How to ride a motorcycle in the rain
 

great stuff.... kinda like Sendler on his commute in the frozen Northeast !!! JK

Makes me want to take up riding bikes !
That guy mastered that machine .

Reminds me of Ice Racing in northern MI, only for ice they use dirtbikes with studded tires.

Reminds me of myself back in August...only my bike went down 1/2mi from home after a 60mi pouring rain ride :(

I never ride on ice or when it has been below freezing at any point but it rains and or snows 170 days a year in Syracuse so I ride in the rain quite often and I'm pleased to report that the stock IRC tires on the CBR250R (and Ninja) are excellent in the rain as I have never felt them slip. Even while exploring the limits of wet braking by intentionally mashing the lever when experimenting close to home in the rain. It is also surprising how much clear visibility remains when you lay on the tank and peek through the magic dry spot that materializes just above the wind screen while riding at highway speed. The only thing that really gets wet are my toes.

Kind of reminds me of when they held the USGP world points road races at Laguna Seca. Those world class guys came down the final straightaway at >140 mph, hit the binders so hard you could see their bikes wobble, and lifted their front wheels on the next 3 shifts coming out of turn 1 going into turn 2, a blind left turn dropoff. Those top tier riders are scaringly crazy good!

Awesome ride, wish I were half as good. But modern ABS make me pretty good on breaking in the rain:D
Ed:turtle:

Put a baggie over your socks Sendler :D.
regards
Mech

In normal years we have less rain, and I'm thankful for it. Teresa is not really cut for laying on the tank (oops, the tank is somewhere else, I sit on it), and I like upright position much better (I know that it's aerodynamically bad, but laying on the tank is a moderately big no for me, and I'm scared ****less even at the thought of something recumbent) so if it really rains, I soak. I have rain clothes which keep me pretty dry, but I have to know of the rain before I go to put them on.

Sometimes I ride in the frost too, I didn't stop riding until the end of January when suddenly two-digit negatives became common and snow came too. Now I'm starting it again soon, this new snow should't last more than a day, it's much warmer now, so I can bring my beloved bike back from the workshop where I took her last Monday and where she gets her winter maintenance.

I even had a little accident when I tried to go down our steep hill on black ice. I couldn't maintain my upright position, to say the least...

On the tires: these Heidenau K73s I have on Teresa could really be called winter tires, they grip better on cold roads than the Metzeler Z6s before. They seem to have more rolling resistance, though, I got a bit worse FE last year than before. I'll try something else when I'll have worn them off.

I always ride with an Aerostitch one piece suit and laugh at the rain:D But I'm with you when the temps drop near freezing the bike stays parked.
Ed:turtle:

My 4-year old riding suit is far from waterproof so I have to put on some extra to keep the water away from it. And I won't replace them while they're in one piece (ok, my pants are definitely at the edge, all the zippers are dead, it's held together by duct tape on the left, the lining is peeling), I'm proud of being a bad consumer.

alvaro84 - man you need to pony up for a good suit. My stitch is about 100k mile old and faded but other than Scotch Guard sometimes is still going strong. Haven't had to test the abrasion resistance thankfully:D
Ed:turtle:

Basically I agree.

I rode to work at 4 - 5 a.m. this morning: about 30 degrees, wet roads, slush on the highway in places. Regardless of the amazing skill shown by the rider in the video, I found it necessary to slow to about 40 in the slushy areas; easy on the throttle and speed changes.... I wear an all season jacket, waterproof insulated Carhartt pants, with longjohns and a fleece jacket underneath. The biggest comfort-enhancer is Hippo Hands - I love those things and wish I had used them 20 years ago! I wear light leather gloves in them and my hands stay warm and dry. On really cold days (like this morning) I slip a Little Hottie handwarmer in each glove and my hands are toasty...

This. I definitely don't have his skills... and even if I had, it would be a bad way to go on public roads :D

I had a pair of something similar. They definitely worked around freeze point, the only problem that they weren't stiff enough. I'd have needed hard plastic handguards on the handlebar to keep the hand bags away from the brake and clutch levers they always kept under pressure because of the wind :mad:

I have a camo rain suit that is insulated. I usually wear that in the rain on my shadow.

