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Snowdens Secret posted:I ride pedalbike and motorcycle and as far as I'm concerned those Livestrong dickbags deliberately antagonizing car drivers only increase the chance some jerk is going to retributively try to run me off the road when I'm headed to work, so, no, they're not making the roads safer or any self-sanctimonious crap like that at all. This is my mindset recently. I ride a pedalbike and I've been doing my best to ignore the 18 wheelers that pass with about 1 foot of clearance, or the oblivious sedans who park on the shoulder, or people who pull out of parking lots into me. If I yell at them or flip them off, it doesn't register as "I almost killed her, of course she's upset," it registers as "all cyclists are entitled jerks." So, now I wave enthusiastically whenever someone moves over or slows down for me, or when someone waits for me to pass before they merge. Sometimes people even wave back. 
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Apr 30, 2012 19:26
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Ola posted:Yes, you're right. I got pissed at the guy waving at me because he seemed to indicate "what the gently caress are you doing in my space?" in a space clearly occupied by all sorts of people. But someone in a SUV on the phone not only have worse attitudes but are far more dangerous. There was a news story a while back about a cyclist hitting a child and then having the nerve to yell at the child for standing in the way afterwards. Increased my bias quite a lot, but I do realize it's unfair. I think part of the problem is perception. Everyone has way more dangerous/annoying run ins with cars than anything else. However cars are viewed as "the norm" so these can be forgotten. Bikes and motorbikes are a special group and as a result a few run ins can be more memorable and generate animosity.
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Apr 30, 2012 19:29
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I think a lot of the problems would be cut down if bicycles had to be registered to drive on the road, just like a car or motorcycle or 18 wheeler or whatever else. There is one bicycle rider I see on my drive home that always sits in the middle of the right lane going maybe 10 mph with a shitload of cars behind him. Every day. You would think he might move to the sidewalk which is never used by people walking or even move off to the side of the lane to ride, but nope, this guy stays in the middle of the right lane, day after day.
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Apr 30, 2012 20:18
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americanzero4128 posted:I think a lot of the problems would be cut down if bicycles had to be registered to drive on the road, just like a car or motorcycle or 18 wheeler or whatever else. There is one bicycle rider I see on my drive home that always sits in the middle of the right lane going maybe 10 mph with a shitload of cars behind him. Every day. You would think he might move to the sidewalk which is never used by people walking or even move off to the side of the lane to ride, but nope, this guy stays in the middle of the right lane, day after day.
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Apr 30, 2012 20:22
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FWIW, when I'm cycling I do tend to occupy the left-middle of the right lane when there are parked cars, but I pull further over when it's clear. I really really don't want to get a door sandwich in my face when someone steps out of their parked car without looking.
MotoMind fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 30, 2012 |
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Apr 30, 2012 20:26
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americanzero4128 posted:I think a lot of the problems would be cut down if bicycles had to be registered to drive on the road, just like a car or motorcycle or 18 wheeler or whatever else. There is one bicycle rider I see on my drive home that always sits in the middle of the right lane going maybe 10 mph with a shitload of cars behind him. Every day. You would think he might move to the sidewalk which is never used by people walking or even move off to the side of the lane to ride, but nope, this guy stays in the middle of the right lane, day after day. In most states it's illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk -- consider what it would be like for the pedestrians if those rear end in a top hat triathletes and such had to ride there. And usually cyclists are supposed to ride "as close to the right as safe and practicable", and are to be given three feet/1m of passing margin. So, if the edge of the road is full of broken glass and sand, a cyclist is perfectly within his rights to ride down the middle of the road instead. That said, the guys who take excessive advantage of this and deliberately block traffic for miles and miles because they have a tiny penis certainly aren't doing any favors for cyclists in general. They can go to hell.
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Apr 30, 2012 20:38
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Ghost Cactus posted:This is my mindset recently. I ride a pedalbike and I've been doing my best to ignore the 18 wheelers that pass with about 1 foot of clearance, or the oblivious sedans who park on the shoulder, or people who pull out of parking lots into me. If I yell at them or flip them off, it doesn't register as "I almost killed her, of course she's upset," it registers as "all cyclists are entitled jerks." So, now I wave enthusiastically whenever someone moves over or slows down for me, or when someone waits for me to pass before they merge. Sometimes people even wave back. Some wise words here, I make a point to do the same on both bicycle and motorbike. Thanking/acknowledging people who do see you will do miles more for riders' image than getting upset at the people who don't see you.
