clipped it with a footpeg, ripping it apart at God-knows-how-quick a speed I can see how he would've, as the last right turn leading onto the Bailacraine straight tightens deceptively, at a time you really want to begin accelerating. I just about clipped it myself, and the next time through I almost hit it again because I was thinking about the last time.)
The top of Barregarrow is another one of those places where you can't see the road ahead at all. The course drifts ever so slightly then kinks left around the church and its off down the bumpy hill. On open roads, with the churchyard wall just off your left handlebar, you've slowed down for it, but now I realize that I can ride through almost flat-out. Its a place where I can hold my own, the sort of challenge you'd only find here, and I love it. But this time as I barrel through, a dark shape breaks away from the hedge and it's a good sized bird, flying right into my path. I sense, more than see, an explosion of feathers, and my view is smeared. 
Instinctively, I roll off, tilting my head so I can look through a spot on the visor that's still clean.
Some guy on a 250 who must have been right behind me, passes, looks back, and shakes his hand at me. The gesture could just mean "Holy Shit!" or maybe he was miming shaking off the guts.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p188

[Biggles]

What I didn't know, and wouldn't until after my races, was that one of the first riders sent off in the previous session had a problem at the top of Bray Hill, just a few hundred yards down the road. His crash took place right where, in the infamous video, Paul Orritt's bike shook, went into that wild tankslapper, and threw him down like a rag doll- a crash that was only funny because Orritt lived.
Colin Daniels didn't live. The long delay before I got to start was the time it took to clean the wreckage of his Suzuki GSX-R600 off the course. Even some of the TT's most ardent supporters shuddered when they learned that his body- wrapped in plastic and stashed behind a nearby wall- was not moved to the morgue until after the session had ended, in order to keep the practice on schedule. In hindsight, when I put all that together, I realized why Steve was rattled. It happened right where my bike's been shaking.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p189

[Biggles]

Once again, we stage on dry pavement, but by the time I launch, it's streaming rain. My practice partner passes me on the brakes at Quarterbridge. This is getting old. I concentrate on hitting the apex and a reasonable drive off the corner, the rear spins up in the wet, but the Honda holds its line, and I have a good run to Braddan church.
At the church, I notice something: the wake of the bike ahead of ahead. Maybe I have an epiphany, aiming for late apex, winding the throttle on, and letting the spinning rear tire slide around until I'm pointing down the road. Over the next few miles, riding the CBR as though it were a little dirt bike, I catch and pass several guys. No one passes me.
I close on my next victim at the top of Barregarrow. He's in black leathers- another Newcomer, I see by the orange vest. Even in this weather, the run down to the bottom of Barregarrow is in top gear. There's a hump where the road crosses a stream, and it kinks left around a building. It's the hump, not the corner, that limits your speed. The apex marker is a cast-iron drainpipe. The first time I came through here, I found it damned intimidating- and that was on a bicycle.
I know that I'm going to carry a lot more speed through here than this guy. I plan to pass him on the bumpy straight just beyond. But as I adjust my speed and commit, Mr. Orange Vest panics and brakes extra hard. Leaned over, in the rain, with the bike unsettled by the bridge, there's no way I'm stroking the brake, I literally squeeze through the gap, brushing the drainpipe with my left shoulder, "brushing" him a little harder with the CBR's muffler. When I look back, I'm relieved to see that he's still on his wheels.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p203-4

[Biggles]

So it was sweet when Mike [Hailwood], a genuine hero untainted by the TT boycott, came and beat Read in the TTF1 race. If people hadn't paid too much attention to the F1 class before, they did after that. And if his other races that year, including the Senior, were anti-climactic, it didn't matter. In '79, Mike came one last time, winning the Senior, on a Suzuki RG500. Soon afterward, Mike was killed in a road accident near his home. He'd gone out to pick up an order of fish and chips. 
It was a dark and stormy night. There was a truck in the middle of the road making a U-turn. Not a happy ending, I suppose, but good for the myth.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p218-9

[Biggles]

[After the road was opened for public riding.]  Along the way we catch up to a huge crane truck loaded with at least twenty crashed bikes stacked up like cordwood. 
At Windy Corner, it pulls off the road to collect several more that have come to a stop in the gravel trap. On the Isle of Man, though there is no blanket speed limit, there are laws against reckless riding. To add insult to injury, every one of the riders of these bikes will be ticketed. By Manx logic, crashing proves they were riding without due care and attention.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p224

[Biggles]

Dear Reader,
If Hollywood picked up this story, the script would be rewritten so that, at the story's climax, I won. But you've already read the climax, such as it is, of this book.
For most Newcomers, and it was perhaps especially true for me, that the goal in a first TT is to come, to qualify, to be in the show. Having earned a start, all a Newcomer can realistically hope for is to be around at the finish.
We live in a culture that increasingly sees in black or white. The only alternative to winning is losing. Everything is neatly labelled right or wrong. Its detractors put it simply: the TT is brutal. But the TT is not simple.
When all its nuances are appreciated, it is beautiful.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p228

[Biggles]

