Grind Marks

[Hugh Janus]

Kevin Cameron has been writing about motorcycles for nearly 50 years, first for Cycle magazine and, since 1992, for <em>Cycle World</em>. (Robert Martin/)

Yesterday I wrote about a certain kind of rider, one who has grind marks on the fork caps of his very second-hand-looking daily driver. It was clear from some comments (which I’m always delighted to have) that a few readers found that obscure. The fork caps are the aluminum fittings screwed into the tops of the fork legs. They get grind marks on them when ardent riders push their learning process, crash with panache, and their tumbling bike chances to slide up the road, wheels uppermost.

In my experience, this kind of thing is not limited to racetracks at all. When I was hoping college would end soon one way or the other, like-minded persons with bikes were taking them to places like the Elliott Rotary and going ‘round and ‘round until they found the traction limit. They wanted to find it, and they found it. Mike Baldwin, before he hied himself to the track, would go out riding in the Connecticut countryside and come home with his jeans destroyed.

There was a footpeg hierarchy. Less driven riders could only dream of having a peg on the pavement, trailing sparks. I’ve written before of riders waiting for some service or other in my little shop and spying the belt grinder. Yes, it’s true: some of us are not Michael Hailwood reborn, and the only way our footpegs will strike sparks and our helmets will get those exciting grind marks is on the belt grinder.

Help yourself, I told them.

Attitudes toward the motorcycle change constantly. When I was first messing with bikes, life had a slightly unreal and statistical character brought about by not knowing if or when the letter would come from the draft board, morphing the recipient into a rifleman in Southeast Asia. It might be wise to tuck some fun under one’s belt before things got too real. One night I dreamed I looked down from an upper-floor lineup waiting to be checked for flat feet and saw my friends loading their TD1s, tools, and spares into their vans to go to the next race.

Then in the 1970s we had the bike shop and young men (and some less so) came in, saying things like, “Well, they let me go at work yesterday, so I decided to buy a bike.” Today the PC thing to do would be to pontificate on responsibility and prepping for the rainy day, but then we just sold and serviced bikes.

Bang, everything changed again. In the 1980s, fun was the last thing on the minds of young men (where did those good industrial jobs for non-degree-holding fellows aged 18 to 25 go?). They wanted solid achievement, Beemers if possible, with four wheels, child safety seat, and string-backed driving gloves to go with the Driving Machine. Every article of clothing clearly brand new.

Older men had to responsibly take over the task of buying bikes. It was the era of the CEO Harley rider, rolling up 300 miles a year as a member of the Riding Club of Greenwich. Bikes were in fact a blessing for those people, liberation from what the sociologist would call “class expectations.” In fact this was a real kind of freedom, unbuttoning the buttoned-down. The industry, performing its due diligence, soon discovered that what its new buyers wanted was more expensive, more interesting bikes. Begone, ye undignified crotch rockets such as Kawasaki’s most-bang-for-the-buck Mach IV 750 H2. I saw the new owners, taking the Harley factory tour in Milwaukee. Carefully dressed. No lint. But having a new kind of fun.

Harley-Davidson was lured away from its intended error called “Nova,” a V-4 it hoped would compete with Japan. Its Minneapolis ad agency put them straight: Harley is the flag, the heart of being an American, equivalent in gender certification to serving four years in the Marines. It worked. No one in the industry could understand how. Its intense customer loyalty brought Ford Motor Company into “commercial companionship” to investigate how Harley did it.

At present, we’re holding onto what we’ve got, washing and waxing as we go to sustain resale value. Some people pick the bikes they buy based on that alone. You’d have to be crazy to grind your fork caps, in either nature’s accidental way or on the belt grinder. You have any idea what those parts cost? And you’d hafta get someone to install them at a hundred dollars an hour. That’s OK. Competition from video games is fast leaving reality behind. I have no clue what’s next.

Source

[Pedro]

I once dragged my Transalp's engine protection bar on a bumpy corner, fucking freaked me out. When the tip of my boot rubs the tarmac I would rather it didn't, and I would rather my cylinder protection would stay away from the ground for ever. 

[XTreme]

I'm tagging the analytical Guru @Lone Amigo for his opinion on this. Cos he understands this stuff far better than me.

