Month: June 2020

From The Saddle (June 2020)

Posted on | by Chris Brownlee

Well, at least this month we can accurately call this piece ‘from the saddle’ once more. I hope that you’ve been able to take advantage of the relaxing of the lockdown guidelines to get out on your bike. We are continuing to advise that you build up to lengthy or faster-paced runs, take time to rebuild your skills and continue to bear in mind that we are all acting as ambassadors for motorcycling.

As of 1st June the government guidelines have allowed smaller social runs of up to 6 people, as long as social distancing rules are adhered to, and it’s great to see that some of the local teams have been organising runs on this basis. Although it’s meant  planning the mid-point stops a little more carefully, and sometimes taking their own refreshments, these smaller social runs have proved very popular and enjoyable; I hope you get a chance to join in.

And from 15th June we have been able to conduct Observed Rides once again and I’m very pleased that we can include our Trainee Observers in Observed Rides. For the time being we need to restrict Observed Rides to one Associate. Again, we would advise that you take time to build up your skills.

The current guidelines mean that we can’t unfortunately meet at St Crispin’s or for other social events and meetings. The virtual meetings have been widely used in the club by local teams and the committee and it’s great to see people staying in touch and up to date this way. We will be holding a virtual St. Crispin’s meeting on 21st June at 9:00am (see Zoom link opposite) so please ‘drop in’ to the virtual meeting. The Training Team will be there to answer any questions you might have and also to discuss the Observer Training Programme for anyone that is interested in becoming an Observer.

We have taken the difficult decision to cancel the Observer Weekend this year. This was planned for July, in Wales, and the guidelines mean that this won’t now be possible. We have considered other venues and dates, but our concern for the safety of our members, and the uncertainty over future guidelines, meant that this wasn’t possible. We are holding a short online session for Observers on Saturday 11th July to cover some of the items from that cancelled weekend.

Things are looking up. Although there are still some difficulties around the larger meetings and events, we can resume smaller social rides – and Observed Rides – and these are key activities of the club. We have adopted online virtual meetings far more effectively than most and this has allowed us to stay in touch and up to date. If we are sensible in our approach then we may be able to extend our activities further, as guidelines allow. We will keep you up to date with the latest changes, and how they apply to TVAM, via groups.io and in the meantime enjoy your riding and stay safe.

Best wishes

Chris Brownlee
Chief Observer

40,000 miles on a Triumph Street Triple R

Posted on | by Nick Tasker

Impractical, too small, no wind protection…a perfect all-round motorcycle?

Has it really been six years? My RoadTrip report reckons so. It was  the 5th of October 2013 when I signed the paperwork and rode away on my brand new Triumph Street Triple R. More than 40,000 miles later the very same motorcycle still sits in my garage, and though the odometer ticks up far more slowly these days, it still puts a smile on my face every time I ride it.

Part of that is down to how light the bike is. Triumph’s engineers shaved several kilos off the Street Triple’s wheels, frame and exhaust system for the 2013 model update, shifting the centre of gravity forwards and creating a bike with the same power to weight ratio as the original Honda Fireblade. 105bhp goes a long way when you only have 180kg to push around, and the lack of weight also helps fuel, tyres and other consumables to last longer when compared with heavier and more powerful motorcycles.

What’s more, this is a bike that seems to be growing in popularity, even as its 765cc successor receives styling tweaks and a price cut for 2020. It’s weird how many people have approached me in recent months to ask me my opinion on the older 675cc Street Triple. Perhaps the fact that the new, 17kg heavier version adds so very little to the experience and costs more than twice what a good-condition used example does has something to do with it. With that in mind, let’s dive into what almost seven years and 40,000 miles can tell prospective buyers about this wonderful little motorcycle.

Continuous hard riding pushes MPG down into the mid-40s, but the average is impressive

Firstly, the engine is a delight to use. It’s torquey off-idle and, with practice, you can pull away with barely a hint of the throttle. And yet, it’s smooth all the way to redline with a screaming, snarling exhaust note that puts an inline-four to shame. You can ride around in the middle of the rev range enjoying instant throttle response or waft along in a higher gear returning seriously impressive fuel economy numbers. And with the world moving to bigger, low-revving twins, the joy of a genuinely usable engine that can still rev to 12,500 RPM is something to be savoured.

