Road tips for newbies or fresh country riders

[beyond]

Couple of tips for those of you who are new to motorcycling or are just getting into country road riding for the first time.

If you see cowshit or shit on the road that is not dry, the fresher it is the more likely there will be a cow or cows or some sort of stock around the corner. Be prepared to dodge the shit or you might end up sniffing it but be prepared to dodge what created it as well.

If you see mud or dirt tracks on the road, good chance farmer brown is doing some work in the area and could be crossing the road around the next bend or doing a sedate 15kmh just around the corner. He may as well be stopped or coming at you if you happen to be giving it stick or going a little too fast.

Often, country roads are patched or small areas of resealing is done without any signs or warning. Should you happen to encounter one of these on your cornering line and can't brake in time, momentarily stand your bike up for a split second without straying into the other lane, ride across it upright and immediately drop back into the corner again.

Practice this move on a safe piece of road so when you need to do it, it becomes second nature. This will save your skin over and over again. Can also do this on wet tar patches when necessary.

That's it for today. Keep her shiny side up :)

[yungatart]

Good advice, kind sir!
The cow shit is often smelled before it is seen...trust your nose, it can be a great asset when you are on a bike

[Usarka]

If during the week be aware of rural post delivery vehicles.

They post through the drivers window. How do they do that you wonder....?

[dave222]

When you say stand your bike up in the corner how do I do that safely?

I have tried that a few times and lets say im taking a right hand corner at average pace, spot some shit/stones/whatever do i just push the left bar? Because then seems to send me to the center line very quickly.

Maybe I just need more practice.

[beyond]

When you say stand your bike up in the corner how do I do that safely?

I have tried that a few times and lets say im taking a right hand corner at average pace, spot some shit/stones/whatever do i just push the left bar? Because then seems to send me to the center line very quickly.

Maybe I just need more practice.

The faster you are going the less time and less distance you have to do this manouevre. What bar you push depends on wether you want to go left or right of the obstacle. Longer patches normally mean you don't really have the time to do a lot but can stand her up and brake a little at least. (Carefully of course)

[beyond]

If during the week be aware of rural post delivery vehicles.

They post through the drivers window. How do they do that you wonder....?

Very good point too. Often they are backing out or turning on blind corners at any spot without warning at all.

[mctshirt]

The countryside is full of hazards:

- Rural posties pull mad maneuvers Monday to Saturday all year round - they reckon they check their mirrors every time - you decide...

- Rural folk will pull the same mad maneuver to get their mail without alighting their vehicle and are too distracted by the papaer and the bills to check their mirrors.

- Rural folk will stop for a chat on the road in any type of vehicle anywhere at any given time and will consider it your fault if you hit them because you were going too fast anyway.

- Springtime is lambing season and theres a window of a few weeks when fences don't hold them when they go adventuring on the roadside and they have no sense (an even dumber sheep). Most farmers don't have lambs in roadside paddocks because they can literally walk through fences but if feed is short...

- Early spring is crop planting time meaning a slow moving tractor with up to 14m worth of wide multiple implements may be pulling a complicated road blocking maneuver into a gateway around any corner.

- Late spring to late summer is hay and silage time - same tractor with a guy doing 80 to 100 hours a 7 day week with implements bearing grass grabbing teeth plus trucks carting the hay and silage driven by Massey or Lincoln varsity students making some beer money during the summer hols.

- Late summer to early autumn is harvesting - same driver with a big fuck off header thats even harder to get into gateways with his posse of trucks to carry the grain away to make the bread to make the toast which could turn out to be your last meal...

- Early spring to early autumn is shearing with large mobs of sheep taking the quickest route to the shearing shed. On a farm that runs both sides of the road can you guess what the main track is? Lots of fresh poos is a good sign stock are on the move and aren't bright enough to appreciate your highly strung thoroughbred race machine is approaching quickly and they should consider moving off the road to avoid bloodshed.

- Milking is done morning and afternoon and if the cows have to cross the road they still aren't bright enough to appreciate the howl of your aftermarket pipe at full shriek is a sign of danger. Good farmers will have someone at the gateway to halt the procession however the farms run by lazy stupid people aren't signposted. Be aware that some even have hot wires across the road to contain their expensive bovine cash creating milk factories...

- Late spring to autumn the stock trucks are out trying to find impossibly narrow gateways to stockyards they have never been to before and if they overshoot they haven't got time to head up the road and turn around - besides where can they turn a truck and trailer unit round on those narrow twisty back roads and how much road will they need to do it?

- Milk tanker drivers are all convinced Schumacher actually drove like Nana and would be unable to pull the F1 maneuvers they can in a fully laden tanker on Monaco-like roads late braking in and out of gravel driveways using all the road to apex the corner...

- School holidays is just the jolly time for the young girls of the district to saddle up their ponies and go for a group ride to their mates place - Dobbin may or may not react well to your Rossi like knee dragging approach as Dobbin hasn't watched MotoGP and doesn't understand your god like status in the universe and doesn't like loud noises.

So apart from a few of those random things you should be sweet - don't forget to countersteer and wave - do farmers on quads count as fellow bikers?
;)

[beyond]

Shees, you make the motorways and city streets feel a thousand times safer now.
Time to park up the bike and hang up the helmet eh? :sweatdrop

[BiK3RChiK]

Arrrh.. he must be country lad from down on the farm ;)

[Big Dave]

Don't write cheques with your ego that your ability can't cash.

