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.I mean, for 16 hours a day these guys drive cars, and in the remaining eight, write about them.The last thing they want to do over a beer or in sub-zero fag breaks is to discuss the merits of a Proton over an Escort.Well I’m going to tell you a little secret.They don’t talk about cars very much, but it has nothing to do with overkill.They don’t talk about cars because they are too busy talking about bloody motorbikes.The Editor rides bikes.The Assistant Editor rides bikes.The Art Director rides bikes.So does the Art Editor – and she’s a girl.I’ve just been to Barbados with the Road Test Editor, and he sat on the beach every day reading Bike magazine.I’ve given up calling in because if I do, I always forget the rules and mention the ‘c’ word.I mean, it is a car magazine; maybe the people who work on it would be interested to hear that I’ve just driven a turbocharged Ferrari F50.So I’ll say, ‘Hey everyone, I drove a turbocharged F50 yesterday,’ and, guess what… nothing happens.So I’ll tell them again, and if I’m very lucky, one will stick his head up and mumble something about it not being as fast as the Triumph T595.Then they’re off.‘Yeah, but the chassis on a ’Blade is better.’ ‘Oh sure, but I prefer the 43mm Showa usd teles on a 916.’ And me, I’m the pork chop in a synagogue.I’ve given up arguing.Yes, yes, yes, bikes are cheaper than cars, more fun and, providing you never encounter a corner, they’re faster too.I’ve tried pointing out that round a track, where there are bends, a car will set faster lap times, but a deathly hush descends over the office as everyone sets to work with slide rules and calculators.Three minutes later, the Managing Editor will announce that, at Thruxton, his calculations have shown a T595 would, in fact, be faster than an F50.Well, I can now shut them up for good because I’ve just flown an F-15E, and no bike on Earth even gets close.Oh, and you’ll note I said ‘flown’ and not ‘flown in’.Even though I’ve never even held the stick in a Cessna, the US Air Force let me take the controls of a plane which cost $50 million and, in 90 minutes, used $7000-worth of fuel.You might guess that once you’re airborne there is no real sensation of speed – but this is simply not the case, a point the pilot was keen to prove.So, at 1000 feet he hit everything to slow the plane down to something like 150mph.And then, after asking me if I was ready, he lit the afterburners.And let me tell you this, Mr Sheene and Mr Fogarty: you know nothing.I wasn’t timing it, but would guess that in ten seconds we were nudging 700mph.And then, just to show what an F-15 is all about, he stuck the plane on its tail and did a vertical climb from 1000 to 18,000 feet in exactly 11 seconds.You’ve all been in lifts which make you feel funny if they’re fast, but just think what it feels like to do a 17,000-ft vertical climb in the time it takes a Mondeo to get from 0 to 60.There was no let-up, either, because having shown me how fast an F-15 accelerates, I was then introduced to its manoeuvrability.Put it like this – in a gentle Sunday afternoon turn it’ll dole out 10 g, and I don’t know of any bike which can do that.And nor can a bike post a 1000lb bomb through your letterbox.What’s more, in a battle between a MiG-29 and a Ducati 916, the Italian motorcycle would lose.Whereas no one has ever shot an F-15 down.Ever.But the best bit was when the pilot said, ‘You have the plane.’ I did a roll and a loop, flew in tight formation with another F-15, went for a peek at BMW’s new factory, flew over Kitty Hawk and got within a fraction of going supersonic.The plane can do Mach Two, but only over water, and my ejection training had not covered survival in such conditions.I really didn’t mind, though.I honestly believe I’ve now experienced the ultimate; from this point on, everything will be a little bit tame.As I see it, a bike only has one advantage over a fighter-bomber.On a bike, you don’t get sick.In the plane, you do.Twice.Traction control loses grip on realityI am a patient man but Vodafone should be advised that it’s run out.Either they build more of those relay towers or I’m coming down to their head office with a pickaxe handle and some friends.My mobile phone has worked 100 miles from Alice Springs in Australia and on a glacier in Iceland.It was fine on an oil tanker off South Africa, and just last week in Italy – Italy for God’s sake – I used it for an hour while driving down the autostrada and it never fizzled out once.But it doesn’t work in Fulham, or on the Oxford ring road, or on large chunks of the M40, or near Coventry.Which means Vodafone are charging me for a service that they are simply not providing.And that, I’m afraid, means they’re going to need some new office furniture.And some teeth.It’s the same story with fax machines.My first simply tore any paper that came near it into very small pieces.And my new one just does alternate sheets until it gets bored.Then it starts screwing them up and throwing them on the floor so the dog can eat them.It’s all a marketing thing.I have to have a fax machine because the hype says you’re a nobody if you don’t.Having a fax that doesn’t work is fine, but not having one at all is social herpes.And can you imagine going to a meeting and telling someone you don’t have a mobile? It would be worse than not having genitals.And now this phenomenon is creeping into the world of cars as well, in the shape of traction control.There are a number of different systems, but each, effectively, does the same job.If you apply too much power, sensors detect the moment when the driven wheels are about to lose traction, and issue warnings to the engine management system.It then reduces the power being despatched to the overloaded wheel, and as a result you don’t crash.The trouble is that, like mobile phones and faxes, traction control doesn’t work.If I put my foot down on a wet road in the Jag, it senses that something is wrong and does what we all do when we’re in a quandary.It goes for a long walk round the garden, where, after much chin-scratching, it decides that, yes, it ought to warn the bridge.But way before the central computer pushes the throttle pedal back where it belongs, the car is going backwards through a hedge.Electrons are fast, but once the pendulum effect of a tailslide has gotten its teeth into the equation, the result is a sure-fire certainty.And anyway, the usual cause of a tailslide has nothing to do with excess power.It’s when the driver realizes he’s turned into a corner too fast and backs off.This causes the weight of the car to pitch forwards, lightening the rear end and causing a spin
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