Am I the only rider who buys a blade because of its relative simplicity, various threads throughout the forum seem to bang on about rider aids/ electronics.....traction control, anti wheelie,lean angle sensors,etc are we heading towards an era of bikes so powerful they are becoming unridable by mere mortals without these aids? I really worry that rather than making bikes safer the electronics give riders a false sense of security and god forbid they ever fail!!!! We only have to look at Honda's ABS, Pedrosa's crash at Aragon. I've always believed in keeping things simple.....maybe an age thing! Anyway Just gonna fill me pipe with old shag, dust off me high viz and were the f..cks me slippers.
Actually, you have a valid point. In real terms, my 2008 blade is brilliant without all the above "aids." I might just keep my money in the bank .
Its true, part of me says yeah cool electronic stuff to play with but then I like to think Im riding the bike not a computer... I dont think I could put my faith in it anyway but I guess a safety net is no bad thing in case you do screw up, jury is still out for me on this one..
Im with you matey, and the exact reason I did not buy the BMW S1000 over the blade! Its a bike, it should be raw, exiting, scary and Fekkin awesome! Ill wait till Im older and infirm to ride something with buttons and modes. I still miss adjusting the fuel/air mixture screw lol
I rode all the others and can't be done with all the settings and modes mind you out on the push bike today in the wet could have done with abs as 23mm conti spinning up in the wet. I can't ride a blade on the road to its full potential not worth spending another 9k on the latest and greatest fugly machines bought the blade new last year as liked the overall package nothing in 2015 floats my boat so will wait for something that Does R1 ugly Bmw ugly Zx10 can't reach the bars 1199 nice to look at hardwork to ride fast and not worth the servicing costs that go with it so stay with what I have.
I think that there is quite a lot of talk about rider aids on the forum. In many ways I can understand why many track day riders and racers like to have the bells and whistles on their bikes. If you want to be competitive and those you are competing against have them then it levels the playing field. I have seen major changes in bikes since I first started riding in 1973, I have to say I prefer riding the modern bikes, especially as there is so much more traffic now and driving standards seem a bit more iffy. I am not against rider aids, I just do not really want most of them on my own bikes. I like to use my own skills and abilities to ride fast and safe. Maybe I could ride faster with rider aids, but I ride as fast as I want to/dare to on the road as it is so I do not need them. If, however, a bike came along that I really liked I might still buy it even with the bells and whistles. I actually think Honda know what they are doing and are providing many people with just what they want, a relatively simple bike that is fast, handles well, is reliable and will last for many miles (apart from abs issues).
is an interesting point for conversation racing wise to not had chance to look at results from the superstocks but going to be doing a bit of noseying one thing I was wandering was what electronics was on Ansteys blade at this years tt when he did the 132 guessing the hrc kit stuff has some form of it? on the road though I love my 750 and blade for what they are nice and controllable with less to go wrong and the sense of stability with the blade such a brilliant all round package thats for sure
Never have and never will want aids on the road, I'm perfectly capable of pulling a brake lever thank you.... Tried the first gen bm against the blade and bought the blade over it hands down, the bm cut power out of corners, over hills, when I wanted to wheelie etc just felt shite compared to the blade which was soooo good as stock! But.... When you see a 190bhp kwak get pinned at full lean and it do its thing, and the guy infront pull away you know isn't any better pull away, it's soul destroying tbh.... You don't realise it's that bad until me, Dave and Barney went to a hairpin at silverstone, all the blades went though and wound it on, bm's but more so kwaks - pop pop pop pop power down! Am I a better rider for being able to do it on road or track natural? Who knows - they could prob do it too... Can a worse rider look good? Yes... Can a very good rider maximise the wizardry, you bet!!
I do wonder if there was a similar conversation in the days gone by when bikes started getting electric starters.
I'm sure there was? and once all bike have all the aids as standard we will forget these conversions as it will be the norm or we could just be the same old farts you meet at bike stops "now when I was a lad bikes were real bikes mate, none of this modern rubbish"
Reminds me back in the late 90s I had one of the first T595s, and everywhere we went, old blokes with flat caps without fail seemed to appear from nowhere and the conversation always started with the words 'When I was a lad................' The pi*s taking from my mates was monumental
Very good point. I have decided I now want all the aids, especially the lean angle meter.Who would go back to BSA and kick starts? We have to take on board all these new inivations. Come give me electronic gizmos.
