THERE is always a lot of talk about the speed of bikes on TV and in the press but rarely do the people making the comments take a proper look at the whole story. It irritates me when commentators say our 2011 bike is slow when that plainly isn’t the case – you don’t get three podiums with a weak engine. In our case in races where our bike has allegedly not been fast enough there have been other factors. Mostly it is Sam they look at (although James Ellison is always good on actual top speed). In Australia for example when Sam got drafted to the line after leading at the final bend he actually got into the turn just a little hot and lost drive. Also the third rider in the group Broc Parkes had the advantage of a double draft. Sam is by far and away not the first rider to get passed to the line like this. Strangely enough at the next Donington Pk round where Lowes and Ellison had the two fastest bikes on the speed trap no one took notice of this. He fell in warm up in Aragon and injured his shoulder a little again which affected his drive onto the main back straight. He still rode a great race though to miss out on victory to Chaz Davies by just 0.5 of a second. Sam’s time is coming! Another point most people don’t take into consideration is that both the factory Yamaha and Kawasaki have more gear ratio’s than we and Ten Kate do – this also has a big impact on acceleration and when your bike gets to its top speed. Earlier in the year people were saying nothing could touch the Yamahas. Now after some races where they have not been the dominant force does this mean they have gone backwards? No it does not. It is just that both our bike, the Ten Kate Honda, the Yamaha and the Kawasaki are actually very evenly matched and depending on the nature of the circuit each bike has its strong points. Take Brno where in Sam Lowes case we geared the bike short to use 6th gear; had it not been for the bad tyre, Sam said our bike was for sure quicker than the factory Kawasakis and the same or even better than Chaz Davies Yamaha. Gino Rea on clearly a slower bike actually just rode the wheels off it and congratulations to him on taking his first victory in WSS. Brno is that type of track where actual top speed is not everything. You can always tell who has the actual quick bikes with a good overall package as they are always up there. As with Gino you do get the odd race where people shine more than normal. Sam had only ridden at Brno once in 2009 and his lack of knowledge showed a little, although by the end of warm up we clearly had the pace and only a faulty tyre robbed him of another chance to challenge for victory. It is Silverstone next where I fully expect him to be right there. Scassa has gone off the boil a bit so time will tell if he re-finds form and challenges for victory. He finished a disappointing for him seventh in Brno; does this mean his bike is suddenly slow? No it does not! This is just a bit of an insight into things regarding who has the fastest bike and who does not. Some of you reading this will already be aware but for those of you who had not considered some of the points I have raised here I hope this will give you another view when you watch the next races. Just think, they pay Neil Spalding good money for information like this on Eurosport!