COMMITTED to the bend, I start to lean the bike over. I checked my mirrors a second earlier and everything is fine. Then with the roar of an overhead jet-fighter, a blue sports bike flashes underneath me, inches away, before overtaking a car on a blind bend, cranked over to the limit.

Startled, heart thumping, I fight to regain control of my machine and keep it off the verge. The culprit, a Yamaha R1 rider, is gone, but his friend, on the Ducati 996, is harassing me and I'm back in the gutter, trying to give him room. My heart still pounds. The danger is far from over. And then he's gone, bike and rider at the very limits of their capability.

Grace of God stuff, I think, as my temper begins to recede and I wonder why they're not on a race track rather than a twisty road in the Yorkshire Dales.

Unfortunately, that sunny Sunday, this is not the first incident of inconsiderate riding I witness, nor the only time my heart is in my mouth. On the road from Hartside Caf to Penrith another "hero" (and I use the phrase with the tongue firmly in my cheek) nearly takes us both out.

This time the rider is mounted on a Honda CBR600. Chasing his pack of friends, he's obviously last man because he's the poorest rider and now he has to play catch-up. The on-coming coach, whose lights are blazing, alerts me to something being awry. Then I see Mr CBR in the bus's lane on the wrong side of the double white lines. He panics,

jumps back on his own side of the road and into my space. What joy.

But at least it wasn't as close a call as my friend, who is overtaken by an R1 travelling at three-figure speeds, so close he catches his handlebar end.

For the first time in a long motor cycle career, I'm scared to be on the roads. Cheers lads, you've made my day. Now let me make yours. Next time, I'm taking your numbers and going straight to the police. You've been witnessed riding dangerously, not just by me but my friends as well and we are all willing to testify to take you off the roads - because you are a menace. A little harsh, perhaps, but it's a philosophy being shared by a host of real motor cyclists fed

up of their reputations being sullied by the actions of the few - not to mention being endangered by their ludicrous riding styles.

There is no longer any love nor loyalty between motor cyclists and sports bike law-flouters, because in the end, everyone suffers with increased insurance premiums, speed cameras and tougher legislation.

It's also a philosophy being adopted by the region's police, equally fed up of their lunatic antics. Take note: North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria Police have handed out all the warnings they intend to. Now it's for real - enforcement. And in their armoury are unmarked sports bikes fitted with video cameras, undercover Subaru Impreza Turbo police cars and laser-sighted speed guns which can pick you off at 5,000 yards. If nec

essary, there's also air support and offenders are likely to be fast-tracked through the courts and banned within a week.

"We've spent three or four years trying to educate riders," says Richmond-based traffic sergeant John Lumbard, who regularly follows sports bikes travelling at more than 120mph. "We've educated as many people as are prepared to listen, but we are left with a boy-racer element of biker. They are no different to the 18-year-olds who fit their Escorts with alloys, lowered suspension and fluffy dice. It's a macho, immature approach to biking. If we can take them off the road, that is what we are going to do."

The police speed trap record so far this year is a sports bike clocked at 144mph on the Settle bypass. Come off at those sort of speeds and the rescue services won't have to rush to the scene because the rider will be dead.

"I'm scared witless by them," admits North Yorkshire's road safety officer David Lindsay. "They come flying round the bends with their heads over the white line. It's appalling. We are aware of the change of view by the police and support them 100 per cent."

Upper Dales councillor for North Yorkshire County Council John Blackie says responsible motorcyclists are welcome, they do, after all, contribute to the local economy by visiting and spending money. "But we are not interested in the slightest in those who pose a threat to people on the open road. For them, it's about enforcement."

Since 1998, 45 motorcyclists have died on the roads of North Yorkshire, 528 have been seriously injured and 739 slightly hurt. In a modern society, that is carnage. Not all the accidents were the fault of the bikers but a proportion could have been avoided if they had been riding better - even if that means taking responsibility for the short-comings in car drivers' ability.

One of the biggest surprises when the lunatic fringe are pulled up by police is to find that they are ordinary people, often mature, more often professional.

So what drives them to such extreme behaviour? For many, it's a sign of mid-life crisis, according to academic and motorcyclist Geoff Crowther, who is currently studying the biker phenomena. "In the 1950s and 1960s, the age of the rockers, the people who were risking their necks and were getting hurt and killed were young lads with no fear for their own mortality," says Mr Crowther, a principal lecturer in marketing and consumer research at Huddersfield University. "Now it's people in mid-life who should be aware of their mortality."

Instead, they are aware of their lives, constricted by convention, in which they feel they have nothing to achieve.

"How many challenges can people in mid-life take up, in terms of life and death, success and failure? The modern motorbike offers potential for mastery. What more vivid example than the motorcycle, which is conspicuous, sensual, adventurous. Professionals have come into the sport as a way of showing their personal identity. It's something they can talk about and, instead of stigma, they get social approval," says Mr Crowther.

"The sports bike rider is a mindset. He is derisory of other bikes. He wants to pursue the edge of the performance. He is selfish. It's all about him and his machine and anything else just gets in his way. He is expressing himself. He is looking for adventure. Part of this is rebelliousness. He is concerned about his own authenticity, not just how he performs, but what he rides and how he looks and he will be scrutinised by his peers. It's all a crutch for their inability to perform."

But it doesn't have to be that way. "We are all looking for the flow experience," says Mr Crowther, "that feeling when you are riding along and things just go right and everything flows together and it's just transcendental - and it doesn't come through speed."