Well don't ask for to much or bikes might go the way cars are going and become riderless they are spending loads of money to prefect driverless car technology, we don't want bikes to go to same way do we? Now when I was a lad..,
This is a valid and true point. At work, a completely different discipline, but the same argument all the time, digital photograpy vs analogue photography, and I think I have the same opinion in both cases. We, as bikers, tend to regard 'driver aids' as being gizmos that let you squeeze the last bhp, the last degree of lean, the last bogey of traction out of our bikes. I don't deny this but in truth, for the great majority of us, they are just there to make it easier. Easier to sit in traffic without plugging up, easier to get the engine started in the first place ( I know. I had a 90s Ducati), easier to exit a corner without inexperience of just plain stupidity dumping 150 bhp plus into a contact patch the size of a credit card and easier to flick from focussed, tucked in road racer to Christopher Dean the second a sweeping bend turns into the Somme behind the hidden apex. We tend to see them differently because, nut jobs that we are, we all want to make our 200 mph monsters go even quicker and lean over much much further. Nothing wrong with that (or is there.......that's a whole different debate. Back to the point). I know, I've heard all the 'soul biker' stuff about bad condition riding turning you into a two wheel superman with the reflexes of a ninja, and I concede it's validity. I just don't think the time to practice it is sliding down a 1 in 6, cow shit coated hill towards a most definitely stopped Nissan Micra (I know. That's how I lost my 90s Ducati). The electronics allow us to live with our kit more freely and easily. To jump on them almost instantly you hear the mother in law is coming, to give us the best chance the kit can give us of surviving the unthinkable without a crumple zoned, airbagged fortress surrounding us. And yes, I do remember when electric starters were a novelty, and I sat in on the arguments that they were a pointless added weight, and something else to go wrong, and shortened battery and alternator lives (and the alternator itself was once regarded as suspicious by Thomas Eddison, remember). And all those arguments have passed into the history of the hobby. And no. Film is not coming back. Art colleges and the fine art wankagensia claim it is because it 'feels' so much 'better' (a non-quantifiable adjective because they know they're making up their reasoning for their funding request). Film should now be regarded the same as glass negatives, noxious processing chemistry and flash powder. As archaic pains in the arse. Just like carburettors and kick starters.
Occasionally, at night, whilst whizzing along the unlit 'B' roads in this neck of the woods, it crosses my mind; what if my headlight suddenly failed? Being an 'old geezer' I'm not 100% comfortable with this electronically produced means of illumination but it's become almost impossible to find a local(ish) chemist who can supply me with the Carbide I need for the old reliable (though rather dim) headlamp I prefer. But seriously, after seeing a cyclist (miles off) the other night with one of these Knog Blinder 4 Standard - Test 1 - YouTube I'm thinking of adding a couple to the front of my 'blade for the winter ahead. Spaced far enough apart they should lessen the chances of being mistaken for a bicycle.
Better to buy some meth for the bloke in front with the red flag, Nick. You should be able to press on a bit then.
I've only done around 1000 miles on my 2012 ABS Fireblade and so far the brakes have been superb with absolutely no issues. As far as I'm aware the ABS has never cut in but if it's as seamless as I'm led to believe then maybe I didn't notice. I've lost count of the times I've lost or nearly lost the front end over the years by it sliding out from under me on various bikes. I've got an FJR1300 and there has been a couple of occasions where the ABS has probably saved me from embarrassing, painful and costly dismounts. These weren't in the rain or pushing the limit on braking but on bone dry roads at fairly low speeds and just touching the brakes. The most notable was pottering down a fairly steep hill in Dubrovnik with a sharp turn at the bottom. I just touched the front brake and the lever pulsed like crazy. I got to the bottom of the hill and got off the bike thinking the brakes were dodgy - they checked out ok so I walked the few yards up the hill and nearly went on my arse. There had been no rain for months and the surface was like glass. It looked fine but there was very little grip and I'm sure that the warning that the ABS gave me was enough to keep me from sliding off at the bottom of the hill. Fireblade apparently has leccy steering damper - I've absolutely no idea how it works but I know that the steering feels better than on any other road bike I've ever ridden. If the gizmos improve the ride and help to keep me on the bike then I can live with them but if they start to become compulsory through misguided legislation then that's a different matter.
Mmm just jogged my memory of a terrifying Tank Slapper on me 350 power valve in 1987 , bad memory that was
