Winter riding tips

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Dave
Enjoys a nice shaft!
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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 !
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Winter riding tips

Post by Dave »

I was looking for something else, but found this on an old thread...quite apt I thought ...


# The ability to stop within the distance you can see.
A great line from the highway code, and a good one as well.
I like to think I ride with that ability, but know from past experience that I haven’t been able to stop as soon as I had wished at the time, oops.


# Snow on the road,
Use a Landrover, a proper Landrover, with lumpy tyres.
Be careful, there are some imitations out there, cars with little green oval badges with “Landrover” on them.
How to tell is you have a proper Landrover: if there are electric windows, then it is a fake Landrover!
Likewise, if the heater, radio and windscreen wipers work all the time, then you have a fake one!
Failing that, use any vehicle with four wheels or more.


# Preparation
ie clothing, route, fuel. The correct selection will make the journey easier, more comfortable.
Cold hands or body can and will distract from your attention to the road.


# “Micro climates”
Most of us will know that in the shade the temperature can be a bit colder than on the sun.
When the roads are wet, and the temp in the sun are only just above freezing, there is a good chance of ice in the shade, in the dips.
And at bridges, rest of the road can be fine but not a bridge cold air over the road surface and under it.


# Speed
Great subject, and many of us love it, but a real bugger when inappropriate and going into a downhill shady corner when you think the road is dry, but you notice the frost at the side of the road very late into the breaking zone you would use in the summer.


# Heated grips, heated gloves and a top box.
Heated grips/gloves, require no explanation.
Top box, handy for spare gloves, torch and/or glow sticks, spare warm clothing, blanket, flask of hot soup, anything else on the police/AA/RAC/BBC winter advice sheets !


# The seasons...
You might wake up to a nice sunny morning, but this is Scotland and four seasons in one day is the norm.


# Tyre pressures
Check your tyre pressures, these will go down in very cold weather


# Brakes
Use the back brake more often for scrubbing off speed, makes the bike more stable and will alert you earlier if the road surface is slippery.


# Upright and smooth
Calm down, calm down ladies, this is referring to the use of throttle and brakes while keeping the bike as upright as possible.
Sound like common sense, but who has had an unexpected breaking away of the front or rear, that when you think about it later, could have been avoided by keeping it upright and / or smoother use to the controls?


# Your visibility (especially when filtering)
Your visibility to other road users is rubbish in the dark and the wet.
Side windows get drops of rain, with act like little lens’s, so when drivers look in their mirrors they see lots of points of light from other cars etc, effectively making bikes indivisible.


# Noise
Or lack of it. Once you stop hearing the sound of road noise from you tyres, you are probably on ice (or have stopped).


# Headlights
Many bike headlights are crap really crap, cleaning them helps a lot.
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:

Re: Winter riding tips

Post by Dave »

Dave wrote:
# Tyre pressures
Check your tyre pressures, these will go down in very cold weather

...and will go to ZERO if there is a loving hole in the tyre :angryfire
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