How much will do? When will a logical person take a look at what's available in motorcycle showrooms and say, “Okay, that’s enough for me personally.” Or more paternalistically even, that’s enough for you, too. What's too much? Is there too much?
There are bikes that are too dangerous to ride. I understand this to be true. We'd a long-term loaner Buell once, an S2-T, it cracked one of the welds that comprised its right pseudo clip-on bar. It had been one hard countersteer or braking maneuver away from no more having the right clip-on. Bicycles are hard to steer without pubs. Buell experienced released a recall but somehow ours experienced slipped through the recall splits. That bicycle was too dangerous to trip.
Kenny Roberts, Sr. once received the Indy Mile aboard a TZ750-centered dirt-track bicycle that Kel Carruthers and a bunch of diabolical people from Yamaha’s Diabolical Department had constructed for him. It was, to hear him inform the tale, half the weight and double the hp of the competition. He famously announced post-race that they didn’t pay him enough to ride that thing. The AMA prohibited that bike from competition subsequently. That bike was too dangerous to trip.
Okay, reasonable enough, bikes at the mercy of NHTSA recalls to improve a defect that could put you on your head are too dangerous to trip. So is any motorbike that Yamaha cannot pay Kenny Roberts, Sr. enough to ride. But how about the rest?
A two-part interview of KTM’s chief executive and CEO, Stefan Pierer, by Alan Cathcart in Routine News, broached this issue inadvertently; the response from Mr. Pierer got my attention.
“But let’s be honest,” said Pierer, “if your Superbike is reaching 200 horsepower or even more, it’s impossible to argue it belongs on the road. It certainly doesn’t, anymore … As soon as the RC16 is available for customers we will stop with the RC8. The design (of the RC8) is outstanding. I would say it’s still condition of the art, and there is certainly nothing else enjoy it. It’s a vintage Superbike. But with the upsurge in basic safety concerns, I’m afraid bikes like this don’t belong on the street, only on the shut course.”
Convinced that I have to have misunderstood what I got read just, I went back and read it again. Cathcart was asking Pierer about KTM’s future programs, Pierer indicated KTM’s wish to compete in MotoGP, and he has concerns about the bureaucrats in Brussels in his role as a leader in the ACEM - think Euro-version of our Motorcycle Industry Council here stateside. Pierer cites the possibility of an EU-wide bicycle ban. The RC8 will be phased out to be replaced with what these are calling an RC16. The RC16 will not be homologated for the road. Why?
“No, because we at KTM believe a sport bicycle with such performance doesn’t have any place on the public roads,” Pierer further explained.
I had been taken by that statement aback; I've heard and read similar sentiments before, albeit from much different sources. The message didn't surprise me, the messenger did. The leader and CEO of a significant motorcycle producer just conceded the wrongheaded rationale of not only the pointyheads in Brussels that would prefer to ban bicycles from European tarmac, but also of all the “security” zealots here stateside which have tried to restrict or eliminate “race-design motorcycles” from public roadways. That’s a amazing concession for a highly positioned industry insider to make, and a first to my knowledge.
It is interesting on several fronts, not the least of which is that Pierer’s claims echo some of the very same language utilized by Senator John Danforth in explaining why he introduced his legislation, “The Motorcycle Safety Action of 1987.” In his launch of the costs, Danforth explained his concerns to the U.S Senate and the American people in an extended printed statement;
‘“Mr. Chief executive, in 1984, the Japanese began selling what can only be described as “killer motorcycles” in this country. These are race bicycles which were developed for use on the track however they are being driven on our streets … Top speeds for some of these bicycles can range up to 162 mph … the marketing of these killer cycles is a lesson in corporate and business irresponsibility.”’
A little over 30 years Pierer’s words echo the Senator’s sentiments later.
Senator Danforth didn’t emerge from some kind of mystical vision that compelled him to business forth and propose eliminating performance bikes. The driving force behind the bill’s launch came by means of the Insurance Institute for Highway Basic safety (IIHS), an organization that developments and represents the passions of its associates, the insurance industry namely.
The IIHS has perennially campaigned to have performance bikes eliminated from industry, and helpful information was produced by it because of its account, the insurance firms, to use in establishing blacklists of certain bikes that, in their view, the insurance firms should no more offer to insure. Having failed to eliminate the bicycles, Perhaps, the next most sensible thing from the IIHS’ perspective was to remove the insurance coverage for them. The rationale was not difficult; no insurance coverage leads to no bicycle loans being secured against reduction, and fewer loans means fewer high performance bikes on the highway, or so their thinking went.
The IIHS was hoist on its own petard when its “study”, which was not peer reviewed, was debunked. None other than USC’s Dr. Hugh “Harry” Harm, the business lead researcher in the landmark, “Hurt Survey,” was one of the principle critics of the IIHS study’s methodology at the time.
Senator Danforth’s legislation was stillborn, and regardless of the best initiatives of the IIHS, its marketing campaign to remove performance bikes is not successful to date. That is a concern that seems to surface perennially and will probably continue to achieve this. Particularly now, as the global world gets smaller in a worldwide industry that ties our fates closer together, we've not only U.S concerns to consider account of, however the EU as well also.
Which brings us back to Mr. Pierer. He's a thoughtful man and a good businessman certainly, and KTM does very well and processing some world-class bikes. He has reputable concerns about the near future with an eyes on Brussels and any forthcoming European union regulations that could affect KTM and their customers. All of this begs the relevant question, how much will do? And who, if anybody will put the brakes on? And really should they?
“…we at KTM think that a sport bicycle with such performance doesn’t have anyplace on the public roads.”
If Senator Danforth was concerned with sport bikes in the 1980s that could top out at 162 mph, I could only imagine what his present day counterpart would end up like today - apoplectic maybe. While performance criteria have continued to go up, performance numbers only are not the sole measure of the “basic safety” of any motorbike. We have observed other advances as well, everything from the rise of monitor times producing more capable riders, more complex riding gear to safeguard the overzealous, and most critically maybe, the introduction of a whole host of electronic rider helps to keep errant pilots upright. The increasing prevalence of from launch control to bank-sensitive ABS and a choice in engine maps to account for weather and using conditions leads to what, I believe, are arguably the safest bicycles this world has ever seen.
Inform me what in your estimation is more dangerous: a 1972 Kawasaki H2 Mach IV shod with a single entrance disc, a hinged body, and wheels chiseled from granite? Or the latest iteration, a 2015 Kawasaki Ninja H2 with well over twice the hp and enough new age technology to accounts for every ham-fisted move under power or brakes, upright or heeled over, dry or wet, that mankind can conceive?
A moped is a potentially lethal object in the hands of the irreconcilably idiotic - that’s a given - but a good rider knows the throttle goes both ways. For each and every performance advance evident in today’s bicycles, rider basic safety has quickly advanced as well, which is constructed into many of today’s machines.
Underneath line from my knothole is this: Full-tilt big-bore sportbikes are only as safe, or unsafe, as the person piloting them. I’m ready to concede that working out top-shelf sportbikes to anything of their potential on public roads is practically impossible for most mere mortals in virtually all conditions. Not only would it be unwise to take action, it would also be damn near impossible. Track days are best for that type of WFO exercise.
However, I think we, as riders, need to be careful in lending credence to any declare that such-and-such bicycles do not belong on public roads predicated on nothing more than open public perception or worries of future regulations decreasing the pike. The arguments that propped up Danforth’s “killer motorbike” bill back the ’80s, and the same old tired tune trotted out by the IIHS that promulgated insurance blacklists, were specious in the past, and are still without merit today.
Trip hard, be safe, look where you want to go…
