First long journey.

<porl>

You are!

</p>

 

In some circumstances, yes.

 

Get pattern sprockets from Mick Bull on Canal Street, cheapest place
I've found... he's competitive on chain prices too.

 

well, that's good...

Well, you did the Right Thing. I doubt I would have done the
same though... (this is a critisim of me, not you)

BTW, the Great Shed Clearout has located a couple of exhaust
clamps, which are - officially - yours due to the fact that
they should have been in with the other can. Email me your
address and I'll post them; if you don't want them tell me
now!

 

Well, you got away with it in a sense, but you know what you did wrong
- now - don't you? Target fixation, wasn't it? You saw the rock,
made the awful mistake of looking at it ... and you go where you're
looking.

I would suggest that you should have immediately lifted your gaze from
the rock and skirted the damn thing, leaving it for your following
rider to negotiate, rather than doing the decent thing and chucking it
in the hedge. If you weren't leant over very far then you should have
been able to let the bike come up a bit, straightening your line and
going deeper into the bend,, then put it back over a bit harder to go
inside the rock.

Well done and all for not lobbing it or going straight on through the
hedge, but you will learn from this incident, won't you?

I've been there - I remember a piece of stone in Derbyshire that had
been dislodged from a drystone wall: sandstone it was, with little
sparkly bits in its yellowness - just lurking right on my line, just
past the apex of a tight downhill left-hander. Right where I really,
really didn't need a slab of sandstone, iyswim.

I braked. I ran wide around it, across the white line and caused an
oncoming biker to move over, off his line into his uphill right
hander; fortunately he wasn't committed or we might have had a coming
together. I did shit myself a bit though.

I just know that if I'd run over that innocuous slice of sparkly
sandstone that it would have slid out from under my front tyre and I'd
have been in the wall on the outside of the corner. Making the
oncoming bike shift line was probably the lesser evil, as I may have
collected him, bouncing and sliding when rebounding from the wall.

At the next fag break, I asked Flook how he avoided it (as I was
following him) and he replied that he'd spied it, noted it and looked
up, tightened his (faster) line and gone up the inside of it. The
smug fucker.

I learned from that. I learned a lot from Flook, whether he knows
that or not. I've learned a lot from uk.r.m. too, whether they care
or not. That's why I often try to discuss stuff like this, here or
IRL as I'm still learning and all sorts of silent majority types learn
too - or disagree violently and mutter into their bearded keyboards.

There's a game plan, see: if the object is right on your line and you
really want to miss it, you need to pass inside or outside it. It
only takes a fractional movement to shift your line a couple of inches
so that you miss the obstruction.
Outside, as you rightfully note, is fraught with white lines, catseyes
and oncoming traffic.
Inside is safer but more difficult, especially if you're pressing on a
bit.

Your contact patch under the front tyre is your best friend and you
don't ever want to lose it. Because it is your best friend, however,
it will accept a bit of abuse in extremis, especially if you take
steps to minimise the upset.

To round your rock on the inside, you'd need to look away from the
bastard - towards the exit line of the left bend it was on, pushed the
left (inside) bar away from you to tighten your line and squeezed a
tiny bit of throttle on whilst leaning in a bit more or even shifting
a lardy bit on the seat to the inside. You might have shoved a bit
onto the outside peg at the same time (if there was time) to keep the
bike settled.

Once inside the rock, you'd need to shove in hard against the tank
with your right knee, pulling your body over the bike and the bike
upright at the same time, levering the right bar away from you to
prepare for the next (right) corner, rolling on the gas if possible.

Going round the outside would be much easier. Assuming you to be on a
safe line in the first place, there should be room to widen your line
a couple of inches with running exorbitantly wide into oncoming
traffic. If it were me, I'd grab a bite of front brake. I've
practised this and used it many times, see. Grab a bit of front ('cos
I always cover it) and the bike stands up a bit - then lean it round
the corner from the new wider line. Easy.

Of course, if one were to grab too much and too hard, then the front
locks or washes out and one gracefully lowsides under the oncoming
Scania. But motorcycling is a broad church and the aisles are wide
enough for flattened bikers to access them ...

 

snip rock incident

I was hoping you and other experienced riders would pop up here.

I could have gone round it.

Following rider had seen the rock (probably before I did) and was
having a 'let her be OK moment' I think.

I think we need to do this bit with a pen and paper, I'll find it
easier to visualise all the trajectories.

I've been told I had the room to do this but my confidence in my
ability to do it at the time was missing. As I've not been out again
since I got back I don't know yet how my riding will be affected.
Hopefully in the 'ah now I have additional info let us apply it'
manner rather than the 'I'll be a wobbly newby forever' fashion which
is where my head is at the moment. And yes I know I need to snap out
of that or it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.

I learn every day Mr Pip.

Oh yes.

As you would..

I thought my actions would have been more dangerous than the rocks
actions iyswim.

But now you can do things like that because you watched and learned
right?

