Road Documentary Review

Road follows the lives of four Dunlop’s and their careers in road racing in Northern Ireland. Like the exceptional Senna, it delivers an experience that can be enjoyed by fans of the sport as well those who wouldn’t know the difference between a sportsbike and a cruiser. Like Senna, Road is a documentary that will draw you in emotionally and bring you into the lives of those it follows. In fact, the motorcycle racing takes a back seat to the story of Joey Dunlop, his younger brother Robert and Robert’s two sons Michael and William.

For those unfamiliar with their history, Joey Dunlpo is regarded as the best road racer ever to live, having won a total of 26 Isle of Man TT races (including three hat-tricks, his last coming in 2000 when he was 48 years of age). He was killed only weeks later in a little known race in Estonia. His younger brother Robert eventually followed Joey into the sport but his career was curtailed due to serious injury. Today, two of Robert’s children race in road racing events, both with good success.

Almost all of those interviewed were extremely close friends and relatives of Joey and Robert Dunlop (save for one brief appearance by former Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker and his asinine comment that road racers only race because of the risk of death) and you can see for many of them that the loss they suffered from the two brothers’ deaths is still with them.

Visually, Road is good without being great. Comparing it to TT3D – Closer to the Edge makes it look poor in comparison, but as I said at the outset this is a film more about the men rather then their machines. The historic footage of Joey and Robert from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s is great however and shows nothing has really changed in the sport, save for some extra hay bales and foam on the outsides of the circuit.

In the latter parts of Robert Dunlop’s life when he races with his two sons, it comes across that he almost doesn’t even ride for the enjoyment anymore but instead it has become his addiction. Even his son William remarked how he had seemingly changed in the last years of his life. The same could be said of Joey Dunlop who went racing to escape reality so to speak after the suicide of one of his closest friends – a decision which ultimately cost Joey Dunlop his life.

Road is a fascinating documentary and if this had been an actual movie, you’d give it a D- for the fanciful storyline. But these events actually happened and though many might not agree with some of the decisions these men made, they died doing what the loved and then some. You can watch the video for free here or you can purchase it through Amazon UK.

 

Road Documentary Review

Is MV Agusta Teasing a new Scrambler Type Bike?

MV Agusta has just sent out a teaser ahead of Intermot showing a spoked wheel. A bike to upstage the Ducati Scrambler?

Can a Motorcycle Brake Faster Than a Car?

There are two schools of thought on whether a motorcycle can stop faster than a car. On the one hand, a motorcycle is much, much lighter than a car so wouldn’t it stop faster than a heavy car? Everyone expects a truck or train to stop slower than a car due to their mass, so the same probably applies for a car against a bike? On the other hand, cars have four brakes, four larger tires to grip the road with and weight remains on the rear wheels even in a heavy braking situation, so perhaps they stop quicker?

Interestingly, if you do a Google search you’ll find that a straight forward answer isn’t forthcoming. Many swear black and blue that a bike will beat a car every time, yet there’s also a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest the opposite. So what is the answer? Well, it depends…

The most common view is that because a bike is lighter, not only can it accelerate faster, it can also decelerate quicker too. But this is actually completely wrong as you’re dealing with different physics in each instance. For acceleration, a bikes power to weight ratio is often far superior to that of a car and that’s the reason it accelerates quicker. But power to weight has no bearing on stopping.

Let’s break (get it?) down the physics. I’m relying heavily on a wonderful post on the motorcycleforum.com.

Firstly, the force on a vehicle when stopping is:

F = ma

Where F is the force on the vehicle, m is its mass and a is the acceleration (negative in this case).

Next, that force is applied to the tires via traction as follows:

F = μW

Where W is the weight of the vehicle, and μ is the coefficient of friction.

The weight of the vehicle is its mass, m, times the gravitational force, g, so:

F = μmg

The maximum stopping force that can be applied is the maximum frictional force that the tires can cope with, so:

ma = μmg

What all this shows is that we can cancel the use of the variable m as it appears on both sides of the equation. In simple terms, it means that mass has no bearing whatsoever on stopping distances. The equation to thus show the maximum possible deceleration is

a = μg

So (negative) acceleration equals the coefficient of friction of the tires, multiplied by the gravitational force.

