Coming Back To Bikes
If you rode a motorcycle when you were younger and have recently had the urge to get another, then you can proudly wear the label ‘born again biker’.  Each year an increasing number of people who rode bikes when they where in their late ‘teens and early twenties are now returning to biking some 10 to 15 years later.  Sadly there are a high number of born again guys and girls who end up seriously injured, disabled or even worse, as they find their rusty skills are no match for today's superbikes.

Your limits
Everyone knows that men are supposed to peak at the age of 21 and start the depressing slide into old age thereafter.  While your average 35 year old male should be far from retirement, they will have noticeably slower reaction and be less fit than they were in their twenties (potentially). 


You could argue that this should be the case for driving a car, but 35 - 45 year olds are statistically much less likely to crash a car than a 21 year old is.  The key difference is that riding a motorcycle is harder than driving a car.  There is a lot more going on when you are riding a bike.

What Bike
Obviously the sports bikes of the 1960s had considerably less power and agility than modern bikes and nobody who owned an old BSA, Norton or Triumph would expect to be able to jump of the latest Kawasaki ZX12R Ninja without expecting the experience to be just a little different.  But many people fail to appreciate the changes to bikes in just the last 15 years.  When Suzuki launched the GSXR600 in the early 80s it caused a bit of a stir with claims of too much power to be safe etc.  Yet this bike knocked out less than 80 BHP at the time. 


The same goes for Honda's CBR600, just 75 BHP.  Yet these where the ultimate sports bruisers of their day.  Today both the current models produce around 112 BHP, which is 50% more than their mid 80s ancestors, while the class leading Yamaha R6  & Honda CBR600RR are in a league of there own.  Top speeds are up too.  The average 600 cc sports bike can do 165 MPH, anything less than 100 BHP and 150 MPH simply can't compete and tends to get the label of sports tourer. 

If you're tempted to venture into the 900 cc superbike market, then you'll find at least another 30% more power and another 15 - 20 MPH on the clock.  In fact the only thing that has been reduced is the weight. All in all a potential recipe for disaster.

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