Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [16]
In fact, whatever computerised systems are responsible for these things are much, much better than me at punctuality, long division, data management and spatial logic. But I bet they couldn't catch a tennis ball.
I can. I can also ride a bicycle, swim, shoot clay pigeons and pat my head while rubbing my stomach. Bosch Motronic can't do any of these things. I could even, theoretically at least, compete in the triple-jump, and I bet I'd beat that robot Honda keeps banging on about.
So when people tell me that electronic controls are coming between the driver and the modern car, I say cobblers. Yes, the right-hand pedal in the new Golf GTi may seem a bit vicious at times, and perhaps the traction control in this or that supercar is too intrusive. I've no doubt that some electric power-steering systems are placing a barrier between the steering wheel and what the driving wheels are ultimately doing, and brake assist sometimes seems to make a mockery of the relationship between what we do with the middle pedal and what actually happens to the car. But to suggest that these things are usurping the driver is absolute nonsense.
Electronics are merely cussed and logical, as your desktop computer will ultimately prove to be. Meanwhile, the human computer is supreme, the most remarkable electro-mechanical device ever conceived and one as yet barely understood. I now realise that when I drive my old 911 down a winding country road, pretty much every last bit of my body save perhaps my hair is toiling away at the man/machine interface, deciphering the incomprehensible mass of information coming at it and translating it through the brain into a multitude of decisions and inputs. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself without one thumb, a big toe, an eye or a buttock. We are no closer to finding a substitute for the driver than we are to finding an alternative to sperm in the reproductive process.
The greatest driving aid in the history of motoring was fitted to the Benz Motorwagen when it was rolled out of its shed for the very first time, and it has been included in the design of every single car built since. It was you.
And it's still you.
NAKED MOTORCYCLE PORN SHOWING NOW
The late and still sadly missed LJK Setright had a rather pessimistic view of bike shows. He once described them as being 'full of people on crutches looking to buy their next accident'.
Personally, I rather like a good bike show. For a start, experience in my own garage proves that you can fit three or four bikes into the space occupied by one car, which means you don't have to walk as far as you do at the motor show. The fact that the biggest physical workout the average motoring journalist ever takes is three laps of the NEC while looking at cars strikes me as strangely ironic.
Secondly, the atmosphere is better at a bike show. Motorcycling is still largely a hobby, and has yet to be infected with much of the glitz and fatuous marketing cant that accompany the latest launch of a sporty lifestyle vehicle for the active-minded urban sophisticate. There's rather less carpet on the stands, rather more tepid lager in cracked plastic glasses.
And then there are the bikes. I admit that often, when I'm at home alone, I think I should give up motorcycling. I'm getting too old, too cautious, and I'm just not very good at it. I believe that 'waterproof motorcycle clothing' remains an oxymoron, and often, in the middle of a tight, greasy bend, I worry that Newton may have made a mistake, and there's some dark corner of physics where there is no equal and opposite reaction, and I'll fall off. But then I go to a bike show.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, tugs at the strings of my Neanderthal man-being quite like an array of new bikes, and especially the type of big-bore naked