Motorcycle Sport & Leisure Magazine 671 - March 2019 Edizione posteriore

I’ve had an epiphany. A proper penny-dropping, fireworks-exploding, Eureka-shouting kind of thing. And before you ask; no, I haven’t been meditating at a remote mountain retreat or fasting to achieve enlightenment (perish the thought, I like my food far too much). I haven’t even dabbled in hallucinogenics. No, sir! It was a perfectly ordinary day and I was stone cold sober.

But first, let me set the scene… having had a bit of a sabbatical from two wheels, I felt a little nervous when I got back to riding a few months back.

Things improved pretty swiftly, and I felt that my riding was fine, but the level of confidence just wasn't there. It's not like I was making big mistakes that worried me silly. It was just small niggly things, like keeping my lines steady and manoeuvring big bikes at slow speeds. It was a case of 'close, but no cigar'. And being a bit of an obsessive type I couldn't get my mind off it. I spent a lot of time trying to pinpoint which bits of my riding needed attention, and how I could remedy the lack of confidence, but I didn't find any hard and fast rules to apply to my situation.

Then I remembered something that someone much wiser told me a while ago: the key to it all is being smooth and relaxed. They were talking about tight turns and quick changes of pace, but I reckon it applies to all kinds of riding. And that was the moment when the rusty old cogs in my head jolted into action.

Smooth and relaxed, eh...