Poor Road Surface - What do I do?

Just for some perspective, coming from someone who has been riding for just over a year.

In my experience just keeping a slightly positive throttle is the best plan - assuming you have seen it way too late and cannot change lines.

The problem wrt inexperienced bikers are the fact that everyone has limited attention span. They are so busy spending all of their attention on the fundamentals of riding, hazards etc tend to be missed or noticed a lot later.

As experience is gained the fundamentals become 2nd nature, and so more attention is freed up to concentrate on others things.

I know I speak in 3rd person there but I firmly put myself in that group.

I would definitely recommend a trackday to anyone newbie. I was so surprised how far the bike can be pushed and helped my confidence loads.

Other than that, self preservation should keep you mostly out of trouble!

Fwiw now I feel more comfortable I also do little things to deliberately upset the bike (locking up the front for a split second on gravel drive outside work, spinning the back wheel, etc) , just to see how it felt.

I would never have tried it if I wasn't confident I could handle it. I'd rather have that experience than not!

But everyone does things differently, most important, miles under belt!

I had my first major scare today whilst riding out. Too fast on an unknown road. I have no idea why I didn't drop the bike, hit the roundabout or get knocked off.

I think today's lesson needed to be learned - i.e. SLOW DOWN!

I'm glad it happened when I was riding with someone else, that it didn't result in injury or a broken bike and I was able to understand why what happened did happen.

I was riding poorly, with bad forward planning and obs at a speed beyond the appropriate speed for the road and the situation.

I'm glad I learned this with no negative result apart from fear. (I'm not scared now, I just was during the incident.)

Also learned that the last thing I need, unless the bike is absolutely upright, is front brake.

One thing I learnt very early on, don't touch brakes when cornering...when you learn yourself the message gets drummed in a whole lot better than someone just telling you It doesn't you mean you won't do it again but at least it makes you think twice before doing so!

[yorkie_chris]

It's a pretty hard learned lesson a lot of the time, especially when "BRAKE!!!!" is the first instinctive response to things which you have to overcome.

Lessons learned with no falling off involved are great

You can brake in corners if you're skilled and don't grab loads.
Rear brake is useful to shed a bit of unwanted speed, but I've locked that up before while leant over in the dry instead of leaning bike over more, but in my defence the rear brake on the sprint is crap.

Originally Posted by specialone

You can brake in corners if you're skilled and don't grab loads.
.

Aye, smooth application goes a long way but panic braking is never going to end well. Brakes need to be respected

I didn't see a leaderboard and was doing over 75 after the 200yrd marker before a roundabout which was around a tight (at 75) bend. I stopped with my front wheel just in front of the roundabout kerb.

Trying to turn the bike, slow down and not hit the roundabout was scary, hard and the sound of my ar- 5e hole going from 5p to 50p at a high frequency was probably audible from the moon. I honestly thought I was hitting the roundabout.

[littleoldman2]

Also learned that the last thing I need, unless the bike is absolutely upright, is front brake.

As you gain much needed experience you'ii find you can brake quite hard (smoothly) on an SV front brake into corners. The back brake is a different matter due to the superb engine braking if you change down a gear at the same time. Until you rack up some mileage, ride so you have the time to react to what you have yet to observe. Observation is something you need to concentrate on now, later it will be second nature.

just my 2 penneth to the op.

Ok if you can avoid it then thats the best plan.

However i find that a lot of the roads around here are covered in pot holes and gravel. its taken me some time but im a lot happier on them now than i was 12 months ago. The reason is ive gained a little more confidence in the bike. Now when it starts to slide or bounce instead of going into "death grip" mode and holding on for dear life i relax (or try to) and let the bike sort its self out. 8 times out of 10 it does and when the grip comes back (much quicker than my reaction time to the problem anyways) then i can move the bike where the grip is. If its going really breasts north then im going for the rear break.

However i do thing relaxing is the key.