Brembos would be a little sharper, but there’s honestly no need, even on a racetrack.

The brakes are great; in the years since taking ownership, I’ve had chances to sample some serious Brembo equipment that beat them on both bite and feel, but only by direct back-to-back comparison. Low weight means less mass to stop, and your forearms will give out long before you extract full power from the twin 4-piston Nissins. Triumph equipped the Street Triple R with high-friction sintered-metal brake pads as standard, and it’s the only bike I’ve ever owned where I haven’t felt the need to deviate from the OEM specification.

The fully-adjustable suspension wasn’t quite as great out of the box. As I’ve mentioned many times in previous articles, it doesn’t matter how high-quality or how clever the components are – a stock suspension setup will always be a compromise. The average rider doesn’t really exist, which means that the spring rates and valving will always be set either for someone lighter or heavier than you are. I seriously considered trading the bike in after just a few months because the bucking over bumps and skittering around corners had my confidence in tatters.

When I met Darren from MCT at the London Motorcycle Show and described my symptoms, he was quick to confirm that I wasn’t the first person to bring one of those Street Triples to his attention. He reckoned that there was a design flaw in the forks and that remedial work was necessary. It was an expensive trip, involving modification of the fork internals, but the results were transformative. Suddenly, I was riding what every journalist had promised me I had bought – one of the best-handling motorcycles in the world.

A further tweak was the reduction of the rear tyre pressure after my TVAM Observer commented that the contact patch on my rear wheel looked far too small. Reducing the pressures from the 42PSI indicated in the owner’s manual to the 36PSI recommended for the almost-identical Daytona 675 resulted in a much less skittish rear-end. There was no drop-off in fuel economy, nor an increase in tyre wear, and my only explanation for Triumph stating different pressures for functionally identical motorcycles is to blame their lawyers. With no separate rider/rider-with-pillion pressures listed as with most Japanese motorcycles, I concluded that the Triumph legal team didn’t trust their owners to make the necessary adjustments, and erred on the side of caution when writing the owner’s manual.

Same frame, same wheels, same engine, same suspension… different tyre pressures?

Shaving off several kilos makes a big difference in such a lightweight machine.

The next upgrade, and one I thought long and hard about, was the exhaust system. Believe it or not, the sound or volume was not the primary factor here, rather that the stock system is huge, ugly, and heavy, taking up a surprising amount of space underneath the bike. The catalytic converter is a separate piece from the silencer, so my exhaust emissions remain unchanged, and I’m still within the noise limits for most UK trackdays.

And that’s more or less it! I wanted to keep the bike lean and simple, and resisted excessive modification. I tried a filler-mounted tank bag for a while, experimented with Lomo drybags and eventually settled on a stack of Kriega luggage for my touring needs. A TwistyRide phone mount coupled to a 3A 5V charger handles GPS duties, and a 12V socket wired into the tail unit provides power for a compressor when encountering punctures. And finally, I swapped out the throttle grip for one from a contemporary Speed Triple, reducing the amount of wrist rotation necessary to fully open the throttle. It makes the bike a little snatchy for those not used to it, but means I can enjoy the whole engine, not just the first two thirds.

Without fitting scaffolding to the back of the bike, tailpacks are the only luggage option.

Somewhat disappointingly the paint on the tank quickly became scuffed where textile trousers rubbed on it and the seat has actually cut all the way through to the primer. The official accessory crash-bungs failed miserably at their one job when I finally tipped the bike over at a standstill last year. The indicator hit the ground first, bending the small mounting frame behind the fairing and finally crushing and popping open one of the cells in the radiator. Luckily the plastic pieces weren’t too expensive to replace, and while a new radiator was more than £400, a local specialist was able to repair and clean the old one for a mere £15. There wasn’t a mark on the crash bungs. Useless.

The crash bungs had one job, which they failed to accomplish the only time they were needed.

Other than that, the only issue to report is a hot-starting issue that’s plagued the bike for more than 30,000 miles. Often, when stopping the engine just long enough to fill up with petrol it coughs, splutters and stalls when trying to start again afterwards. It needs a little bit of coaxing and then settles down after a few seconds, but I’ve never been able to figure it out. I recently met another owner who’d experienced an identical issue and traced it to the idle control stepper motor, so maybe I’ll see if I can pick up a used one and swap it out.

