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KARMA! posted:You're Russian?!? Yeah I split even in my land cruiser.
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Feb 11, 2012 14:59
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KARMA! posted:It's better to have traffic behind you instead of in front AND behind you. Staying with the pack on a highway is pretty dangerous because then you're playing traffic wack-a-mole. (ps you're the mole) Agreed. It's quite hard to do here in England though, and maintain sane speeds. It seems like English drivers don't care so much about the speed as the distance. Lots of them will try to stay the same distance off your rear end no matter how much you are speeding. That distance being around 5 meters. It's amazing to watch sometimes - I'll be doing 70 or 80 or something, maintaining a safe distance from the guy in front of me, a guy behind me tailgates me for a bit, so I let him by, and his only move is to roar past me to move into the same slot behind the guy I was following. Worst country I've ever been for tailgating honestly.
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Feb 11, 2012 16:18
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KARMA! posted:It's better to have traffic behind you instead of in front AND behind you. Staying with the pack on a highway is pretty dangerous because then you're playing traffic wack-a-mole. (ps you're the mole) I've tried to explain to friends why I feel safer going faster through traffic even if it means speeding, but they think I'm just showing off or something. The longer you hang around cars and car drivers the more chance they have to do something unexpected and stupid, and burning for daylight leaves them behind before it happens. Few things make me more nervous on a motorcycle than being stuck in heavy highway traffic.
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Feb 12, 2012 18:58
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Snowdens Secret posted:I've tried to explain to friends why I feel safer going faster through traffic even if it means speeding, but they think I'm just showing off or something. The longer you hang around cars and car drivers the more chance they have to do something unexpected and stupid, and burning for daylight leaves them behind before it happens. Few things make me more nervous on a motorcycle than being stuck in heavy highway traffic. For a while I wondered why I would always beat most people to wherever we were all going and I've since realized it's this. I always go 5 or 10 over just to stay out of the pack of traffic and it usually means I get somewhere first even when we leave the same place at the same time. Plus it's way easier to weave through traffic when you're a small bike so breaking out of the pack is a much quicker proposition.
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Feb 13, 2012 00:03
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Backov posted:Agreed. It's quite hard to do here in England though, and maintain sane speeds. To be fair, I see this behavior in every country I've been in - I think it's human nature. People sort of just turn their brains off and follow whoever they happen to come up to next, and if nobody is there, they'll just kind of accelerate (within reason) until they attach themselves to a new person to follow. If you spend any long periods of the time on a highway that is not packed you'll see "car packs" traveling with cars all following each other. Rarely do you have lone drivers intentionally maintaining a constant speed regardless of the speed of others. Good thing us motorcyclists have the special moves *stand up on pegs* and *swerve mildly in lane* to discourage tailgating.
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Feb 13, 2012 02:37
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FuzzyWuzzyBear posted:Good thing us motorcyclists have the special moves *stand up on pegs* and *swerve mildly in lane* to discourage tailgating. It's quite amusing how effective those methods are. I have a habit of when I'm just tooling along at 60km/h in town of weaving from side to side in my lane to; a) amuse myself b) practice my swerving for when I need it and I can be pretty much guaranteed that the car behind me is going to drop back without me even meaning for them too. Works out fairly well to be honest.
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Feb 13, 2012 02:45
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I'm a big fan of the "Turn around and stare you down until you back off" move. Works most of the time.
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Feb 13, 2012 05:10
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invision posted:I'm a big fan of the "Turn around and stare you down until you back off" move. Works most of the time. Until someone stops in front of you suddenly. or you go through a red.
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Feb 13, 2012 06:01
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Shimrod posted:It's quite amusing how effective those methods are. I have a habit of when I'm just tooling along at 60km/h in town of weaving from side to side in my lane to; I do the same thing on my commute. It gets boring at times, and I swerve back and forth a bit. I always laugh at the amount of distance cars give me.
