PIP HIGHAM
He likes corners… honest!
No, I don’t mean THAT C word. I mean corners. They’re all over the place. Just when you’re enjoying yourself, having a bit of a blast, some killjoy goes and plonks a big turny corner thing in the way.
You may be under the impression that I don’t like corners. No, I’m just not very good at them. There aren’t any at all on Madeira Drive in Brighton; that suited me fine a few years ago. I blasted along there without a care in the world at the wrong side of 160mph and simply blazed the valves in my Katana motor into oblivion over the bumpy bit at the end, which was fine, occupational hazard, etc. The thing is, there were no corners there. I’d been to the sprint at Hartlepool a couple of years prior to that and guess what? Somebody had grafted a long, sweepy bit on the end of the track. I said: “Is that bit at the end a corner?” The reply was: “Nar Pip, this is a sprint, they don’t ‘ave corners mate.”
It was a corner. A corner with railings, and bollards, and walls, but there was a straw bale and an arrow pointing away from the hard, heavy, pointy bits, so that was all right. I rode around Mallory on a works XR69 many years ago. Nobody warned me, that place is full of bloody corners! They’re everywhere. Left, right, long sweepy ones, a very tighty righty one and a really nasty one that bends in the exact shape of a Devil’s Elbow, 66.6 degrees. One of Suzuki’s test riders fell off there and gave his leg a nasty bang. I could have helped him out there. If he’d gone slower, like me, he wouldn’t have fallen off! Not rocket science; corner coming: slow down. And there are other benefits too, such as reduced wear on outside edge of boots, less stress, win-win!
Somebody told me they had corners in America. We went over to check a few years ago, but didn’t find any. There was a kink in the road about 30 miles west of Galveston, but I think it was just road works, otherwise nope, just straight roads and pick-up trucks. Oh, wait a minute, they do have a corner in America. They call it ‘The Corkscrew’! Yeah right, course they do, harrumph! Not like in Italy, they have proper names for their corners: Variante del Rettifilo. Love that Italian stuff. No idea what it means, might be a drink, or a type of pasta, but it still sounds great.
And what about those Germans? Predictably, their corner names are brief, efficient, Teutonic: Nord Kurve, and predictably, Sud Kurve...boring! The Aussies resisted the temptation to name their corners after marvellous marsupials; imagine Platypus Curve, Devil’s Dash, Wombat’s Wobble, or how about Phalangeriformes Firkle? They played safe and rustled up a few heroes to give a nod to: Stoner, Gardner and Doohan all get a mention, but poor old Croz, just because he hails from a few miles across the Tasman Sea, no mention. If it was up to me Croz, I’d name a whole bloody circuit after you, mate!
I know I’ve poked fun at that America and I know they have a few roads up there (so-called ‘canyons’ and such), but what about the Picos in northern Spain and the Dolomites betwixt Italy and Austria? Now we’re cookin’. A typical day’s ride through the Dolomites is like the best roller-coaster in the world... twist, turn, up, down, for mile after mile. And thinking about it (am I tempting fate here?) I never fell off once in a bunch of Giros and a few goes at the 5000 Curvas in the Picos. I actually like twisty roads in the UK and abroad (mind you, Cowclap Corner on the Pwllheli to Morfa Nefyn road (see March 2013, CMM), requires some imagination and creativity; the mix of warmth, smooth Tarmac and fun are hard (some might say impossible..) to beat. Or even a road like the Pass Of The Cattle over to Applecross, although it’s not particularly smooth and rarely warm, will put a grin on my boat, all day, any day.
And as someone who’s spent a bit of time going in straight lines I’ve had my puny body battered too many times trying to get from A-to-b by the shortest route.
I’ve fallen off in the street outside my workshop (off a Demm Dove: oh the shame, and the pain), on Pendine Sands (how stupid is that?), and even cavorting down the billiard table smooth tarmac at Santa Pod I managed to launch myself into a passable triple salchow, with a twist, result: broken ribs, dented pride, visit to A&E. Nar, I think in future I might stick to twisty bits, but not going too quick you understand. I may be daft, but I’m not stupid!