I think some of them do, though they keep it quiet. fear of being seen
as soft isn't it?

That's why I posted it, also the long one on the ride after the
spannering - I was hoping you and other experienced riders would pop
up there as well. Other people's accounts give you info on what to
watch out for and hints and tips on being a better rider.

You wonder if they've all got broken fingers sometimes. As much as
ukrm contains banter, discussions, requests for info etc, at its core
for me are the spannering and riding posts.

I'd got that far.

I didn't get that far

I was in no way pressing on. I was in ultra cautious mode. A child on
a tricycle could have avoided the fecking thing

Being so target fixated as to line it up slap in the middle isn't the
sort of step you were thinking of was it?

I think show and tell is needed - as above I'm reading the words but
not getting the visual.

This bit I can see clearly, as I knew my shoulder was too painful to
flip the bike into the right hander I knew was coming up, which then
effectively took that option away.

There was, it was fear pure and simple that made me not do this. It
was an 'I have kids' moment. Not wishing to detract from a father's
experience and love for his children IME there is a far stronger
sensation when you've lumbered the little fuckers around inside you
for 9 months then let them hang off your nipples. The fact that it is
all so random and that one of those other road users or your own
mistakes could kill you means I want to be as safe as I can possibly
be and if that means I'm slower than <insert ukrm stereotype here>
then I'm happy with that.

Are there any other mums reading? Elly? Any thoughts? Dads? Or is this
one of those 'we actually have decided not to think about the risk'
things?

Maybe some day I'll decide the rewards of biking are not worth the
risk.

Going back to the 'do you or don't you cover' thread, I've found that
on motorways with little traffic I don't but even then I found my
index finger kept creeping over it - all on its own without me telling
it too.

Yes, should have thought that a small pull would stand it up and alter
my line for me, without me having to countersteer/shift/turn/alter
weight. Oh damn, I'm kicking myself now, I knew it does this, but I'd
just had 'dont grab a handful' go though my head, then not thought any
more about braking. Still hopefully remember next time eh.

Again, this I thought. But a tiny dab wouldn't have unsettled the
front anyone near as badly as the rock yes?

I'll be in the Lady Chapel having a think.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Lady Nina

Which suggests you're not looking far enough ahead. Get your head up[1]!

Spotting stuff like this early is the best way to avoid it, if you only
clock it at the last minute your options are severely limited.

[1] I never thought I'd say that to a woman...

 

I do want, which email addy for you?

 

She's not here, thank Christ, but I remember my Mum saying that the
first time she pillioned after we were all born she didn't like it at
all - the thought that if anything happened to her and Dad together,
us kids would be orphans. Before they were married, and before we
were born, bikes were my parents' only mode of transport, and so they
did a lot of miles on two wheels. And after we were all adults she
started going pillion again and loved it like she had before.

 

Well I'm not really, not compared to a lot of people here. I was a
late starter so I've had to catch up - that's why I analyse my riding
and try to improve it. I'm not one of these instinctive types, I've
had to learn. But no bugger else was giving it a go, so I thought I'd
do it - and prolly stir 'em up a bit with a bit of luck.

I would be delighted to be as good as flook. I'd be pleased to be
able to pass on a small fraction of the practices and attitudes with
which flook and others have educated me.

We used to do lots more. I dunno why it doesn't happen as often any
more - lack of the right questions perhaps.

Not many people are interested in spannering, see - they get a man in.

We need to do beers.

 

I had to consciously do this a few times in Scotland the other week.
Mainly for debris that had been washed across the road in the rain.
Perhaps it's a Scottish thing.

You can be "told" until the cows come home, but until you've done it,
you won't *know* that it works.

It'd prolly been Graingered.

There's always the risk of being shouted down, which might make some
tend to keep their thoughts under their hat.

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?h...dm=
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..69339../..16127.../..3180./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17
'^' RBR-Visited:74 Pts:1630 Miles:5400

 

Lady Nina says...

I have never let the fact that I am a father be a factor in anything
I've done. Selfish I know, but it's kept me from going prematurely
senile.

 

The one in my headers...

works.

 

I tend to be a fair bit more paranoid with Laura on the back. It's recently
occurred to me that I probably wouldn't want to survive a crash that killed
her.

 

Not so's you'd notice though...

 

Just imagine how much worse it would be!

 

I think people also get bored. It's like all the "which bike?" threads.
Once you've expressed your opinion a few times, it starts to get a bit too
much effort to do it yet again.

With the riding threads, there are an alarming number of people who don't
seem to want advice: they just want people to say how good/lucky they
were, or how bad some driver was. When one has the temerity to suggest
they could have done better, they get defensive or even abusive. That
just gets tedious.

 

After lots of thinking last night and today, I shall get bike sorted
this weekend and get out again.

 

Be this point in the journey I was aware of how much I was having to
work at it, rather than it all flowing, whcih it does at times and is
a wonderful sensation

*snort* (or should that be spit?)

 

Lady Nina says...

Pixiefest this weekend, don't forget