It must be British Summer Time…

General Biker Banter

Moderators: al, Administrator

Post Reply
User avatar
Dave
Enjoys a nice shaft!
Posts: 2160
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2003 8:24 am
Current Ride: Big sensible pretty bikes with big smooth tyres,
Small bikes with small lumpy tyres and a truck with HUGE lumpy tyres !
Location: Red Dwarf
Contact:

It must be British Summer Time…

Post by Dave »

It must be British Summer Time, the hail is warmer than usual :???

Last light on the way home, the air temp was reading +7 deg C when I jumped onto the bike.
A few miles from the big city it started drizzling, then the proper rain started, the temp was still reading +7 deg C, not much wind, the ride was still pleasant enough and I was thinking of which route I would be taking home.

About 15 mile from Aberdeen, it was like entering one of those walk in freezers, it was still raining but the air temp dropped suddenly, my visor started misting, and I had to click the heated grips up a setting.
When I wiped the visor I noticed the air temp had dropped to +2deg C.
For some reason any “the long way home” thoughts I had disappeared from my head, and home was the direct target.

I turned off a main road onto a single track road, downhill, to be faced with 40% of either side of the road with a deep river running, so I ran on the middle 20%, which felt strange, so I gently touched the rear brake causing the abs to kick in.
WTF
So I moved in to the running water, gently touched the rear brake again and the bike slowed ok.

That middle section had a covering of hail, which was wet, camouflaging it just to look like the tar.
Due to the rain which happed to have the odd bit of hail, the distance visibility was not the best, things looked strange, which turned out to be the fields turning white.

A mile later when I joined an A road, there was a couple of inches of slush across the road, only car tracks visible but filled with water…WTF

The track heading to my home was 100% covered, one set of car tracks to follow, but they had compacted the hail making it slipperier than the fresh hail.

A good outcomes from this is proving my “summer” boots, old things, complete with homemade patch on the gear change pad which had worn thru, well these are still waterproof, well tested last night with about 5 miles of water/slush consistently pounding them.

Tyres, the Michelin Pilot Road 4’s were very good (not as good as the TKC 80), better than expected, when I parked up the bike, the tyres had made a nice clear impression in the compacted hail.

The bike (MT-09 Tracer) did well, when heading up the track the traction control kicked in a few times, but in a nice smooth way, not like the brutal “no/off” of the oil cooled GS 1200 Adventure I had last year.
When I switched off the traction control, again the bike was smooth, not sure if it was too smooth compared with my old v-twin KTM (now departed from my stable), but the KTM was shod with TKC-80’s which gave a great deal of control in deep slippery stuff.

Things could have been worse, I could have been caught in the hail shower which must have been impressive.

This morning, well the nice clear track I made with the bike was still clearly visible, complete with the tyre tread pattern.

British Summer Time eh, shame that is only a reference for time, not the weather.
willian
Late Braker
Posts: 396
Joined: Wed May 13, 2015 5:15 pm
Current Ride: versatile system type bike....
Location: In the Sticks

Re: It must be British Summer Time…

Post by willian »

Had a nice run out yesterday late morning up via Oldmeldrum, Fyvie, cuminestown the broch and Peterhead.

Back down through Ellon and home again, all in all just over 100 miles.

Wee bit of drizzle the last 5 miles or so.
Post Reply