Motorcycling |
I started out trail riding on my Honda SL125 in 1975. It was a lot of fun. Here's the bike in action.
I progressed through various Yamaha RD350's and a very dodgy Honda CB100 till I ended up in Singapore. While there I bought a number of bikes. A Honda CB350, the early twin with a drum brake, an Italian 250cc single that I got in bits and never ran, a Suzuki GP100 that was modded into a racebike, a Matchless G3 that never ran, and a Kawasaki Z500B1.
After returning from Singapore I sold the Z500 and went through a series of bikes.
I have competed in Enduro, Road racing, and observed trials. The most fun was road racing. Once I lapped Manfield in under 90 seconds on a showroom stock Honda GB400.
At the end on the front straight at Shah Allam there is a 90 degree left hand corner going up a hill. My Kawasaki spat one of the front brake pads out when I grabbed the brakes for this corner. I was going about 160kph.
When I did this there was enough run off that I was able to stop with just the rear brake. The bike came to rest only a few meters from a large (deep) open drain. I told one of the other riders about it and he said that the black mark I left when the rear wheel locked was a good brake point marker because it was just where you needed to start braking and was right in the middle of the track.
I had to ride that bike home to Singapore (400km) with no front brakes!
The next year I saw someone do the same thing on a RG500, except he was going much faster, and a dirt wall had been constructed across the runoff. The bike ate the wall and the rider went over the top. The rider walked away, but the bike was trash.