Straight bars are a real asset on a tight track like Mallory Park.

And that’s it! With the help of ACF50 my bike commuted through two British winters before the V-Strom took over that job, and the standard-fit stainless bolts are all still shiny. Triumph charged me a fortune for servicing to maintain the two-year warranty, then refused to help when the hot starting issue materialised, so I gave them the finger and have been doing everything myself ever since. Oil changes are easy, but valve checks are a nightmare and due every 12,000 miles, so you’d best hope yours don’t need adjusting! You’d also better have a Windows laptop and a DealerTool handy, as that’s the only way for home mechanics to balance the throttle bodies and reset the service warning indicator.

What of the new 765cc Street Triples that Triumph launched a couple of years ago – am I tempted to upgrade? In a word, no. The resale value of a 40,000 mile Street Triple would barely cover the deposit on the new bikes, and the extra power and needless riding modes don’t interest me. And if you read the small print, you’ll notice that Triumph has started quoting dry weights for their bikes these days, leading some short-sighted journalists to claim that the new bike is slightly lighter than the old one. More recently a magazine actually weighed one and found that the bigger engine and reinforced frame add around 17kg to the total mass, cancelling out the benefit of the more powerful engine.

And in truth, those changes wouldn’t really add to the experience for me. Traction control is always nice, but the fact is that there’s nothing a Street Triple can dish out that modern sport-touring rubber can’t handle, even at a racetrack. If Triumph had made good on their threats to create a version with a half-fairing and hard-luggage, things might have been different. But as it stands, it wouldn’t be much of an upgrade.

Scotland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg…

In the last six years I’ve commuted, visited friends and family, travelled the length and breadth of the UK, explored its limits on the racetrack and scraped my pegs around alpine hairpins. It’s handled the Hard Nott Pass and the Nürburgring, moved house with me three times, and eaten 5 sets of tyres. It’s drunk more than 3,400 litres of petrol, chewed up two sets of chains and sprockets, ground down four sets of front brake pads and even worn out a set of front disks.

I’m planning more trackdays, more trips abroad once the present situation opens up the tracks and borders for foreign travel, and still go looking for every opportunity to take my Street Triple R out for a spin on our bumpy local roads now we can get out there again. It’s not as comfortable or practical as my other bikes, it’s not great at motorways or in bad weather, and it’s the worst motorcycle I’ve ever owned for carrying luggage. But with motorcycles getting heavier, with electronics filtering our every input and with the days of new petrol-powered bikes numbered, I’ll treasure my Street Triple R for as long as I possibly can.

I’ll update you all when I hit 100,000 miles, or when it explodes – whichever comes first!

Nick Tasker

First published in Slipstream June 2020

Sir Stirling Moss

Posted on | by Salli Griffith

I’m not so sure how many of you read the small print at the back of Slipstream, but you may have noticed that Sir Stirling Moss was our President. Not that we had much contact with him over the years, but as a much admired figurehead in motor sports it was very sad to hear of his death at the age of 90 after a lengthy illness.

“It was one lap too many, he just closed his eyes,” said his wife Lady Moss.

He was widely regarded as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time, even though he did not win the World Championship. He retired from public life in January 2018 because of ongoing health problems.

Moss’ former team Mercedes said motorsport had “lost not only a true icon and a legend, but a gentleman”, while 1996 F1 champion Damon Hill said Moss “launched all the other careers of British racing drivers who went on to become world champions”.

Three-time F1 world champion Jackie Stewart, who came into the sport shortly after Moss’ retirement in 1961, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “He walked like a racing driver should walk, he talked like a racing driver, he looked like a racing driver and he set a standard that I think has been unmatched since he retired.”

Moss won 16 of the 66 F1 races he competed in from 1951 to 1961 and became the first British driver to win a home grand prix in 1955 at Aintree. He famously lost out on the F1 title in 1958 to compatriot Mike Hawthorn after vouching for his rival and preventing him being disqualified when he was accused of reversing on track in the late-season Portuguese Grand Prix.

British GP 1957
By Terry Whalebone from Bolton, UK – Vanwell, CC BY 2.0, Link

Four times a runner-up in the F1 drivers’ championship, he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1961 and was knighted in 2000.

Together with his fine F1 career, Moss was regarded as a motor racing all-rounder and racked up a total of 212 victories in all categories.