For the first couple of years on bikes 71-72 I was dragging everything cos I had no idea how to ride. I'd just belt into a corner, slam on, and drop the bike over. And on many occasions me and the bike would be right over....onto the ground.

So I decided to start thinking about what I was doing a bit more and remembered the years as a kid in the mid 60's watching Mike Hailwood on TV. What he did was always so effortless......he never looked like he was going fast, but he was. So I read up everything I could find on Hailwood and how he rode. Then looked at all the general riding advice stuff I could find. At that time, pre Jarno and Kenny eras where racing styles changed, Hailwood was always the gold standard for everything.

So I started braking earlier into a corner, using a lower gear and then take a continuous loop that would allow me to turn the corner into more of a straight, while continually accelerating. So there was no late braking at the apex and drop......it was a smooth wide loop through the bend. 

That actually suited me better, it felt natural to me. And a couple of elite racers still continued to use that method in later years, most notably Eddie Lawson and Jorge Lorenzo. And they ended up with 9 World Championships between them so it's still effective.

I've been behind guys on the same bike as me in corners and seen them scrape everything (and sometimes bin it), when I'm touching nothing down and actually maintaining a higher corner speed than them. So it's always worked for me. Never touched anything down and never binned it on a bend since the early years. No scrapes on pegs and usually big chicken strips too. I've always felt that this chicken strip thing on the road was always more of an indication of riding style than actual cornering speed.

As I said I aspired to ride in the classic Hailwood style (in a very limited way obviously).......cos nobody could ever ride as smoothly and as quickly as he could. 

Just look at this and be in awe........

 

[Tym]

This article was more about us then motorcycles me thinks. 

[XTreme]

9 minutes ago, Lone Amigo said:

guao.

a) @XT  Thanx for the vote of confidence

b) but I am not Kevin Cameron.

c) I have thoughts based on what I see

d) but I am not Kevin Cameron.

 

I will however watch this race several or more times because I have never seen this footage before. And then I will cough up my 2 cents worth. This may take a day or two.

One thing I will say right now is that the bike Mike is riding is radically different from what is ridden today.
Ditto for the tyres.

And this little task requires some deep thinking which is in short supply these days because my starvation diet does not leave much energy for thinking.

Tym is correct. I will try to be the Tym Whisperer once again.

No knee out.....no leg dangling....always one with the bike.

Beautiful style!

[XTreme]

9 minutes ago, Lone Amigo said:

Yes, but...

Remember when I used to complain that the manufacturers were stacking the deck by refusing to build a bike that fit Rossi's physique?

And then there's the matter of changing the style of track. Nobody builds a u-turn like that anymore.  Good thing, too,

or Nasty McMarquez would have killed them all.

The thing is with Mike, and the same with Jarno, they could just get on anything anywhere and win. The modern riders can't seem to do that.

I remember the the famous words uttered by Mike while staggering up to the bike after a night of partying....."Which direction does the track go......and what's the lap record?" 

And he'd then go out and win AND break the lap record. In multiple classes on the same day. I'm sure that sometimes he didn't know what bike he was on......and his mechanical cluelessness was legendary. 

Jarno on the other hand was extremely intense about his racing, calculating and analytical, and a master engineer. Polar opposites as people......but the same result on track.

[skyrider]

8 hours ago, XTreme said:

No knee out.....no leg dangling....always one with the bike.

Beautiful style!

yes the knee out style does look untidy but it seems to work , the new style i have noticed is to start sticking your foot almost on the tarmac before a bend ok till another rider runs over their foot and i can see that happening 

[XTreme]

20 minutes ago, skyrider said:

yes the knee out style does look untidy but it seems to work , the new style i have noticed is to start sticking your foot almost on the tarmac before a bend ok till another rider runs over their foot and i can see that happening 

I don't know who started that......and I'm not altogether sure on how effective it actually is.

[skyrider]

2 minutes ago, XTreme said:

I don't know who started that......and I'm not altogether sure on how effective it actually is.

and hutchy knows all about people riding over his foot 

[Pedro]

10 minutes ago, XTreme said:

I don't know who started that......and I'm not altogether sure on how effective it actually is.

On tarmac riding, and MotoGP, Rossi did.

I hear he has opened a weekly hour on his schedule for you to go and teach him riding technique.