Went out for a blat with a few different bikes yesterday and down a particularly
very tightly bending 'B' road near Minehead, I was trying to keep up with a couple of ex racers on gixxer thous.
As the pace quickened (fookinell!), I was just about managing to keep them in sight when we hit a fairly freshly gravelled stretch (bastid fookin local council twats) of road on a very tight bend, when one of the gixxers chucked up a piece of gravel which managed to ping into the slight opening in my visor and hit me on the eyelid. In that split second of lost concentration, my bottle smashed into a thousand pieces and I found myself heading at a very rapid pace towards a very substantial looking tree.
So, there I am, bottle in bits, copious amounts of gravel under the tyres, rapid pace of knots, and what do I do. In a moment of panic I
bed a handful of front brake. All that training and experience went to rat shit in a split second.
If it had not been for Mr Hondas linked brake system I would have been wearing a rather fetching oak ensemble with blackbird accessories. The back end of the bike (after squirming quite dramatically on the gravel) managed step the bike back into shape which just gave me enough time to sort it out and stop in one piece.
I dont know about you guys, but I for one like the linked brakes - a lot!
The morlal of the story is...... don't try to keep up with ex racers on little tight country lanes riding gixxer thous. Give me a nice sweeping A road and the story might have been a bit different though. Mind you, those gixxers are fookin quick though!