I am putting up my hand asking for advice - well aware that people are going to tell me that I am retarded and a useless rider, the same old crap when I genuinely ask for advice.
But... I do need advice as I have lost a hell of a lot of confidence lately and as a result my bike is now basically stuck up the top of my driveway for winter until the ground dries out again. And that is not suiting me very well as I want to be commuting on my bike as much as possible to save on transport costs.
I would appreciate some advice as to how best approach getting up and down my rural gravel driveway on my R6.
I manage ok in the drier months, but with the rain and moisture on the ground I have lost all my confidence after almost coming off last time I came home from work on it.
A few of you will know my driveway. Perhaps only 80m long, gravel from the road edge where you turn in mixed with concrete, then it curves and starts to incline with gravel, tyre ruts and then the incline gets steeper when it straightens out. About half way up where the incline is at its steepest the gravel has mostly washed away and I'm left with clay in the tyre ruts. My neighbour who "maintains" the drive rakes all the loose gravel with his quad bike into the tyre ruts and the gravel is chucky and some of it quite large. The car slides on the wet clay trying to get up but there are still specks of gravel just outside of the tyre track.
I would feel a lot happier about this if I had more room to get my line from the road entry but I find I have to go from one tyre track across to the other as I get around the first bend due to the pot holes further up.
I'm not confident with the bike moving so much below me and it makes me really unsettled with the rear tyre slipping so much as I try to get up and over the brow of this hill when I hit large chunks of gravel, then onto clay. I'm trying my best to look ahead to the top of the drive, and loosen my grip on the bars and allow the bike to move. But I really am getting worse each time I do it (and the driveway is getting worse each winter unfortunately). With some decent pot holes I sometimes loose the constant power to the throttle and its bloody hard to get it back in time when I do.
Would appreciate some things I can try to get up it with a little more control or confidence. Going down it is ok - unless I come across a car coming up which happened 2 weeks ago. I touched the rear break thinking it was the better one to use doing downhill on gravel, but only narrowly stopped it going over, and even with front breaking I couldn't bring the bike to a stop on the steep part heading straight for the car. Was incredibly thankful the driver could see me skidding out of control and managed to drive up the bank enough to let me pass as there wasn't much of another option at that point in time.
I'm happy to ride in the cold and rain and dark. It doesn't worry me at all. What scares the fuck out of me in my driveway in winter. And I know it shouldn't be something that has that much control over me. I have lived her for 4.5 years - imagine I will be here for at least that again. The driveway is not changing any time soon, nor is my choice of bike. So I need to figure this out. Will more speed help me in my approach?
Have a slight block about falling off for some reason.
Appreciate any help in advance.
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