The Art of Cruising

When I was a teenager, I was a cafe racer with my Yamaha RX 100, had lots of falls but thankfully no broken bones. But with experience learned the hard way, my driving school instructor told me to wipe my past riding experience because the Yamaha and the Bobber have different riding personalities due to their different structural design. The Bobber is longer than a kapchai by half the length of a tyre so turning radius is much wider. It means I have to meander more and slower (due to the Bobber’s weight) than a kapchai. He said whenever I reached a t-junction or make U-turns, I should switch early to the outside lane, negotiate turns slowly like I was driving a trailer as if I wanted to show off my motorbike. It works, cornering is smoother. Tight corners can even be done slowly by lifting up the elbows like a man walks the tight rope. This works too. Because of different structural design, I was asked to sit upright to get better balance but I like to slouch. Experience of failing to cross the narrow bridge for 4 days of training yet succeeding on the fifth day for the B licence test was a result of sitting upright and always looking chin up straight at the horizon. I prefer to cruise lazily on local roads around 70kph but there is no breeze so end up cruising at 80-90kph depending on road gradient. On highways, I cruise between 90-110kph depending on road gradient but rarely exceed 110kph except to overtake a vehicle at 100-110kph. It is also hard to enjoy cruising faster than 110kph because the wind uncomfortably slams the chest. Then there is also the need to be more alert and that takes the fun out of cruising, a style of riding very different from superbikers whose aim is to reach their destination ASAP. How about you?