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Feb 14, 2012 00:16
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Pope Mobile posted:I do the same thing on my commute. It gets boring at times, and I swerve back and forth a bit. I always laugh at the amount of distance cars give me. Apparently I do this too often, no one moves anymore when I start swerving. Need to change my commute time slightly I think.
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Feb 14, 2012 13:47
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Well, here's me showing off for the 5-0 today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yElm-CLrE1A
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Mar 5, 2012 03:45
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invision posted:Well, here's me showing off for the 5-0 today. To much throttle on the turn? I had my sound off.
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Mar 5, 2012 03:55
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I had my sound off too and had a wtf moment when the bike came flying back at you at 0:30 when you reversed the video.
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Mar 5, 2012 04:27
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:To much throttle on the turn? I had my sound off. Honestly, I don't know. I'd like to blame it on cold tires, but I'm not completely sure - I was about 8 minutes into the ride with stop and go traffic, and it was moderately warm out today. It might've been road paint, but who knows. I was on maintenance throttle the entire time and the back end just stepped out on me. The only damage was a bar end and the shift lever. The bar end and the bag I had on the back soaked up all of the damage, so not a single scratch on the bike itself. Only damage to me is where the clutch lever squished my finger between it and the bar. I'm LUCKY.
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Mar 5, 2012 04:43
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You had to get a girl to help you pick up a SV. Nice work bro.
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Mar 5, 2012 04:43
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Deadlifts, squats + oatz paid off when I tipped over my bike outside my house (I caught it slowly on the way down so there was no damage) after it hopped off the stand on crappy asphalt. The adrenaline from embarrassment alone allowed my skinny rear end to casually pick it up and put it back on the side stand. What did the cop say to you about the whole thing? She seemed nice and helpful. Glad you're okay!
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Mar 5, 2012 05:13
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Xovaan posted:Deadlifts, squats + oatz paid off when I tipped over my bike outside my house (I caught it slowly on the way down so there was no damage) after it hopped off the stand on crappy asphalt. The adrenaline from embarrassment alone allowed my skinny rear end to casually pick it up and put it back on the side stand. She walked up and was like "Do you want EMS? No? Oh, did you get that on video??" then later I asked her if she saw it happened and she goes "Yeah, it was awesome!"
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Mar 5, 2012 05:19
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Hahahaha, that's rad! I still can't make out what exactly happened in the video. With cold tires I've done infinitely worse dong moves than that. I think you just got unlucky. At least you were wearing your safety vest!  (I wear that same one whenever I ride)
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Mar 5, 2012 05:27
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So .. did you get her number? She looked kinda good looking from the vid, although I didn't really get that good a look at her .. + she thinks you're awesome and knows you like to go down :P You're in!
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Mar 5, 2012 09:40
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That was a pretty smooth drop, you seemed awfully happy about it there too. Nice to see the cop was super friendly too, totally expected some kind of 'goddamn street racers' reaction.
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Mar 5, 2012 12:38
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invision posted:It might've been road paint, but who knows. I was on maintenance throttle the entire time and the back end just stepped out on me. Looked like it gave out on that tar-stripe, maybe you picked up a splotch oil under that overpass and got unlucky?
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Mar 5, 2012 15:00
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We have similar road conditions in Michigan. (Tons of repairs, tar strips, etc.) It looks to me like a ton of lean for a such a gentle turn. Then again, WTF do I know? I hate seeing videos like this because the rider doesn't seem to be doing anything blatantly wrong. How do I learn from this? I'm glad to hear to the damage was minimal.
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Mar 5, 2012 15:08
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invision posted:Well, here's me showing off for the 5-0 today. hahahaha, I saw this last night on the TWT board and knew exactly where you were. I've had the rear slide out on me going around corners down there, those tar snakes can be slippery 
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Mar 5, 2012 17:19
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Just got back from helping my coworker from a crash. His loving jeans got caught in the chain.... Luckily with some new mirrors and some new jeans and neosporin, he should be ok
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Mar 6, 2012 02:19
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Does his bike not have a chain cover?
