Unaugural 8.0 - Roll Call

Touche!


BTH

 

Oh well, if it's all MY fault then...


BTH

 

I carry a toothbrush on all trips because I might get lucky at any
place I stop!
Unlike you, who rides to Portland. To stare out to sea. Probably
alone.
With your foetid breath. ;-)

 

On the contrary, once the dust settled the problem was revealed to be too
much gravel on the front brake!


BTH

 

Yep, nice of you to admit your fault

 

I carry a toothbrush on all trips because I might get lucky at any
place I stop!
Unlike you, who rides to Portland. To stare out to sea. Probably
alone.
With your foetid breath. ;-)

*****************

Wow, watch out when I get close, I may breathe all over you

 

I did ride across to Mount Gambier for the ride as I hadn't been to Mac park
for a few years,

But, I didn't mention that because I knew you would read it and I didn't
think that you would know where Mount Gambier was

 

Hey; I never *said* I was gonna' show up!

I'm a pre-piker.

 

You know what it's like to sleep with Marty?!!?

(Does he kiss you afterwards and *spoon*?)

 

<ignoring BTH's witty response> ;-P

Didn't touch the front brake! AND I remembered Lemmiwinks' exhortation -
'when in doubt, wind it out' on the previous lot of corrugations, and bumped
my way over those, unharmed and with great relief... but on 'Betty's Bend' I
honestly can't tell you what it was that caused the front to go haywire... I
remembered to keep my shoulders loose and not to panic or tense up, and I
wasn't going fast... The gravel there did seem to vary in depth - dunno if
that had anything to do with it - and today Lemmiwinks put something on my
blog to the effect that on corners (on gravel) you need to lean the bike
but keep your body upright - maybe it was something to do with that??? Not
sure....

In any case, it reinforced my absolute antipathy towards non-bitumen
surfaces. For next year's Unaugural I shall get either (a) a postie bike, or
(b) a lift!

betty, able to put a teeny bit of weight on the multicoloured foot now

 

LOL. Bastard. ;-)

betty

 

its called counter balancing...

to cut a long story short, you push the the bike to the side you want
to turn with you leaning off there other causing the centre of gravity
to be still 90 degree from the road, even though the bike/tyres are
learning to one side, there is no sidways force on the bike so the
tyres dont slip sideways (lowside)

great technique on the dirt and in the wet

easy to do, just place your arse crack on the side edge of the seat on
the opposite sit of the turn and push the handle bars from one side to
the inside of the turn..push them sideways/away, not turn.

you and the bike make a V, the bike on the inside of the turn, you on
the outside of the turn.. once bikes are leaning to one side above
20kmh, they turn naturally

it made BT's road good for 100kmh+ for me

80% of riding on the dirt is mind over matter... yes, its hard to over
come, practise on a bike and body that doesnt mind falling over helps
(cause you will)

mh

 

Yeah, I hate road bikes on gravel as well. I haven't dropped one yet,
but can feel that the bike is likely to go lots of times. My way of
handling it is:
1. Go slower (duh)
2. Use more rear brake. Even to the point of all rear brake unless you
really need the front.
3. Wash off any speed you need to before going into a corner and take
the corner as upright as possible
4. Buy a trailbike and fang it like a mad bastard. Heaps of fun.

Kev

 

Both methods work... long distance desert racers tend to use Nevs method
and riders of lighter dirt bikes either use Martys method or a variation
on speedway style.

It's a bit like arguing if knee down or classic style road racing is
better...

it depends upon the bike.


G-S

 

OK, to turn a bike you have to have some sideways force acting through
the tyres to to road surface.

For most circumstances, leaning the bike and body more or less at the
same angle works just fine.

However, at times, one may want to have the bike leaning either more or
less than the rider's body.

Ripping round a nice smooth rack track on sticky tyres, one might well
(assuming one is fit enough) hang off to the inside of the turn, to
reduce the angle of the bike for a given corner, so that the tyres are
still maintaining a good contact patch, and one has the potential to go
faster than the rider basically just sitting upright relative to the bike.

OTOH, if you are faced with doing the MOST, to get your P-plates (in
NSW) on a Kwaka GPX or GPZ 250, to do the U-turn, you have to get the
bike leant over a fair degree, but you don't actually want to have much
speed on, so you lean your body away from the turn, pushing the bike
down under you, so the bike turns tightly, but at low speed, and,
hopefully, you don't fall over.

Make sense so far?

So, for example, when I get new tyres fitted, my scrubbing in technique
is to ride round turns, leaning outwards from the turn, thus
using/scrubbing more of the side of the tyres, but at a lower speed than
I'd normally take the turns.

It's not that there is no sideways force, only that the force is less,
because the turn is being taken slower.

Aye, but, if the turn radius is fixed, and you reduce the speed, then
you have less force required.

"Reduce the speed" is a relative term!

On the smoother straight bits, I might have seen 70 or 80 on the speedo,
had I had the time to look, but the corners were taken a lot slower than
that, and I was leaning out from the turn.

I agree about the mind over matter bit, but for some of us, whose bodies
are already having troubles with athletic things like walking, and even
standing up, our bodies just aren't interested in the option of falling
off a motorbike.

Me too!

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Heheheh...
*Attempts to run away,hampered by his more-recently-acquired
swollen,multicoloured foot*
I certainly can't recommend slamming a Transalpsworth of weight on it.
My Wedgetail Outriders should be arriving shortly...

Postman Pat the Crippled (my levers are fine though)

 

TransTankSlap?


BTH

 

True, particularly if you hit sand or bulldust, stand up weight to the rear
and give it the berries.

Worked well when I went to Birdsville last year on the GS.

Boxer

 

Ooh; I do the complete opposite. I lean my body as far as necessary so
I can keep the bike totally upright.

 

Dammit!