Once I'm underway, I push a little harder than I have been in practice, until I have a huge headshake. Then I go back to my baby steps approach. Still, I find myself carrying fourth gear instead of third through the left-hander at Greeba Bridge and I carry a higher gear at Ballacraine, too. By the time I pass the Sulby Glen Hotel, David Jefferies (who broke a valve) has already coasted to a stop there and is having a pint.
So, I beat DJ.
I beat John McGuinness, too, the only way I ever will; his motor expires on the long Cronk-y-Voddy straightaway, I see and avoid the long trail of oil he left behind him.
Up on the Mountain I drag my knee in a long and satisfying way as I pass the Graham Memorial On my second lap up there somewhere, Jim Moodie (who had about half a lap's head start on me) catches me.
After the pit stop, I know that despite my best efforts, I'm running close to last. On the final lap, in survival mode, I ride just fast enough to maintain my concentration. Do I still qualify for a finisher's medal I wonder, if I'm passed by the travelling marshals when it comes time to open the roads after the race? 
(Don't laugh! It happens.)
I'm held up a little when I catch some guy around the 32nd stone. He's got a little motor on me and opens up a gap, again, on the drop down toward Creg-ny-Baa, He slows me at every bend until, finally I get past him between Signpost Corner and the Nook. (Later, when I got the official times, I wondered if he prevented me from getting my "ton up' lap, but I don't think he accounted for more than a few seconds.)
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p232

[Biggles]

One morning there I was- with my computer on my lap, a coffee beside me on the carpet. In the middle of typing some altogether unrelated thought, I had a vivid, vivid sense of being out on the course, I was at Greeba Bridge. You get to the bridge after the beautiful flowing section past the castle. You throttle back a little at the kennels but then its wide open through Greeba village. The road wiggles but it's easy to see a straight approach to the bridge, which is in the middle of a sweeping left turn.
This is one of the widest, smoothest parts or the TT course. I never noticed it on open roads but there's a slight hump to the bridge, right on the apex of the turn. 
For two weeks, I'd been taking it in third and finally fourth gear, cautiously increasing my speed each lap. But every lap, I found myself with too much road on the exit. "Too slow!" I thought, time after time.
Anyway, sitting right there on the stairs, I felt myself braking later and less, downshifting only once, instead of twice. I saw the paint mark on the bridge wall that I used as my turn-in point. I felt my left knee on the pavement, gauging a steeper lean angle- and this is the important part- I felt the bike lift over the 
hump in the bridge and drift wide. But I held the throttle steady. Because suddenly I knew that the road, right there, was smooth enough and wide enough that the bike would settle, the tires would grip, and I'd get through, I knew I could carry 10 or 15 miles an hour into the next acceleration zone, which is at least a 
thousand yards long. There were seconds to be saved there. There, again, was my hundred-mile-an-hour.
But there I was on the stairs, not on the bike where I could do anything about it.
Riding Man  Mark Gardiner p246

[Biggles]

In a picture of him [the author's father] sitting on the Harley, he's garbed in heavy boots, khakis, a tight fitting white t-shirt and leather gloves. His hair is slicked back and he's wearing cool aviator shades, and no helmet.
He's also wearing a grin from ear to ear.
Turned out flying the Harley was more dangerous than B-17's and one day he almost ended up dead. A truck ran a stop sign and he laid it down, sliding underneath the trailer the truck was towing and coming out the other side. He was lucky to be alive and pretty banged up and woke up in the hospital. That was the end of his riding career, and makings of his decision as long as his boy lived under his roof, the word on motorcycles would be "no". We all make our choices, but too bad in a way about the one he made. I never saw him grin in life like he did in that picture.
The Making Of A Motorcyclist  Gordon Bunker  p2

[Biggles]

"Uncle Bernie, that is so neat-o!" It had a headlight and speedometer with little jewel like indicator lights, deeply ribbed black rubber hand grips and it was about the right size for me. If I was drooling, Bernie was kind enough not to point it out. "How fast does it go?" Then as now, speed was under my skin and still all these years later, this question is the first I think of when looking at a bike. "Aw, I dunno. Not very." Bernie stood there, a big easy-going hulk of a man with his thumbs in his two front belt loops. He looked like he'd swallowed a whole watermelon, so distinct was his pot belly. It pushed his suspenders out to the sides. 
"Y'all want to ride it?"
Oh golly. That's all it took and Bernie leaped to hero status. A halo radiated around his old baseball capped head. A rush of excitement ran through me. All of a sudden I needed to pee.
The Making Of A Motorcyclist  Gordon Bunker  p3

[Biggles]

Will and Janet were working construction. I'd known Will on the periphery for a couple of years. He was a big jolly Buddha of a guy, tattooed and pierced and a colossal character. He had a sense of humour that would go way out there and come circling back around with everyone laughing until their sides hurt. He and Janet had had his and hers Harleys for years and one day they decided they'd had enough of the studded leather scene and traded them in on his and hers Vespa scooters. One baby blue and one powder pink, It takes a big man to walk a small dog. It takes an even bigger man to ride a powder blue Vespa. I bet Will had no problem carrying Janet's purse when required. The two of them created quite a stir when they would tear off in duelling ding-ding-ding two stroke engine racket and clouds of blue smoke.
The Making Of A Motorcyclist  Gordon Bunker  p16