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Mar 6, 2012 04:43
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Before I begin, I want to share with you the words of the teacher at the driver training course that I attended. "There are only two kinds of riders. Those who have wrecked, and those who are going to." That is honest truth. Whether it's a huge wreck, or a simple lay down, some day, you're going to wreck. What's important is how you conduct yourself before and after, that matters. One can save your life, the other can save your spirit. When I purchased my bike I made a promise to myself. "I don't care what it is, I will not ride my bike while I am under the influence of ANY substance." I have not broken that promise, nor will I, ever. The second came later. "If it's raining, I can get my rear end home, but I will not leave my home in the rain." Me breaking that rule, contributed to my accident. I always wanted to take a road trip on a bike, a nice long ride, and I did. I made it from Pittsburgh, to Washington D.C.. It's one of the greatest experiences of my life. That feeling of freedom is indescribable and I wouldn't change anything about the accident, just to keep that feeling with me to this day. I love riding, I love that feeling of freedom. I was in DC and it was my best friend's, daughter's birthday. It's one of the big reasons I was there. It was lightly sprinkling and I decided to suspend my second rule, as I didn't want to spend the, however much, to rent a car, to drive the 10 miles to his house. I made it to within 2 miles of his house and was going through a gentle right turn on a transfer on ramp, between highways. I remember going 30 MPH and in a gentle lean. The turn up ahead was going to become a little more sharp and instead of leaning further over, on wet roads, I gently squeezed the front brake. That's all it took. My last memory is of the back wheel sliding to my left. I awoke, on my back, looking up at a ceiling with a light in it. My first thoughts were, "Aw poo poo, I'm in an ambulance." I could feel them cutting my clothes off of me and I didn't speak as I started flexing first my toes, then my legs and fingers. Everything seemed fine, until I went to roll my shoulders, my left shot back a retort of pain. They took notice and started to talk to me. I assured them I felt fine, but you know they can't accept that. You don't know it for sure and they sure as hell don't either. So I joked with them, aggravated that I would have to replace my clothing. Mostly just pissed at myself for loving up so monumentally. They went through their routine and when they finished their preliminary and we started moving, they knew I was, for the most part, fine. I was still in decent spirits and they said something that sticks with me to this day. It's a lesson, not only in accidents, but in life in general. "The feisty ones always live." I walked out of the hospital later that same day, with a broken left clavicle. Not one sign of concussion, not even so much of a hint of road rash, or even a bruise. I broke a bone in my body that you can destroy by falling from your own height, I learned later what happened. I squeezed that front brake and the rear tire went into a skid. I got the bike back level, but it went into a wobble. I rode out the wobble until the bike was down to, roughly less than 10MPH and it fell on me. That's it. My bike fell on me and broke my collar bone, the pain, and panic, shut my brain down. The damage to the bike was two dings, one shallow scrape and a barely bent clutch handle. My helmet had one shallow scrape. That, wasn't what tested my spirit to get back on my bike. The eventual surgery, to correct the broken clavicle, wasn't what tested my spirit either. Even the collapsed lung, that happened during the surgery, didn't do it. It was when they sent me back to the same hospital, that missed the lung, and I had to stay for observation, that my surgery wound was infected. The three months of sitting in my house, injecting myself thrice daily with antibiotics, that would kill a horse, are what tested my spirit. I survived. My spirit survived. My bike survived. I still ride today and I would go through it all again, for that perfect ride to D.C. April 11th is her birthday. I have a room reserved at a hotel, I plan on going back to see them again. Weather willing, I'll ride there.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:52
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It's great to hear you're ok and I'm sorry to hear about all the poo poo you went through, but I honestly don't understand the not riding in the rain thing. I used to get scared in the rain and be super freaked out when my rear would skid out over some crosswalk paint or a manhole cover, until I realized that it was completely predictable and manageable. If I never rode in the rain, I'd have never realized that, and I think the very avoidance of rain robs people of the experience to be able to react to wet roads properly, which is the primary thing that makes it dangerous. Again, I'm super glad to hear that you're ok and haven't given up on riding. If you're happy never riding in the rain again, that's your choice, but another option would be to take the bike out to a parking lot the next time it's raining and skid around for an hour.
