It’s fair to say that in recent years my riding has been a solo activity – and I guess in some ways this has shown in my current pace on Britain’s roads.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve gotten slower as the years go by. I’d like to think ‘safer’, too, but I’m not the arrogant sort, so I know that ‘but for the grace of (insert chosen deity here)’ we all make mistakes and we can all be victims of bad luck.
But, what I do believe in is that riding with friends can be the best fun you can have on two wheels and – comparing and contrasting riding styles – then talking about it afterwards can have a positive effect on improving your own riding. Therefore, I was keen to see what my good friend John Fishman was going to think of my riding, and me of his, when he flew in from Huntsville, Alabama.
John is an experienced rider with 22 years under his belt (somewhat less than me, but then he did ride bikes in some dodgy fashion before passing his test, including a mate’s KH400 Kwak triple). On passing his test he bought a 1977 BMW R100 S which he describes as: “…basically in primer and a piece of s***…”
He’s also a seasoned track-dayer on his 2009 Superstock-spec Fireblade. Now, track-days are something I used to do on a track-spec Kawasaki ZX-7R, but no longer bother with. John and I have some well-meaning banter about this. I say that at 61 years of age, he’s too old to do it. Thankfully, John has a sense of humour; I even spent the whole time adopting a daft American accent, saying ‘Hey man’ whenever he opened his mouth to make a point. Let’s just say he gives as good as he gets and we are both ‘equal opportunity piss-takers…’ Just as a good biking friendship should be…
The ride would simply be a day in the saddle, on two sports-tourers – Yamaha’s Tracer 9 GT and Honda’s NT1100 – and we
