Staring with Bryan Staring, March 2017

Bryan Staring on why he loves bike racing so much... The challenges, the good times and the not so good times... Images: Andrew Gosling

What level do you ride at? Have you ever felt the grip from a soft tyre? Have you ever felt so much grip you can turn the bike with 5km/h more speed, have both wheels follow each other from entry to mid turn, applied a gentle first touch of the gas and gone directly to 100 per cent throttle in an instant?

Have you arrived hard on the rev limiter before the next turn when you’d normally be waiting or hoping just to kiss it? Have you heard the exhaust note drop while the bike struggles to accelerate through its mechanical grip?

My Honda reminds me why I love this sport, why the bike is fun to ride, why pushing the limit is a pleasure. When applying a measured effort is executed with finesse rather than brute force or risk taking! That’s how a bike should feel.

The bike should inspire the rider to push its limits, then together you take on the lap time as a gauge of your performance. It’s been too long since I’ve felt like this, my bike and I are a team. She’s quiet and she communicates with me in sign language, I listen to her then translate her sensations to our captain.

Our captain is the brain for us both, we wait for his direction and instruction. He leaves nothing to chance, double checks everything to be sure not even the finest detail is overlooked. The strange part is his relationship with her can only be felt and measured through me.

Then once we roll out of the box we’re on our own again. I aim to complete my laps like a robot constructed for excellence, but I can’t stop listening to her, not for a second. If she’s losing grip she gets wild, she needs taming, a cool head, a controlled mind to ensure she doesn’t miss one tenth of her potential.

She has attributes and mannerisms too, things she’s good at and area’s where she needs guidance and support, places where I know she’s walking on a tight rope. She only speaks through me while others watch and oversee, but no one else feels it.

We’re fighting small battles at the test track, and only looking for small victories. Although after many small victories together we gain confidence in each other and soon we’ll be ready to fight some big battles.

What’s your relationship like with your bike?

ASBK Round One at WSBK was interesting for me. In my opinion, I was off the radar as a potential race winner because our testing wasn’t a huge success prior to round one. Although I didn’t win anything at the Island I showed I’m up for a challenge and that we’ll be there on Sunday.

Falzon rode exceptionally to claim a perfect weekend from qualifying through all three races. I challenged him as best I could, but the problem came when I stopped listening to my Honda in Race Two.

The competitor inside me wouldn’t settle and I made a big mistake crashing out of the race. So my weekend went like this, qualified 2nd, 3rd race one, DNF race two and 3rd in race three for 7th overall in the championship.

Personally I feel like I should have won at least one race that weekend, but the reality is we weren’t ready and we’ll need to make another opportunity.

ASBK is exciting, there’s passion surrounding the series, people are talking about it, the head honcho’s of the manufacturers are happy, people are seeing direction and working towards the future. It’s such a good time to return to racing in Australia, the series and the racing genuinely excites me.

The competition is fantastic and I’d say there’s currently seven odd riders capable of winning any given race. I think we as riders are getting more media attention/exposure and I can feel the passion from within the industry returning. What a relief.

We just completed our two-day ASBK test at Wakefield Park ahead of round two of the series there on March 19th. Unfortunately day two of our test was rained out, although we were lucky to have a great opening day.

It was probably my best day of testing this year in that we slowly worked through our list of test items and progressed from each session with clear direction. Then at the end of the day we confirmed our setting with a new tyre and a personal best lap time.

It’s hard to say our overall position at the test because there was no official timing and sometimes our competitors like to pump their own tyres up by taking half a second off their real lap time. I’m confident we were competitive and I’ll head back to the race there knowing we can improve our bike, my feeling and my execution as a robot.

Just as I hope every persistent rider in our sport one day receives a bike capable of achieving, I hope every motorcyclist can experience a small part of the relationship I have with my Honda on their own bike.

Safe riding,
-Bryan Staring