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Mar 7, 2012 00:29
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SlightlyMadman posted:It's great to hear you're ok and I'm sorry to hear about all the poo poo you went through, but I honestly don't understand the not riding in the rain thing. I used to get scared in the rain and be super freaked out when my rear would skid out over some crosswalk paint or a manhole cover, until I realized that it was completely predictable and manageable. If I never rode in the rain, I'd have never realized that, and I think the very avoidance of rain robs people of the experience to be able to react to wet roads properly, which is the primary thing that makes it dangerous. I agree completely with this, sad to hear you crashed and good to hear youre ok but not riding in the rain limits your skill and experience. Actually the combination of wet roads, built up grime, oils, road markings, steel grates and fuckwit drivers does seem quite intimidating at first however as SlightlyMadman points out you just need to start off small. Practice in car parks, back roads and out of the way areas first before you try city peakhours in torrential downpours with 10m visibility. The more practice you have with how your bike controls in slippery situations will drastically improve your skill on the bike. Also what do you do if you ride to a friends place and it starts to rain?
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Mar 7, 2012 00:49
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Aargh posted:Also what do you do if you ride to a friends place and it starts to rain? I said I made it so I can get my rear end home. I don't leave my home for a ride when it's raining. In this situation. I would drive home, slowly. I also dislike riding in the rain as it hurts and it's cold and miserable. That's all. It's not a matter of I don't feel like I can handle it. It's a matter of, it's just one more thing that complicates my ride. I like my rides to be a complication free as I can make them.
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Mar 7, 2012 01:20
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Aargh posted:I agree completely with this, sad to hear you crashed and good to hear youre ok but not riding in the rain limits your skill and experience. Living in Portland I don't really have the option to not ride in the rain 9/10ths of the year, but I do want to echo the previous sentiment that the more you ride in the rain the easier it gets. It was pretty intimidating at first, but the more practice I got the better I understood how my bike felt in low traction situations. This practice has definitely paid dividends. After a few dry weeks I was riding in the first rain and grabbed too much front brake. The front started to wash out, but I let go of the brake and reapplied, washing it again, let go again, and reapplied even more smoothly and stopped without going down. If I hadn't been riding in the rain for weeks and weeks previously I probably would've ended up on the ground. I can't count how many times I've had the rear end slide out a little in wet conditions and and I'm always surprised at how much better my reflexes are to deal with it every successive time. And actually, when it IS warm and clear outside I have more confidence when I ride because I'm always thinking really hard about what I'm doing in the rain; when I DO have traction I feel like I ride like a moto GP star. That said, I don't want you to think that we're harassing you. If I lived in LA or somewhere I might have a different opinion about this whole rain business 
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Mar 7, 2012 02:32
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VendaGoat posted:I said I made it so I can get my rear end home. I don't leave my home for a ride when it's raining. I can understand this, been looking at maybe getting some beater car just for the days its wet and i just cant be bothered to ride to work and the hassle with the wet weather gear. Then theres the days when its pissing down, youre soaked to the skin and can't get any wetter that you ride like a dong trying to slide the rear at every opportunity (note: bike does this in the dry easily enough)
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Mar 7, 2012 04:15
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Aargh posted:Then theres the days when its pissing down, youre soaked to the skin and can't get any wetter that you ride like a dong trying to slide the rear at every opportunity (note: bike does this in the dry easily enough) Which is why I have the common sense clause to my rule. It's pissing, I'm already wet and loving miserable. I want my home, a hot shower, dry clothes and a warm beverage. I'm getting my silly rear end home. Flip side. I'm in my home, warm, dry and happy. Think I might enjoy a ride, look outside at the monsoon. Well.....gently caress THAT!