I have been known to lay on the tank and put my feet on the passenger pegs behind me on long straight sections in the rain. I was down to 25 deg on my 65mile ride. Didn't have my winter gloves a pain of cloth gloves with latex under them. Had to stop 3 times to warm my hands up.

You, Sir, are crazy :eek:

I'd have to stop much earlier.
Because the pain in my hands would have killed me :D

Yea it was stupid on my part.
But I rode till my hands hurt. They felt like they were on fire. The rest of me was warm. Also my helmet kept fogging up, so I had to rise with the visor cracked.

I rode in the snow at night with my raingear and winter gloves on one time. I had to lift the visor a tad on my full face because it was fogging up like crazy. The snow wasn't settling yet and it was early in the storm. I couldn't really avoid the trip as the snow would have only gotten worse, but I didn't ride way too fast.

Plain rain gear with tennis shoes just doesn't work. Had many soaked socks that way. I'll wear boots next time, or my drysuit with the built-in booties (socks).

Nice thought but in the US public transport is a bad joke. I used to keep a real beater car for backup. But then a 1960 VW bug with rusted floor pans really wasn't a whole lot better than the bike:D

As I live outside any settlements, public transport is practically non-existent here.
If I walk (or pedal, leaving the bicycle at a public place without a roof for a half day) 4km to the village bus stop, then I walk another 3km after arriving to the city, then I can reach my workplace. Do it twice a day and add 12 hours of work and you won't have enough time to sleep. I've tried it in the winter, no thanks.

No public transport can make my commute. But I don't have any mud either.:) My CBR250R handles like a dream in the rain and wind. Keeps me warm and dry and offers good visibility when I lay on the tank and peek just over the top of the wind screen.

And makes me jealous of your FE :D

Anyway, I have some mud, the pavement ends before I get home. And a steep hill too. Two weeks ago I just couldn't make it up that hill, it was steep and muddy enough to get Teresa stuck at the bottom and dig a hole with the rear wheel... it was worse than thin snow.

So did you have to walk the rest of the way? My brother lives on top of a hill with a dirt road and no wires to his house. He rides a KLR650 but not in the winter.

I managed to turn around and go back down a "street". That had enough gravel to keep away the mud, and I could park in the bottom end of the garden. So I didn't had to walk more than 50 meters, I was just a bit angry for wasting fuel on that attempt.

This also contributes to my last, worse-than-3l-per-100km tank. Not as much as babying the dying drive belt with sluggish accelerations and seldom shifting to 5th lacking the necessary speed, though. And not as much as pouring rain over one of the commutes. Those surely didn't do any good to FE.

Not me:p I had to borrow a car for my first drivers licenses. Then for a year or two it was all weather riding in Northern VA. But I did learn snow by accident. I was a roofer, ceder, riding my then pretty new RD400F loaded with tools. Can't work in rain/snow. Left Potomac MD heading home to Reston VA. Light rain turned to snow in Herndon:eek: Was doing OK until traffic stopped going up a slight hill. Came to a stop and bike slid sideways in to drainage ditch:eek:

Definitely impressive riding in that vid.

Rain rarely phases me, but I've done a lot of riding in it. Hail, on the other hand, something we get plenty of (with great size)... that is something else.

When I picked up my bike this morning, it was raining like crazy. I was more concerned with fresh tires (mold release compound makes new tires slippery as I'm sure most know) and had no issue whatsoever, even in one hard braking event. I don't have the ABS bike, and even still I was very impressed with how well this bike stops in the rain.

Cold on the other hand, we don't get cold around here like sendler gets up in NY- but I have ridden in 17F with 1F wind chill. My snowmobile suit and winter gloves/balaclava/etc make that very bearable, in fact, leaving me sweating when I'm stopped. I just LOVE seeing the expressions on other drivers faces either in extreme cold or rain. It just cracks me up to see their mixture of disbelief, sympathy, etc... One winter, someone rolled their window down to say "YOU'RE CRAZY TO BE RIDING IN THIS WEATHER!" My response, "I wish the light would change, I'm sweating like crazy!!!"