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Apr 30, 2012 20:43
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americanzero4128 posted:I think a lot of the problems would be cut down if bicycles had to be registered to drive on the road, just like a car or motorcycle or 18 wheeler or whatever else. There is one bicycle rider I see on my drive home that always sits in the middle of the right lane going maybe 10 mph with a shitload of cars behind him. Every day. You would think he might move to the sidewalk which is never used by people walking or even move off to the side of the lane to ride, but nope, this guy stays in the middle of the right lane, day after day. In WA a slow-moving vehicle is required to pull off the road (when safe) to allow passing when a line of 5 or more vehicles has formed behind them.  Under 5 and they can just loving wait 
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Apr 30, 2012 20:54
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nsaP posted:Some wise words here, I make a point to do the same on both bicycle and motorbike. Thanking/acknowledging people who do see you will do miles more for riders' image than getting upset at the people who don't see you. Positive reinforcement is a wonderful thing 
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Apr 30, 2012 21:16
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If we're gonna pile on cyclists, my favorite is when somebody is living strong down the middle of the lane, backing up traffic - when there is a clearly marked bicycle path on the side of the road . I see this all the time. I'm usually too impressed at the gall of the cyclist to even be angry.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:28
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I always make an effort in waving when someone lets me pass. A bit difficult when splitting but doable. For some reason I'm convinced my left hand can't be seen from behind and to the right when I pass a car, so I've practiced the right hand wave. Pull through the passing gear, clutch in, big wave with throttle hand while upshifting, back on. I really could just to a slightly wide wave with the left. Or get a LED scrollboard on the top box which goes THANX!! <3 <3 <3 My favourite "nice guy on motorbike" move is when old grannies are waiting to cross the street but look at me skeptically. Clutch in while braking the rear and then nodding while holding my visor in a tip-of-the-hat motion. Always gets me a nice smile.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:30
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Just got on and off the freeway for the first time, Truly god invented us to travel on two wheels.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:30
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Does anyone have a good pre ride briefing or guidelines for group rides they would like to share? I ask since we had a group of 15 bikes where 3 people went down due to rider error. 2 were relatively inexperienced riders who panicked in a turn and one was a more experienced Guy who made a mistake after being out for 18 hours straight and being pretty tired. I was leading when 2 of them went down and despite the fact we were doing pretty reasonable (I.e not fast) speeds I feel partly responsible. luckily everyone walked away with no more than a bruise but it puts a dampener on the day and makes me averse to lead another group ride. we already mandate gear and give the whole ride.your own ride speech but I think we need to really evaluate what were doing.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:31
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The best group ride advice: Don't go on group rides. Seriously, someone always loses their poo poo.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:57
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1) Don't. Ok that's a bit facetious but you're more or less in control of an entire group of kindergarten kids that you can't physically or verbally stop them from doing dumb things. You only need one person to gently caress up to sour the whole thing. Every single person needs to be an adult if you want to prevent these things from happening. Yes you can all chant "z formation, 2 second distance, ride at your own speed, don't race" but then where's the fun of group rides?! You are not responsible. You don't ride for them, you don't make decisions for them. You are not responsible.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:57
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Ola posted:My favourite "nice guy on motorbike" move is when old grannies are waiting to cross the street but look at me skeptically. Clutch in while braking the rear and then nodding while holding my visor in a tip-of-the-hat motion. Always gets me a nice smile. Inverse: Pulling a wheelie before stopping in your driveway and having people scurry off the crosswalk half a block away.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:58
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GanjamonII posted:Does anyone have a good pre ride briefing or guidelines for group rides they would like to share? Don't ride in large groups with people you haven't ridden with before. Only invite people once you've established that they are competent and conscientious riders. Inform them (angrily, and with great conviction) that if they crash due to their own error, you will take the time to poo poo in their helmet before you call an ambulance. Or, you know, just don't do group rides.
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Apr 30, 2012 22:03
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Thelonious posted:If we're gonna pile on cyclists, my favorite is when somebody is living strong down the middle of the lane, backing up traffic - when there is a clearly marked bicycle path on the side of the road . In fairness, some bike lanes are pretty poo poo. A big portion of my commute to work (when I bicycle) involves a bike lane that is between traffic and a row of parked cars, and traffic has to cross the bike lane to turn. It's awful. I'd rather take a full lane. Plus, unlike being in a regular lane where most drivers will try to give space when they pass, they don't give any if you're in a bike lane and cut well within 3 feet. As far as I know bike lanes are there to give an additional option. Bikes don't have to be in them.
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Apr 30, 2012 22:50
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Ola posted:For some reason I'm convinced my left hand can't be seen from behind and to the right when I pass a car, so I've practiced the right hand wave. Pull through the passing gear, clutch in, big wave with throttle hand while upshifting, back on. I really could just to a slightly wide wave with the left. Or get a LED scrollboard on the top box which goes THANX!! <3 <3 <3 One of the advantages of driving on the correct side of the road means that my left hand is ideally placed to give a big thumbs up to anyone that pulls in to let me pass .