Mercedes SLR 1977

By Lothar Spurzem – Originally from de.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, Link

Background image (top) from Sky Sports

He was an outstanding rally driver and in 1955 set a new course record in winning the famous Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile race around Italy. He managed 1,000 miles in 10hrs 7mins and 48secs, which made his average speed just 2mph off 100mph. Even by today’s standards, it was an astonishing achievement.

Alongside him throughout was Motor Sport’s continental correspondent, Denis Jenkinson, who translated written instructions on the route into hand signals.

Moss was effectively forced to retire from top-level motorsport in 1962 after a crash at Goodwood left him in a coma for a month and partially paralysed for six months.

However, he continued to race in historic cars and legends events until the age of 81.

Bullets, Camels, Elephants & Tigers (Part 2)

Posted on | by Salli Griffith

The next morning our departure was delayed due to lots of local families wanting to speak English and have their photos taken with us and the bikes. Eventually we left and rode on to Jodhpur, known as the Blue City, where we had a tour of Mehrangarh Fort, one of the largest forts in India, which from a distance looks as though it is carved out of the mountain.

Then back on our Bullets, which by now felt like old friends, and a leisurely ride to Chandelao, where we found our next hotel, which was like a converted palace. This evening we had time to walk around the village, which was obviously very poor but where the locals were so friendly and welcoming.

The following morning we couldn’t wait to mount our bikes again for the next stage of the adventure. It didn’t disappoint, wiith another great mix of road types, from newly-constructed tarmac to complete off-roading going through many very poor villages where the local children would run out to wave and shout. By early afternoon we had arrived at our next hotel in Ranakpur and after an excellent lunch and a rest we had a very different mode of transport – an open top, 4×4,  8 -eater Maruti (Suzuki) Gypsies – which took us on a safari into the foothills looking for leopards.

The next day took us on real mountain roads full of hairpin bends and again the Bullets excelled themselves. We reached Udaipur and our lakeside hotel where we stayed for 2 nights and took in lots of sightseeing, some with guides and some on our own.

Leaving Udaipur we again rode lots of mountain roads then a stretch of off-roading to reach a lakeside restaurant for lunch and relaxation before pushing on to Bijaipur and a converted Maharaja’s palace, which was to be our next hotel.

Pachewar Fort was our next destination, and the mix of roads was possibly even better than any we had done so far; up and down mountains on hairpins, great open roads with linked bends, a long off-roading section then crossing the top of a dam via the service road which included negotiating a railway line without a level crossing.

The Bullets in front of Mehrangarh Fort

Elephants at the Amber Fort

All the towns and villages were very colourful, having been decorated with millions of coloured lights and other decorations ready for Diwali and the start of the national holiday. Another converted fort was our next hotel and in the evening the Maharaja demonstrated his skills by cooking our meal.

We arrived in Jaipur on the day they celebrate Diwali and were all invited to join Narendra and his family at their home for this famous festival. We were even given traditional Indian clothes so that we truly felt like part of the celebrations. The party was held on the roof terrace of their house, which had a good view across Jaipur where the sky was lit up by fireworks continuously from dusk right through to dawn the next day.

The morning after involved yet another form of transport: elephants at the Amber Fort. Then later that day we may possibly have broken a world record with 8 of us, plus the driver, travelling in a 4-seater Tuk Tuk across Jaipur. Even the locals seemed surprised to see that!

The next day we said our farewells to the group as they headed off to Agra to see the Taj Mahal whilst we travelled south by car to Ramthanbore National Park. There we took a safari in the Tiger Reserve, where one was actually seen and photographed.

Who could visit India without going on the Indian railways?  Well we certainly couldn’t so we caught a train to Agra for our final days of sightseeing which included the must-see Wonder of the World, the Taj Mahal.

Normal riding India style

The next day we said our farewells to the group as they headed off to Agra to see the Taj Mahal whilst we travelled south by car to Ramthanbore National Park. There we took a safari in the Tiger Reserve, where one was actually seen and photographed.

Who could visit India without going on the Indian railways?  Well we certainly couldn’t so we caught a train to Agra for our final days of sightseeing which included the must-see Wonder of the World, the Taj Mahal.

