Road tips for newbies or fresh country riders

[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?

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.