Wow! What a buzz!!

[Ixion]

..

Interested in Ixion's comments about faired bikes in wind. My old BMW K100RS tended to get battered about in crosswinds but the Blackbird doesn't, even with its greater fairing side area. I reckon it's your moment of inertia that has the biggest influence (BMW half fairing high up from the pivot point (the road) and the same for the upright stance of the rider. Possibly a higher centre of gravity too and forward-biased for the Beemer.

And on that technical note, I will go and do some useful work to earn a crust...

Could be. The difference between the RS and RT is that the RT has the full lower fairing. So we might surmise that what matters is how much wind resistance teh top half of the bike offers versus the lower half.

RT fairing, plastic all the way down, the wind hits it and the force is more or less even all the way up the bike. So it's just a sideways force not a "toppling" force.

RS the wind hits it, there is resistance at the top of the bike, on the lower half the wind blows through (not completely, but more than the faired top half). So the wind force isn't even up the side of the bike, it will tend to force the top over - ie lean the bike.

I think that makes a sort of sense, and it's interesting being able to compare what is effectively the same bike (as far as geometry etc goes) , just with different fairings.

[sAsLEX]

ya blouse it wasn't that bad this morning, hardly a breeze, rode across at about 8

I once rode to the naki in a strom and coming across the top of the cliffs between awakino and mokau the wind was so strong that from sitting right on the centre line I got blown in to the gravel on the left of the other white line on the left when hit from the sea breeze.
Then when going through where the road cuts through a hill, the wind reversed and blew me into the oncoming lane! This sort of carried on for the few k's where it was exposed, lucky there wasn't much traffic else I would of had to pull over and wait out the wind, would of shat myself but I was too cold, had to stop every 20 mins and hold the headers to warm the hands up to a point where i could feel my fingers!


Like Ixio said constant wind aint too bad, just lean in to it a bit, but its rapidly changing wind that shits me.

[crashe]

great report of this mornings ride....
Glad you made it ok....

I have ridden over the bridge when the winds have been up,
but I dont think as strong as you described it.

[Lou Girardin]

It WAS fun wasn't it. All the cagers doing 60 k's because the wind is making their car go - whoopsy. And I'm zapping past at 90 because the bike's more stable up there.
Then you take the bend under the Ponsnobby off-ramp and it all goes silent as the wind swings behind.