If you ride motorcycles for long enough, someone will inevitably ask you, "What's the fastest you've ever gone?", usually with a giddy glee in their eyes. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been asked this question, but it's a lot. The strange thing is, when I answer, I don't feel that same excited energy as the person asking me the question; I almost feel deflated.
I never thought about the reason until I watched this clip from Pedro Acosta talking about speed.
The KTM factory MotoGP rider was recently on the Gypsy Tales podcast, and the 3-hour episode is an excellent way to ramp up the Bruno round of the season this weekend. The Spaniard goes deep into the questions you're dying to hear him answer, but one of the more surprising topics is that of speed and the sensation it gives him.
The interviewer tries to get a sense of how different the impression of speed is when you jump from a Moto2 bike to a MotoGP machine. Straight-faced, Acosta tells him that going fast doesn't feel different once you're above 240 kph (149). According to the Spanish rider, riding at 240 kph and 360 kph is the "Same shit."
Acosta said, "I think arrives one number that you start to not feel the speed anymore. I think when you pass 240 (kph), you start to don't feel the speed no more because it's all the same." But the rider went on to highlight that the difference becomes apparent when you need to hit the brakes, and until I heard Acosta explain it so simply, I'd never felt so understood.
The reality is, anyone who has gone more than 150 mph on a motorcycle knows the fun isn't seeing the speedo rack up numbers, the joy is how present if forces you to be. On the way to 150 mph, you get the rush, but once you're there, it's all about being in a flow state and keeping yourself alive.