After a couple of days in Agra and countless more photos, we finally said our sad farewells to India and arrived back at Heathrow. Two men of mature years were back in England, very tired, with lighter bank balances but with fantastic memories and photos to enjoy for the rest of our lives.

Someone asked me what the three best bits were. Very difficult to answer as there were no bad bits but certainly some of the highlights were:

  1. The Indian people, so warm, friendly and welcoming
  2. The Royal Enfield Bullets, they look like museum pieces but took everything in their stride
  3. Celebrating Diwali with an Indian family at their home in Jaipur

Would we do it again? Yes. Would we recommend it to anyone else? Yes, if you like bikes, just do it.

Would we recommend the tour company? Yes, 100%. They were www.indianrides.com

If you are thinking of doing a similar tour and want more advice, just let us know and we would be pleased to help.

Here are a few tips.

The System applied to riding in India.

I – Information:  Too much on offer, best to ignore

P – Position:  Anywhere you can find a space, but not restricted by the road

S – Speed:  No chance, slow or extra slow

G – Gear:  Any you can find in the box, they are all much the same

A – Acceleration:  About 0-60 in two days

Acronyms

MAD:  They all are and are all around you

TUG:  Take, every man for himself

POWDDERSS:  If the horn works and the engine starts that’s all you need to check

OUR:  It’s all too hectic, just react

IAMSAFE:  If you are awake that is all that is needed

Biking gear

Men – always the driver, t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and sunglasses are essential, plus a mobile phone in left hand and probably being used. A helmet is legally required by the driver but optionally worn and often carried on the arm. No helmet requirement for passengers, normally at least 2 passengers on every bike.

Women – Sari and optional flip flops. They ride side saddle carrying a week’s shopping and up to five children. All bikes are manufactured with a side step and sari guard, as side saddle is legal.

The Right of Way

In India only one thing has the right of way and that is the cow. Everyone has to defer to the cow without exception, even the President.

John Stevenson & Patrick White

First published in Slipstream May 2020

 

Science of Being Seen – Part 4

Posted on | by Salli Griffith

‘RIDE BRIGHT’ or ‘THINK BIKE’ success?

I’ve made a start on what the Science Of Being Seen – both the research and the presentation – is all about, and I mentioned a bit about the background context and just why I felt it necessary to put this work together.

The answer is that although the ‘RIDE BRIGHT’ motorcycle conspicuity campaigns aimed at bikers and their logical counterpart, the ‘THINK BIKE’ campaigns that exhort drivers to look harder for the difficult-to-see two wheeler, have been running from the mid-70s to the current day, and although they have run all over the world, and either adopted voluntarily or enforced through legislation, there’s no significant evidence that either strategy has had any significant impact on collisions between bikes and cars.

Drivers still suffer the ‘Looked But Failed To See’ (LBFTS) error and commit the ‘Right Of Way Violation (ROWV). As you can see, they’ve been happening for so long and studied so intensively, the research has created a pair of acronyms.

And riders still sail into these crashes all too regularly. Riders have also known about this collision for so long they’ve given it their own their own nickname – the ‘Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You’ SMIDSY.

So let’s go back to the beginning of the story.

As long ago as 1975, the Greater London Road Safety Unit identified powered two-wheelers (PTWs) as being over-represented in accidents. Detailed analysis followed and the results indicated that a major contributory factor was that other drivers failed to see the motorcycles in the general street scene.

The Greater London ‘Ride Bright’ campaign followed. It’s likely it was the first road safety campaign specifically designed to encourage riders of powered two-wheelers to improve their conspicuity by wearing bright clothing, preferably of fluorescent material, and by switching on their headlights in daytime. The campaign was extensive, involving radio advertising, a poster campaign, leaflets distributed through a number of routes (including dealers, garages, colleges, businesses and by London’s Metropolitan Police Service) and give-away items such as combs, pens and key-rings.

At around the same time, a US researcher named Harry Hurt (of whom you may have heard) working with Dupont wrote in 1977 that:

“the most likely comment of an automobile driver involved in a traffic collision with a motorcycle is that he, or she, did not SEE the motorcycle…”.

