Psychological Aspects

Your account of the 900cc Kawasaki (Note:

The Z1, Kawasaki’s emphatic response to Honda’s CB750) in the September issue was staggering. What an incredible machine, but more to the point, what sort of people buy and ride motorbikes like that?

Some psychiatrists maintain that racing motorcyclists is likely to have had disturbed childhoods – either due to a lack of affection (or worse still, an excess of frank aggression or even violence) from the parents, or else due to being brought up in a family atmosphere where any expression of the essentially natural aggressive and/or sexual drives was strictly repressed.

...My belief is that many superbike riders and racing motorcyclists are, on a subconscious level, symbolically expressing natural instincts which they have been forced, by their families and society, to suppress.

I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad thing (people can release aggression in far more dangerous ways); just trying to find a reason for bikes like the Kawasaki.

My Commando (Note: A fast late-60s, 70s Norton twin) gave way to a 1948 ES2 (an old, not-nearly-so-fast Norton 500 single) partly because I was wondering about my personality but mainly because the latter is a far more realistic machine for these days.

The mentality of motorcyclists (commuters and die-hards apart) is changing from an enthusiastic, all-weather travelling man to someone with a personality problem who is using his bike as an extension or reinforcement of his ego.

I only hope that the awareness of the £1,177 (Note: The price of the Z1 Kawasaki) in his hands keeps the manipulator of that potent projectile sane.

London E1 J.S.