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Apr 30, 2012 23:20
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I spend enough time stopped on the side of the road when I ride with my once a year rider sister and old man with a bad back. I have no need for a group ride. If you get above 5 people it just gets crazy. There's a time and a place, but some groups around here do it every weekend and that's not for me. Smaller groups of people who I don't have to worry about make for a good ride, I hate checking my mirrors.
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Apr 30, 2012 23:48
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All this talk about group rides and I just did the Tulip Ride yesterday with 165ish bikes. Everything went well and I don't think there were any incidents, but with that many we didn't do any crazy twisties or anything.
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Apr 30, 2012 23:57
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GanjamonII posted:Does anyone have a good pre ride briefing or guidelines for group rides they would like to share? Going through basic hand signals helps, as does sending messages "down the line." Do you see a pot hole on the shoulder? Point and yell back, "Pothole!" The guy behind you sees an follows suit, etc etc. Same with glass, oncoming cars from behind ('Car back!'), or just about any other obstructions you may encounter. I guess the most important message to pass back is when you're slowing down. Just shout, "SLOWING," and GENTLY ease on the brakes. Voice awareness and hand signals have have saved my hide on group rides plenty of times. But as stated above, it really boils down to a few things: do you know/trust the people you ride with; are said people aware of their surroundings; and can everyone concentrate on communicating and riding at the same time? Food for thought I guess. 
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Apr 30, 2012 23:58
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I appreciate the advice. I will qualify that I'm not all that big on very large group rides. I like riding by myself, but riding with a small group (usually 3-5 people) is pretty drat fun. The group I ride with has a large member base, but there is a core group of guys and girls who go on the long/technical back roads rides vs the more social/shorter rides who I trust because we have ridden together enough to know that a) they're experienced riders who aren't going to get on the brakes unexpectedly half way through a turn or something similar and/or b) they're mature enough that they know to ride within their limits, and that there is a time to go fast and a time to keep it chill. I don't want to take responsibility for others in the least, but I at least want to do as much as we reasonably can to avoid stupid preventable things. Right now I am thinking perhaps we need to start enforcing the things covered in the pre ride briefing, ie calling out people doing stupid poo poo like riding side by side on the freeway in the same lane or diving right behind someone else into a corner hot. I think we probably should start grading rides and restricting people with too little experience from them but not sure how that would fly.
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May 1, 2012 00:34
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What's wrong with riding side-by-side on the freeway? If the two people doing it are comfortable with it what's the problem?
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May 1, 2012 00:46
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Shimrod posted:What's wrong with riding side-by-side on the freeway? If the two people doing it are comfortable with it what's the problem? Nowhere to go to avoid debris, potholes, whatever. Edit - its even worse if the guy is right behind/next to you so he's in your blind spot and you can't even see him.
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May 1, 2012 00:49
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Gay Nudist Dad posted:In fairness, some bike lanes are pretty poo poo. A big portion of my commute to work (when I bicycle) involves a bike lane that is between traffic and a row of parked cars, and traffic has to cross the bike lane to turn. It's awful. I'd rather take a full lane. Plus, unlike being in a regular lane where most drivers will try to give space when they pass, they don't give any if you're in a bike lane and cut well within 3 feet. In this case I'm talking about a nicely paved dedicated path separated from the road by a curb and six feet of grass, not just a lane painted on the shoulder. Optional or not, its still a dick move.
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May 1, 2012 00:50
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GanjamonII posted:Nowhere to go to avoid debris, potholes, whatever. Yeah, that's true, but you can see for ages on the freeway. I've ridden side-by-side with my brother on the freeway heaps of times and never had an issue - if there's a pothole coming up whoever is going to hit it just slows down and swerves then gets back into position.
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May 1, 2012 00:54
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Shimrod posted:What's wrong with riding side-by-side on the freeway? If the two people doing it are comfortable with it what's the problem? ...as long as the bikes don't touch. 
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May 1, 2012 01:09
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It also depends on how you ride, I ride with SaNChEz a lot and we have headsets and can communicate freely, so I really don't mind where he rides because I know if I need to gtfo quickly I can shout or whatever. Yes riding separately is best, but its not the end of the world if you share a line with someone like that. When its a bunch of strangers who cant talk to each other, thats a bad idea. 
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May 1, 2012 01:11
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MotoMind posted:FWIW, when I'm cycling I do tend to occupy the left-middle of the right lane when there are parked cars, but I pull further over when it's clear. I really really don't want to get a door sandwich in my face when someone steps out of their parked car without looking. A woman died this way in my country earlier this year. Some guy opened his door on a woman on a bike, she fell under some sort of heavy vehicle that didn't see her and squished her. Another thing that happened last year, some woman was turning into a street (she was supposed to give way) and didn't see a group of cyclists on said street. She put the lot in hospital and one in the morgue. I can understand why cyclists act like jerks. EDIT: Cyclists are supposed to ride on the road, next to the pavement but what fucks me off about this is that it's where the cops sweep all the glass/debris from crashes and just leave it there. You want them to ride through that. Really?