So, that light bike you have? When it comes to braking, it’s irrelevant. It’s down to the tires. And because a car has four of them instead of two (and they’re wider), it points towards a car being able to stop quicker. So, cars stop faster than tires. Case closed. Well, not quite…

The reason it’s not so straightforward is that an average bike has far higher performance characteristics than an average car. In general, an average sports bike will have higher quality brakes and better tires than an average hatchback or a family saloon.  So your Yamaha R6 or Triumph Street Triple will probably out brake Miss Daisy in her Toyota Camry. But as soon as you get a car that’s remotely sporty, say a Golf GTI, the car will begin to stop in shorter distance than a bike. Physics will win and with those four tires, the equation of a = μg will see the car pull up quicker.

As our video shows, an average bike will outperform an average car. In the future though we’ll put the same bike up against a hot hatch or similar to show how the reverse becomes true. Regardless of what bike you ride or what cars are around, remember that you are your own crumple zone. Always leave plenty of room for an emergency stop as what would be a small fender bender in a car can potentially become a serious injury (or worse) if you run up the back of someone.

Icon Airframe Ghost Carbon Helmet Review

I’m a bit of a motorcycle accessories addict and the Icon Airframe Ghost Carbon Helmet is probably one of my prized possessions. Living in Thailand where most things are so cheap allows me to splurge every now and then and I think a helmet is definitely a motorcycle accessory worth splurging on. And while you can certainly buy cheaper helmets that offer just as good protection, I personally think the Icon Airframe Ghost Carbon is worth every dollar.

Icon can make some pretty gaudy gear, especially some of their jackets that look like dirt bike gear converted for street use. Bright and tacky in my view and while i wouldn’t call the Airframe Ghost Carbon understated in its appearance, it doesn’t yell out, “Look at me” like some teenager with an unhealthy dose A.D.D . In fact from a distance it really looks like a plain black helmet (albeit with a tinted yellow visor – more on that later). Up close however and you can see this is a helmet with a lot of attention to detail.

I think the carbon looks great. It looks modern yet I think will date well. And while the design does look aggressive, to me it’s still a matter of function over form – there’s nothing unnecessary about what Icon have implemented here. The air intakes and exhaust ports may look comically large on first glance but you grow used to them and after wearing the helmet for a while, you’ll appreciate their purpose.  That carbon used on the shell means the helmet only weighs a smidgen over 3 pounds (1.5kg) and it really helps reduce neck fatigue on long rides.

The name Airframe may give you a clue as to what this helmet excels at and that is air flow. Damn, it’s good. There are two massive vents on the top of the helmet and they really do a great job of keeping the temperature down at speed. The downside is that you also get a fair bit of wind noise because of that, but it’s a compromise I’m happy to make in a tropical climate. Just put in ear plugs. Icon go a step further and line the helmet with a quality wicking material called HydraDry. It’s removable and washable and not only helps keep the sweat off you, but reduces that lovely helmet smell we all endure.

Despite that noise generated by the helmet when riding fast, I was surprised at how stable the Icon Aiframe Ghost Carbon is at high speed. I’ve generally found that a noisy helmet equals a helmet that tries to rip my head from my body at anything above freeway speeds. But no, it’s surprisingly aerodynamic. Icon has really designed the air vents well so that the air flowing through does so in an efficient manner. Kudos to them.

The yellow visor is another great feature and not as gimmicky as I thought it would be upon purchase. Unlike a tinted visor, the yellow optical visor can be used both day and night. It cuts down glare in the day like a tinted visor and actually enhances your vision in darker light. You’ll probably still want to wear sunglasses in extremely bright conditions but I gotta say I’m a convert – no more tinted visors for me if I can help it.

