Soon they'll need trainer wheels

MOTORCYCLES. Part two of a long series. Bike racing is more exciting and usually closer than car racing. Especially at the top end – called MotoGP, a foolish contraction which can be confused with moto-cross, the rough terrain sport for two-wheelers.

New tyres and more extreme riding styles mean bikes can be leant over at seemingly impossible angles when cornering. The tyres – which now only last one race - are virtually circular in cross-section offering grip round 100 deg of their periphery. The riders, hanging forwards as well as sideways, achieve a weird vector of forces that support fierce speeds.

TV coverage has recognised that cornering angles provide the thrills and offers a real-time graphic measuring this feature. Some riders lean over at 59 deg from the vertical. Simulate that between the palm of your hand and the surface of a table. Not so much a racing bike, more a frisbee (Note: Inset pic hints at subject but is not a racing bike. It's got rearview mirrors!)

Beauty's hardware

Aesthetics is incidental to this blog but there are those where it is a major (pictorial) factor. In order to get in on the aesthetics act while maintaining my new-found practice of getting others to write Works Well for me, I invited three experts to reveal the technology behind their art. The points de suspension and the parentheses indicate where I have edited (Purely for length!)

MARJA-LEENA http://www.marja-leena-rathje.info/main.php
My favourite camera is our SLR Canon EOS Rebel XT with 18 to 55 mm lens, plus another lens 55 to 200 mm. I'd love to get a macro lens for it! We also have a much smaller, handy Panasonic Lumix. (I also take images with) my scanner, Epson Perfection 4990 Photo.

LUCY http://box-elder.blogspot.com/
My main camera is a Canon Powershot S315, it's a couple of years old…. My Cheapcam which lives in my pocket and pretends to be a phone camera without the phone part (much better) is an Airis Photostar DC60… a complete nobody of a camera, the cheapest I could get a week before Christmas from Amazon France. I'm (prepared to) give a few more impressions of what (the Canon is) like to use in the light of my total technical illiteracy regarding lenses, ISO numbers, depth of field, etc.

PLUTARCH http://bestofnow.blogspot.com/
I have a Sony Cyber-shot, 7.1 megapixels. I use the macro facility for close ups of a few centimetres and it usually works well without a tripod. The camera is about the size of box of cigarettes and I can and do carry it everywhere with me…. If I had something more substantial such as a 12 megapixel SLR Canon I might need a tripod. It so happens that I am looking at this option in order to obtain sharper close-ups. But only research and experience will tell me what I want to know in the end….

The inset is included for pure nostalgia. When BB was a working journalist the Pentax was a trusted (if weighty) aid. These days the exigencies of webs and blogs have reduced him to a 6 megapixel Traveller DC-6900 bought from Aldi for about £60. Batteries last about 20 shots before recharging.