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May 1, 2012 02:08
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Odette posted:EDIT: Cyclists are supposed to ride on the road, next to the pavement but what fucks me off about this is that it's where the cops sweep all the glass/debris from crashes and just leave it there. You want them to ride through that. Really? Well, that's why in most places cyclists are technically allowed to ride anywhere in the rightmost lane if they need to do so to avoid a hazard. Not that any car drivers know that, of course.
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May 1, 2012 02:23
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Intercom systems seem to be a big plus, and probably should be mandatory for your group ride. I personally like group riding as a way to explore a route unfamiliar to me without constantly consulting GPS / written instructions, but I'm not doing it at time attack pace either. Clearly delineating where the pace is on the scale between maximum scenery enjoyment and ruining a set of knee sliders is critical. When I was in the Navy we had a pretty motley crew that would ride together; a CBR600RR, a V-Max, my Z1000, sometimes a Dayton 650, often a handful of metric cruisers. Every now and then the sportbikes would zip ahead for some icy cold stuntzz but for the most part it was a stable, unstressed (albeit speeding) pace through back-country roads. On the other hand, my last group ride was one of those hundreds-of-bikes fundraisers where there were single digits of non-Harleys and the participants were overwhelmingly older, club vest-clad outlaw-wannabes and it was lousy. Hard trail braking to a crawl in every turn, waiting till the road fully straightened to shift down and blast the loud pipes (and still not go very fast.) The club riders rode way too close to each other so everyone was constantly braking and surging; working closer to the front helped but I kept getting stuck behind trikes (seriously, old men on trikes are the worst.)
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May 1, 2012 02:26
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echomadman posted:One of the advantages of driving on the correct side of the road means that my left hand is ideally placed to give a big thumbs up to anyone that pulls in to let me pass . But terribly positioned to wave at oncoming riders. Hence the UK nod.  For group rides, the only advice I have is to let everyone know going slow is ok. Bad things happen when slow riders try to keep up with fast ones, focusing on the back of the cool, quick guy instead of on the road. Then a corner comes, fast guy is nicely slowed down and positioned but slow guy is catching up, way too fast, panic brake, bad day. So at the start, say "if you want to go fast, go fast and wait up at a nice place to stop. I'll be riding in my own tempo". Obviously this doesn't work in groups that are very dick-wavy.
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May 1, 2012 02:46
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Busy couple of days. Today I did day 1 of the MSF course and then bought a Ninja 250 and got it insured. Tomorrow I finish the class, go to the DMV and transfer title/get M1 license, then pick up the bike. So loving excited.
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May 1, 2012 05:33
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blue squares posted:Busy couple of days. Today I did day 1 of the MSF course and then bought a Ninja 250 and got it insured. Tomorrow I finish the class, go to the DMV and transfer title/get M1 license, then pick up the bike. So loving excited. Welcome to your new addiction. Life as you knew it is now over. And get used to doing stuff like taking 3 hours to get home from work, even though you only live 7 minutes away. Somewhere, a twisty road is calling your name, just make sure you keep the shiny side up. Oh, and it never gets old. I've been riding for over 20 years, and still giggle like an idiot just because I found a new way home that has some fun corners.
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May 1, 2012 05:41
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Olde Weird Tip posted:The best group ride advice: Don't go on group rides. Eh, I don't mind group rides. I plan on doing the Graves mountain ride. Basically a bunch of dudes who work/shop at Manassas Honda head up to the orchard for a day to hang out and pick apples or whatever. It's usually not a bunch of donks, and there's a support truck. http://gnarlywrench.blogspot.com/2011/10/graves-mountain-ride-sunday.html
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May 1, 2012 15:42
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My 07 sv650 just rolled over 20k miles last night, is there a list of things I should check? Im going to assume that the last owner didnt give it the 20k maintenance before he traded it in.
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May 1, 2012 16:08
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Make sure the brake fluid is good & clear, and flush it if it isn't. Also, if you haven't (assume that the P.O. didn't), do a coolant system flush, change the spark plugs, and ensure that the clutch system is adjusted fine. Check out the gear shift linkage, make sure it's lubricated. Look up how to check your chain and sprockets, too, you should be on your second set (they expire around 15k). oh yeah and get a r6 throttle tube 
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May 1, 2012 16:49
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the walkin dude posted:(they expire around 15k). HOLY CRAP I can't imagine getting that kind of mileage out of chains+sprockets comfortably. I check mine almost daily and change about every 5000 miles.
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May 1, 2012 16:53
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I check mine every 5000. Seriously though I just change when the chain is binding or the teeth show wear.
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May 1, 2012 16:59
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