[fliplid]

The rural postie between Drury and Papakura insists on driving around with flashing hazards- so no clue as to where the hell they're planning on going! Don't know why, as they already have multiple flashing lights all over the van... :wacko:

[prettybillie]

Keep this type of advice coming and I may eventually learn to keep my bike on two wheels mwahahahaha

[Katman]

The countryside is full of hazards............

etc, etc, etc,



One of the best posts I've read in a long time.

[twistemotion]

The countryside is full of hazards:


Loved it! I guess we have to watch out for the sleepy hollows too. But it's true, country folk are often much less 'traffic aware'.

[Hitcher]

Nobody mentioned sheep. Invariably if you see a flock of ewes (girl sheep) with lambs (baby sheep) in a paddock (a large fenced grassy area) adjoining the road, there will often be a lamb or lambs that has managed to get itself on your side of the fence. Sheep on their own are always a bit random and lambs are particularly so. Keep your eyes peeled and be prepared for peripatetic livestock.

[Sparrowhawk]

Don't write cheques with your ego that your ability can't cash.

I love it!! Best quote I've read in ages!

[Oscar]

Nobody mentioned sheep. Invariably if you see a flock of ewes (girl sheep) with lambs (baby sheep) in a paddock (a large fenced grassy area) adjoining the road, there will often be a lamb or lambs that has managed to get itself on your side of the fence. Sheep on their own are always a bit random and lambs are particularly so. Keep your eyes peeled and be prepared for peripatetic livestock.

The classic suicide sheep attack goes like this:

They are on the verge ("The Long Acre") and run panic stricken parallel with your bike. Eventually one runs head down into a tree, fence post or other sheep. On regaining it's hooves it finds itself with 50% less working braincells than normal (i.e. one) and runs blindly in any given direction - straight in front of you...

This message is brought to you from the voice of experience and repository of interesting scars, give the Kamikaze Woolies a wide berth.

[slofox]

Two more instances:
1.) Happened this morning. Passing through a little rural village, round the left hander (no through vision) and there's a very long truck parked all the way across the road. Driver had bottomed out the back on a sloping driveway and was stuck. Lucky it was a 50km zone - plenty time to stop without drama. But unexpected all the same.
2.) Happened many years ago. Out in the back country of Canterbury. Rounded a corner on a rural road, open road speed, and a kid runs out of a driveway onto the road...not a shit show of stopping but the gods were smiling and the collision didn't happen. But I had no control whatsoever over missing this kid - it was sheer luck. Scary? Yep. Never forgotten it. So don't go screaming around corners you can't see through....you just never know what's round there...

[jrandom]

Time to park up the bike and hang up the helmet eh? :sweatdrop

No, just come along to the goddamn racetrack!

[carver]

i find you should ride "within your head"
ie, so that you dont feel overwhelmed by your speed

[Sully60]

Don't write cheques with your ego that your ability can't cash.

Or you'll end up flying into the back of a quad full of cowshit just out the back of the Hokianga.

[Starky307]

When you say stand your bike up in the corner how do I do that safely?

I have tried that a few times and lets say im taking a right hand corner at average pace, spot some shit/stones/whatever do i just push the left bar? Because then seems to send me to the center line very quickly.

Maybe I just need more practice.

You may not know you are doing it but you actually need to push on the opposite side to the direction you want to go. Try it while you are riding on a straight piece of road.

So as you asked you would need to push on the right bar to "stand" the bike up while in a right hand corner.

Hope that helps.

[Subike]

Between march and may watch out around Vineyards for road splash!
That is grapes that splash out of the trucks carrying them to the presses when comming out of driveways, at stop/giveway signs and long corners.
These are extremley slippery being wet grapes skins.
If you ever see this, report it, as it is as bad as an oil slick on the road and needs to be cleaned off.

[Oscar]

You may not know you are doing it but you actually need to push on the opposite side to the direction you want to go. Try it while you are riding on a straight piece of road.

So as you asked you would need to push on the right bar to "stand" the bike up while in a right hand corner.

Hope that helps.

Countersteering.


Countersteering is the technique used by cyclists and motorcyclists to initiate turning toward a given direction by first steering counter to the desired direction ("steer left to turn right"). In order to negotiate a turn successfully, the combined center of mass of the rider and the single-track vehicle must first be leaned in the direction of the turn, and steering momentarily in the opposite direction causes that lean. Once sufficient lean is established to sustain the desired turn, the rider, or in many cases the bike itself, then steers into the turn to cause the bike to turn in the desired direction and stop the lean from increasing.

It is important to distinguish between countersteering as a physical phenomenon and countersteering as a rider technique for initiating a lean (the usual interpretation of the term). The physical phenomenon always occurs, because there is no other way to cause the bike and rider to lean short of some outside influence such as an opportune side wind, although at low speeds it can be lost or hidden in the minute corrections made to maintain balance.

[Starky307]

Countersteering.

That is avery good description.

[elle-f]

Actually, I think that pukeko could possibly be dumber than sheep and lambs on the road. I learned that today as one turned into my back wheel from behind as I had slowed down to miss it

[dave222]

Countersteering.

I do understand counter steering and use it on every ride.

[Hitcher]

That is avery good description.

You're new here, aren't you.

[Starky307]

You're new here, aren't you.

i guess that description is like asking for a special kb wave, your right that i am new enough to have not seen it before.