judging speed

I'm reading through www.howwedrive.com which has a bunch of
fascinating things.

Got me thinking... how do you judge your speed? What cues do you use
to determine how fast you are going? How do you know if your speed is
changing?

I had an odd experience some years ago riding Mum's V50. The speedo
was drastically over-reading, which I didn't know. So when it said I
was doing 70kmh, I was closer to 60kmh.

I was riding it on a country road, meaning no other traffic to cue
from, and a road I wasn't familiar with. I was able to keep it at a
steady speed but I didn't really know what that speed was.

With a working speedo, I find that I set the speed and then I work on
not changing it by much. I mostly use sensory cues for that, the feel
of the bike's motor, the feel of the air, the street furniture in
peripheral vision, but mostly the feel of the bike. I like to keep it
where it's purring along at revs comfortably above lugging, but low
enough that it's feeling like it is hardly working.

I don't think I'm much good at saying "I'm going this fast" but I do
seem to be able to keep the bike at the speed I decide with few if any
glances at the speedo. I have to check the speedo when starting up
from the lights, but seldom after that.

I suspect a lot of this is familiarity with the bike, and some of it's
the bike itself. The Norge has decent sensory feedback, I can tell
what the motor is up to without seeing the tacho.

And being a bike has to be part of it too. I drove a modern car the
other day and found it very insulating and hard to judge speed changes
in.

Zebee

 

Some cars more so than others. I had a Magma work car with no cruise
control. The thing was so slippery and quiet that it was a chore to
drive at any fixed speed. So in my case at least, it seems I rely on
audio cues reinforced by a general "feel". As far as judging speed is
concerned, visual cues are on the bottom of my list.

 

Those things just seem to ooze along.

Theo

 

I have the same problem with my car - a Renault Clio Sport Cup. If
you're not that familiar with it (as some friends have found out to
their cost) you "think" you're doing around 70 and wonder why everyone
else is driving so slowly. Very much the "stealth" speed ticket. There
simply isn't enough sensory feedback.

My old Mk 1 Cooper S on the other hand......

N/

 

Yes, and they epitomise the reason God gave us cruise control (the
real ones Clem, not throttle locks). Why there was none on my model
is a mystery. Someone tried to install an after market thing, but it
was pretty well useless.

 

Whoosh.

Am I being too subtle?

Theo

 

Err... well yes, really. I mean movement of the subject (albeit
typographically incorrect) vehicle type and the movement of molten
basalt can both sit comfortably with the verb in your comment...
I'll just go away and be embarrassed now!

 

I followed u

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:43:00 GMT

I had one of those... although downhill and me crawling behind the
clocks the speedo wound off the dial at 140!

What the *actual* speed was....

Zebee
- still wishing there was room in the shed for the Infamous MZ

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:43:00 GMT

couldn't reply to your email Jordan, got this:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:



Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for
further information about the cause of this error. The error that the
other server returned was: 550 550 No Such User Here (state 14).

Fix and resend...

Zebee

 

I had this problem when I got my first Trump Triple in 1995. I got
booked fo 130 in a 100 zone and I kept finding myself drifting up to
much faster speeds than I was intending. It took me a while (and some
help) to realise that I had been unconsciously using the 4cyl
100-110kph, 4000rpm "vibes" as my cue for highway cruising and I
must've been increasing speed "looking" for them on the silky-smooth
Triple.
Once I (re)learned to watch the speedo instead I had no further
trouble.

 

I hear they're really hot!

 

I hear they're really hot!
--
Clem
(Jumping on the joke long after it was funny)

It can't have been funny or it would have generated the usual eruptions of
bad puns....

P

 

Don't we all come here to vent?...

 

Not me I just go with the flow.

Boxer

 

Are you trying to crater disturbance?



Boxer

 

Venting is good... ;-)


=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

Hey, I'm a lava, not a fighter...

 

It was a typo, I tell you! These puns are not my fault!...

 

wrote in 4ax.com:

Well you're an igneous old fool, aren't you!


GB