What if...road surface question.

[yorkie_chris]

Whatever you do it is better to leave the road on your *rse from attempting to make the turn than riding into a hedge upright!

Originally Posted by martin15s

just rely on all the brake and suspension mods.....

Originally Posted by Luckypants

You did it on the AR too?

our fave bit of welsh road mate

[skeetly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E92ua...eature=related

Completely unrelated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfPM7...1&feature=fvwp

lol i was just gonna post that, racing at its best!!!

Slam on the front brake as hard as you can, dismount, triple salchow and land with a half pike. Bow to any bystanders and watch as your bike slides off down the road

Originally Posted by Mark_h

The concept of going no faster than a speed at which you can stop on your side of the road in the distance you can see to be clear applies at night too! Unless you've got fantastic lights then you should be going slower.

Dropping a bike hurts regardless as to whose fault it is. At the end of the day you are the person in control of the throttle, not the council, not the tractor doing 5mph round the corner and not the huge pile of dung that always seems to be on the best line out of a bend.

So you're riding on an long since bedded-in section of that kind of road, and without warning find yourself on an almost identical looking, but brand new loose-topped section (not at all uncommon). It's all hypothetical but if you can't imagine a scenario in which you simply would not be able to see that, it could be hard enough to in broad daylight, then you lack a bit of imagination.

Obviously my argument isn't that you just pick yourself up and then blame someone else for you going too fast to be able to stop when you see a hazard (thanks for implying that I was suggesting that), but you can't legislate for everything by going slow enough to stop before you reach it, because some things aren't that easy to see. We leave a margin on the road that means we're not certain to crash should anything unexpected happen, including running over things, changes in surface, variations in grip, the classic diesel slick, that we couldn't see. If you ride in icy conditions you don't wait until you've seen the black ice, you assume it's there anyway.

Of course I would be really ****ed off at myself if I'd crashed like that, but that doesn't mean the council doesn't have a legal responsibility to put clear signs up when they greatly reduce the adhesion offered by the road. I would be ****ed off and on the phone immediately if I didn't crash.

[gruntygiggles]

Aside the obvious as mentioned about seeing the hazard in plenty of time...which is basics, I've had a few occasions where i've been going around bends end see gravel and each time, I have ridden neutrally through around it. Not had to go through any yet as was able to go around, but rode neutrally just in case I hit a bit. I see neutral riding in that situation as not changing anything, not throttling off, not throttling on, not braking any less/more or leaning any less/more.

I'm a newbie though, so may well be doing it wrong and will watch this thread with interest.

[yorkie_chris]

Good thing is next time you have a resurfaced road, open the throttle a bit. Find out what the bike actually does, how much grip there is before it spins etc etc.

If little patches of gravel, hitting them with the rear doesn't do much, just kicks the back out a bit. It will hook back up most of the time!

always ride/drive as if every other road user is an idiot - always ride/drive to expect the completely unexpected - "that wasn't there when I came this way yesterday"