At $500, it certainly isn’t cheap and considering the normal Airframe helmets cost almost half as much, you could still get a great helmet and save yourself a few hundred bucks. But as I said, I like to splurge and I have no regrets with the Icon Airframe Ghost Carbon.

Purchase from:

  

An Introduction to Motorcycle Gymkhana

If you haven’t participated in a motorcycle gymkhana, odds are that you probably haven’t done any sort of low speed motorcycle exercises since getting your license.  Yet how often are you required to navigate a car park or filter between cars in slow traffic as opposed to getting your knee down in turn two at the local track?  We need to maneuver our bike at low speed all the time yet most of us neglect to practice and hone these skills. This is where motorcycle gymkhana is both a great way to improve your riding abilities and at the same time have a lot of fun.

Simply put, motorcycle gymkhana is a time trial sport where you ride your bike through a course in the shortest time possible. The course is made up of various obstacles that you need to navigate through which generally test your ability to maneuver your bike in low speeds in tight turns. Those obstacles can include 360 circles (both inside and outside a marked circular boundary), figure 8’s, slaloms, chicanes and various tight corners that really require you to ride at slow speed while balancing the bike.

Watching the video below, you’ll see a lot of heavy leaning of the bike. And while being able to lean the bike over at low speed is a factor in being good at gymkhana, the more important skills are those that you probably take for granted – throttle control, clutch control and braking using both front and rear brake.

A big emphasis on low speed riding surrounds your friction point, the point of balance between your clutch where it’s neither fully engaged nor disengaged. By being able to balance on this friction point, you can smoothly roll on throttle in small increments to adjust your bike’s behavior. When you’re in first gear, any input you make into the throttle is more exaggerated than if you were to roll on the same percentage of throttle in sixth gear, so by ‘feathering’ the throttle by using the friction point, that exaggeration is reduced.

There’s more though. Use of the rear brake is fundamental to low speed maneuvers and again it’s a skill so many of us don’t properly utilize when we ride. Hands up if you never use your rear brake? I bet there’s a lot of you and even I’m guilty of that at times. But your rear brake comes into its own at low speeds. The fact that it isn’t as powerful as your front brake makes it the perfect tool in a low speed environment. The rear brake also helps ‘stand up’ the bike, so when you’re exiting a corner, hitting the rear brake at the same time as you roll back on the throttle will help you reduce your lean angle in the quickest possible way.

Here’s some more motorcycle gymkhana tips from an expat in Japan, “Ni-Kito” who posted on Gaginriders:

• Lock your legs onto the bike; squeeze the tank with the length of your legs
• Relax your arms and keep your elbows in (so you’ll be able to give precise inputs to the bars)
• Sit forward in the seat, tilt your torso from the hips (into the turns)
• Steer with your hips (in a sense) by leaning into the turns [your body weight and position makes a big difference at these lower speeds]
• Put your sternum in line with handlebar on the inside of the turn. Some schools tell you to “kiss the mirrors” to get your head where the mirror is. Here, you want to make sure it’s not just your head but your torso that’s in line with the inside grip.
• Turn you head and look into the turn
• Turn shoulders into the turn also
• Lots of rear brake in turns
• Fully release brake when rolling on hard
• “Let the bike do it’s natural steering. You just turn with the bike.” Once in a turn the bike will naturally follow the arc of the turn – don’t fight it. When you get on the throttle the bike will want to stand up. This tells us something about how to use the throttle.

Now, not all of the above tips are applicable on the road (there’s no real need to hang off the bike on the street) but most of them are skills and techniques you use every time you go for a ride.  And those same skills are just as important at high speed as they are at low speed. And think about it – if you can lean your bike way over when plodding along at 10mph, surely that will give you the confidence to do the same in an emergency situation at higher speed?

If you live in the UK, you can check out the Moto Gymkhana Association. Those in the United States can contact the American Motorcycle Gymkhana Riders Association. And if you live in neither of these places, check back soon for another article on gymkhana where we go through in greater details the rules of the sport and setting up your own course.