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Mar 7, 2012 05:25
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Riding in the rain isn't that bad, but if you feel it's unsafe for you to ride, don't ride. Nervousness about road conditions and being stiff or twitchy from it can be more dangerous than the conditions themselves. It's not like you must ride to deliver the mail, and sometimes you just want to get somewhere, not engage in a potentially injuring learning experience. I personally don't like riding if I know there's salt and sand and deicing poo poo all over my route, so I don't, and it doesn't shrink my penis to admit it.
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Mar 7, 2012 05:32
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VendaGoat posted:That's a pretty lovely and at the same time kind of inspiring story, but can we talk more about the ride from Pittsburgh to DC? Because that's an awesome ride. What route did you take?
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Mar 7, 2012 05:40
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ought ten posted:That's a pretty lovely and at the same time kind of inspiring story, but can we talk more about the ride from Pittsburgh to DC? Because that's an awesome ride. What route did you take? Before I tell you my route. The day I got the pic line installed, to inject the antibiotics, was the deciding point for me. My doctor flat out told me, "You are to sit in a chair, for three months. No working, no exercise. Sit in a chair and get well." "Am I allowed to go to the casino?" "Are you gonna sit in a chair?" "Yes, and play Poker" "Then fine, go to the casino." I set myself a goal. I wanted a telescope. For three months I played Hold em, budgeted my money and took my injections. I won enough to get This and every accessory for it, and some extra jingle. I now get a fuzzy feeling when I sit in my front yard and stare at the planets and the moon. Thinking, "I won this, because some moron went all in with two seven off suite." Now, the ride to DC! Which I plan to take again! Google Maps route Switch back mountains, creaks, small towns, country roads, four states and beautiful scenery. The high altitude points had snow, on the grass, the low altitude points were in spring, tree buds and flowers. Ask me what you want to know.
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Mar 7, 2012 06:13
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After testing the kindness of fate, I don't know how great of an idea it is to return to DC / the Beltway and ride there. The place is craptascularly nuts.
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Mar 7, 2012 07:19
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The problem I have with riding in the rain is visibility. I work nights, so the water beading on my visor makes for an insane amount of glare from every single illuminated thing. But then I read this and want to try it. Also I'd need some better rain gear than my current poncho.
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Mar 7, 2012 07:51
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Rain-X works beautifully on visors. No need to fumble with a squeegee thingamabob.
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Mar 7, 2012 07:56
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My second "long" haul on my bike (with a grand total of 50 or 60 commuting miles under my belt) started well, but about halfway home I smelled the rain and within 2 minutes was in the thick of a massive, blazing storm. I would have loved to have been more prepared as it was a veritable trial by fire, or water in this case, but I got through it and I really do want to do more rides in the wet so that I know what to expect. I can, however, appreciate the not wanting to tempt fate thing, and I also will tend more towards taking my car if it's raining out, partly for my own peace of mind, and more because I have years of experience driving in South African rain which has taught me that South African drivers are absolutely incompetant when road conditions are anything other than ideal. I fear for my ability to mitigate the already stupid decisions being made, and when they're compounded tenfold because it's raining and I have even less stopping distance, even less traction to work with, even less visibility... it sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. South Africa is a wonderful place and I love the people, but they're total cretins on the road and it's just not worth the inevitable pain that would come of the desire to practice. Such a shame really.
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Mar 7, 2012 08:24
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Geirskogul posted:Rain-X works beautifully on visors. No need to fumble with a squeegee thingamabob. Especially if you get both versions of it. In Australia it's called Rain-Ox (or Rain-Ex, I can't remember, my bottle is in the kitchen and I'm too lazy to get up and check). One is for the inside of the visor which stops fogging up and works brilliantly and the other one is for the outside of the visor and the rain just slips off. Well worth the purchase. (about $5 per bottle) e: I'll be damned, it is Rain-X, I thought it was Rain-Ox because of the label graphic. 
Shimrod fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Mar 7, 2012 |
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Mar 7, 2012 09:32
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