Hurt became synonymous with research into motorcycle crashes a few years later when he put his name to a mammoth study that became known as the ‘Hurt Report’ (1981). It has become a seminal work and you can find it easily online. Based on his research in California, what Harry Hurt found (amongst other things) was that:

“Approximately 3/4 of motorcycle accidents involved collision with another vehicle at an intersection. The driver of the other vehicle violated the motorcycle right-of-way and caused the accident in 2/3 of those accidents and did not see the motorcycle or did not see the motorcycle until too late to avoid the collision. Most involved passenger cars…”

A few years later, on our own side of the Big Pond, Keith Booth looked at 10,000 motorcycle crashes in London. Although I cannot find the original research, he released a report called “Characteristics of Urban Motorcycle Accidents” through the Institute of Motorcycling. Booth’s observation was that in London:

“62% of motorcycle accidents were primarily caused by the other road user. In 2/3 of motorcycle accidents where the driver was at fault, the accident was due to the driver failing to anticipate the action of the motorcyclist.”

In other words, much the same crashes were happening in big cities on both sides of the Atlantic and in much the same proportions.

The obvious question was: “Why?” Hurt drew much the same conclusion as the earlier GLC study in London:

“The origin of this problem seems to be related to the element of conspicuity (or conspicuousness) of the motorcycle; in other words, how easy it is to see the motorcycle. When the motorcycle and the automobile are on collision paths, or when the vehicles are in opposing traffic, the conspicuity due to motion is very low, if it exists at all.”

I’ll be coming back to this concept of ‘motion conspicuity’.

Hurt continued, “Consequently, recognition of the motorcycle by the automobile driver will depend entirely upon the conspicuity due to contrast.

“If the approaching motorcycle and rider blend well with the background scene, and if the automobile driver has not developed improved visual search habits which include low-threat targets (such as motorcycles and bicycles, as contrasted with the high-threat targets presented by trucks and buses) the motorcycle will not be recognized as a vehicle and a traffic hazard exists.”

Note that phrase about depending ‘entirely on the conspicuity’ – it’s going to be important too.

These accidents are often categorised as ‘Looked But Failed To See’ errors (LBFTS), because the driver claims that they looked in the appropriate direction for conflicting traffic, but did not see the approaching motorcycle.

If drivers were colliding with motorcycles that they hadn’t seen because the motorcycle had poor conspicuity,  what was the answer? Not surprisingly, the road safety bodies came up with two ‘common sense’ answers:

  • motorcyclists should make themselves more conspicuous by wearing light-coloured, reflective and fluorescent hi-vis clothing and white helmets, and to ride with dipped headlights on, and if they did, this would help drivers see them
  • drivers should look harder for motorcycles – drivers were told to ‘Think Bike’ and to look twice or take longer to look for them, and if they did this they would see bikes.

And that’s pretty much where we are now.

So… did any of this work?

Clarke et al (2007) investigated a sample of crashes involving motorcycles in the UK:

“A sample of 1790 accident cases was considered, including 1003 in detail, from UK midland police forces, involving motorcyclists of all ages, and covering the years 1997-2002 inclusive. Significant differences were discovered in the sample with respect to types of accidents involving motorcyclists (and their blameworthiness). There seems to be a particular problem surrounding other road users’ perception of motorcycles, particularly at junctions. Such accidents often seem to involve older drivers with relatively high levels of driving experience who nonetheless seem to have problems detecting approaching motorcycles.”

Even more recently, Helman et al (2012) wrote in a paper for the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) that:

“It is widely accepted that one key factor in motorcyclist crashes around the world is the difficulty other road users have in detecting an approaching motorcyclist or correctly appraising their speed and position. This is of particular concern at road intersections, when drivers need to detect gaps in oncoming traffic to make turns either across or into traffic flows. If a motorcyclist is not detected by a car driver in this situation (so-called ‘looked but failed to see’) then this can lead to a manoeuvre that violates the motorcyclist’s path, and a potential crash.”

If we look outside the UK but still within Europe, the pan-European study ‘Motorcycle Accidents In-Depth Study’ (or MAIDS for short), first released in 2004 then updated in 2009, found that just over half of all crashes involving a powered two-wheeler (ie a motorcycle or moped) took place at an intersection. 60% of these collisions were with a car, 72% of the accidents took place in urban areas, and in 50% the car driver was to blame. And the important conclusion was that in over 70% of the collisions resulting from an error on the part of the other driver, the collision involved a failure to see the a motorcycle.

