Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1186100
VOLUME 56 ISSUE 46 NOVEMBER 19, 2019 P107 ing properly, arcing through the bends, feeling the flow and the power. The joy of riding a motorbike, a unique sensation I guess pretty much everyone reading this can share, for the first time since he was terminally thrown into the gravel at Misano on September 3, 1993. Riding again was something he spoke about a lot, back a couple of years after the crash, when he and I worked together on his (dare I say it) definitive biography. To see it happening now, and to see the look on his still-youthful face, was something personally profound. Just days later—same screen, different story. Jorge Lorenzo announced his retirement. Calm, dignified and articulate, with his usual air of controlled tension, he explained in patient detail about how the impetus to pull out before achieving his latest ambition came to him even while he was tumbling end over end through the gravel at Assen. That ambition was to become the fourth rider to win on three different makes (after Hailwood, Lawson, Mamola and Capirossi). Now it's gone. That crash gave him two vertebral fractures, and, as im- portantly, it came barely a week after he'd managed to walk away from another spectacularly fast crash while testing at Montmelo the day after the Catalunyan GP. It was the latest crash on the 2019 Honda RC213V, a bike that only Marquez can ride consis- tently fast, and, in fact, the latest in a series of misadventures that stretched back to the late races of 2018 and included a wrist fracture while training in the winter. His confidence in the difficult Honda was shot. Unlike hard- braking, point-and-squirt riders like Marquez and Crutchlow, Jorge's style is smooth and precise, maintaining high corner speed, and relying on a front end that will guide the bike through. Through patience, persis- tence and intelligence, modifying both the bike and his technique, he had managed to overcome very similar problems on the Ducati, in his second year on the bike. He was winning races again, a reliable factor at the front. But by then, Ducati to their discredit—had grown tired of waiting. Honda was ready to pick up the pieces. After the enforced four-race layoff, he dutifully came back, having in the break talked himself out of the doubts of the Assen gravel trap. But he couldn't talk himself back into the commitment required to take risks again. It was hard to watch. He scored points for three 14th places, but equally often was right at the back, a sad parody of the superb rider of the past. Commitment is, of course, ev- erything. Riding skill and tactical nous have to be taken for grant- ed. They can come naturally or can be learned. Utter dedica- tion is what makes champions. The sort of dedication Lorenzo displayed when he broke his col- larbone in another high-speed crash at Assen in 2013. Flew to Spain, had it plated and pinned, came back, and rode to fifth the next day. Even he described it as "something incredible." Just one among a hatful of achievements, in a career where Lorenzo often stood alone, an unpopular opponent of what he saw as dangerous riding by Mar- quez and Simoncelli, to name just two. In recent interviews, Lorenzo has referred to Rainey, whose legend still looms large in racing, and whose signal determination has inspired many riders since. A month before his spinal injury, Rainey had also fallen and suf- fered lower back injuries, and though there seemed no direct connection with the later higher break, there was enough of a coincidence in it to spook Jorge. His departure is a loss to the quality of racing. Jorge was always a high-class act and an intriguingly deep character. For me, I'm proud to have known him, to have known both of them. And glad we won't have to endure Jorge's struggles anymore. CN