Silk wrote:I'm sure all this works fine when you're on a racing track
I really don't understand your point about the track; you've mentioned this before and I'm as perplexed as ever. Feedback from the tyres is one of the factors that people use to adjust speed. If, as a driver, you start to feel insecure you tend to slow down. This is most obviously the case on low friction surfaces. Everyone does it. What's difficult to understand about this?
Silk wrote:There are few places where you run out of grip before you run out of view.
Rubbish. You can easily experience the limit of grip when you brake. You can also do so while maintaining a constant speed in heavy rain on a motorway as you pass though very slightly deeper standing water and start to aquaplane. You can do so driving normally on icy roads after a hard frost. Similarly on snow, on compressed snow, and on ice.
Most drivers find out in small ways, scare themselves slightly, and modify their driving accordingly. The ones that don't tend to crash. Advanced drivers, if they really are advanced, try to feel for the early stages of loss of grip.
Silk wrote:phrases such as "ditch finders" make me cringe
I was trying to convey the idea that 'normal' tyres are optimised for different characteristics. Some of them are optimised for a low price, and you often find that independent testers do not recommend their use.
Silk wrote:It's the sort of thing I'd expect from an over-weight, balding, Ferrari tee-shirt wearing member of the Top Gear audience.
You have me pegged on overweight and balding, but way off beam for the rest.
there is only the road, nothing but the road ...