And the latest study from Transport for London on motorcycle crashes in the capital repeated the findings that the car – motorcycle collision at a junction remains the biggest single issue facing riders.

So, the conclusion is inescapable. The interventions first recommended in the 1970s and early 80s don’t seem to have had any effect on the prevalence of the LBFTS error. And so the SMIDSY remains the most common crash involving a bike and another vehicle.

If our generation of riders is to do any better, we need to look for a better explanation. And we need to do it ourselves, not rely on what we’re told. And that’s why I’ve spent so much effort working on SOBS over the last nine years.

 

Kevin Williams / Survival Skills Rider Training www.survivalskills.co.uk

(c) K Williams 2020

The Science Of Being Seen – the book of the presentation £9.99 plus P&P and available now from: www.lulu.com

The ‘Science Of Being Seen’ is a presentation created in 2011 for Kent Fire and Rescue’s ‘Biker Down’ course by Kevin Williams. Biker Down is now offered by over half the nation’s FRSs as well as the UK military, and many deliver a version of SOBS. Kevin personally presents SOBS once a month for KFRS in Rochester. He toured New Zealand in February 2018 delivering SOBS on the nationwide Shiny Side Up Tour 2018 on behalf of the New Zealand Department of Transport.

Find out more here: https://scienceofbeingseen/wordpress.com

From The Garage (May 2020)

Posted on | by Andy Slater

In the March edition of Slipstream I wrote “It’s always dangerous, …to look forward to the start of the new riding season. The daffodils may be out but last year we had the ‘Beast from The East’ in March and we all sat in St Crispin’s that month watching the snow come down.”

And so it has proved to be again this year. Another ‘Beast from the East’ has descended upon us. This time we can’t see it but its effects have been much more deadly with a huge impact particularly on Club Members who work in the NHS, Care Homes, supermarkets, or any of the front-line jobs that keep our society running. On behalf of all TVAM Members can I say ‘Thank You’ to all of you.

Thanks also to every Member who has resisted the strong urge we’ve all had at some point to go for a quick blast. A chance happening with another road user through no fault of your own could tie up the emergency services for hours when they really do have better things to be doing just now.

It was of course with great sadness that we heard that Club President Sir Stirling Moss had passed away over Easter. He was more closely involved with the Club in its early years but remained a figurehead for the Club throughout the time of his association and he will be a difficult act to follow. There’s a lovely tribute written by the editor on page 20. Needless to say the Committee has discussed who could be a successor and I hope to be able to report progress over the coming months.

So just what do you do when the sun’s out yet you can’t ride your bike?

Well, having read Nick Tasker’s article last month and being a BMW rider who, having bought new, has now gone through 26k miles I thought I’d better have a go at some unusual & infrequent maintenance. The bike’s been around Europe two or three times, does 5 or 6 IAM Skills Days at Thruxton each season and is ridden all-year round, so it’s definitely not been a ‘Sunday afternoon’ bike.

So off came the rear suspension linkages to see if they were worn or just needed a bit of TLC.  After all Nick was concerned that long-term reliability isn’t always a priority for the original manufacturer so I was expecting to find a few bits that would be seized or gasping for a drink of grease.

Thankfully all the bolts came undone, though they have high torque values so well-fitting quality tools are a must. There were no signs of corrosion as all the parts are alloy, plated or stainless steel, which is hopefully a good sign. The seals of the four separate bearings that make up the linkage mechanism were all covered externally with a combination of dried chain lubricant, presumably flung off the chain (yes XR’s still have those) and road dirt. Sitting above the exhaust they must get a little warm. However they all cleaned up with a bit of white spirit and were in good condition. It was then possible to disassemble and inspect the bearings themselves.

The shafts showed a little sign of wear but none were pitted, scored or worn through the case hardening. The needle-bearings were unworn but in need of some fresh lubricant. After this the re-assemble was quite straightforward (once you’d remembered which way round the three-way alloy casting went) then it was just a matter of torquing up those bolts – after all one of those coming out at speed would be interesting…

And whilst I was down there I found I was missing a circlip off the near-side footpeg pin. That would have been another interesting part to lose on the motorway…

I would therefore encourage you to take this time of lock-down to take a longer look at your bike. Which bits haven’t you really looked at since you bought it? Mine was a morning well spent.

Andy Slater
Chairman