The coldest I've ever ridden in was -7C (19F) this winter and I felt that it was about my limit. That snowmobile suit might be better than my cordura suit with 2 sweaters and a pair of underpants. Fortunately my heated gloves were still enough at that temp, but my hands would freeze without that. I don't even know if there's any glove that insulates like my body clothing or better (so it doesn't need extra heating) yet it's thin enough to operate the clutch, brake and turn signal switch. Aerogel wool, maybe? :D
(Aerogel wool socks would be nice too!)

LOL alvaro, yes we need us some aerogel winter gear! Maybe with heaters!

I used Frank Thomas (i think it is) winter gloves. I probably had two pairs of socks on too, with my motocross boots. I will admit, the tips of my fingers and the tips of my toes were a bit numb by the time I arrived, but it was only a 25 mile drive, and the ground was dry other than some icy spots in the shadowy shoulders of the freeway. The great thing about the snowmobile suit is the bib overalls, so you get some extra protection on the torso, and then I purposely ordered the jacket a couple sizes large and wore my normal leather cool weather jacket beneath the insulated snowmobile jacket.

I mentioned this story to a friend last night, he said "you know what I like to wear when it's rainy or cold and I need to go somewhere? a car." :D

I regularly rode an hour commute in Denver, down to 10 F (-12 C).

One time I rode to work in Anchorage in -6 F (-21 C) temperature.

Another time, to win a bet, I rode to work in Salt Lake City in 6" of snow.

Last year I rode my '78 CB400 all winter. Here in BC, it rains ALL winter long, which filled my ancient throttle cables up with water. This was all fine and good until the rain stopped and the temperature dropped. I think -5C was the threshold where my throttle cables would start to freeze about 2 km from home. The first time it happened I just about pood myself. I managed to let it freeze in a position that would keep me at 60 km/h. There were 4-way stops, traffic lights and all sorts of stuff after that which required unbelievable skill to negotiate with a stuck throttle. But I always made it. Parked the bike inside at work to thaw it out. It happened a few times.

In hindsight, it was kind of stupid.:eek:

You should have filled the cable with some grease to keep the water away.

I tried that. Many many times. Didn't work. BC gets so much rain in winter that NOTHING can stop it from getting into unsealed places.

Then.... I don't know :o

As long as the throttle isn't stuck such that you're pegging the redline without a load, keep in mind you can use your friction zone to regulate your speed... and of course the killswitch to shut 'er down when needed.

If you're getting that much water in there, I'll bet rust is contributing factor inside the cable housing. May be a good idea to buy/build new cables, and really thoroughly fill them with heavy grease with some manner of injection method.

Are you sure it was actually the cables causing the problem, and not water inside the throttle mechanism itself, or water/ice around the cam on the carb-end of the cable?

No, it was one of the cables. Water was getting into the throttle and collecting in a low spot under the tank. It started once I put straight bars on and had to reroute the cables, creating this low spot. It's someone else's problem now. I sold that bike last year and bought a wrecked DR-Z400S that I fixed up. Much much much more fun, but I am a huge fan of dual sport bikes.

I've ridden my motorcycle in anything but icing conditions.

Snow, downpours, cold (getting frost on the inside of the helmet screen), .. been there done that.
I've always loved the unbelieving faces of the cagers when waiting on a light in appalling conditions :)

Greeting a fellow crazy nut during the worst of winter, gives a far, far better feeling than nearly getting RSI while greeting fair weather riders on a good day :cool:

A friend of mine used to grease (read: fill) his cables with a fairly thick homebrewn mix of oil, graphite powder, and some molybdene powder if memory serves me right.
Anyway, it was a thick goo of assorted lubes.
NO water could go where that stuff was.


I used to liberally spray everything with WD40, except the brakes, chain and the sidestand. That's after I learned the hard way that you'd better not grease the sidestand . :D
Didn't look too shiny, but it kept working.

Absolutely! We are few and far between. It's been too long since I've ridden as primary transportation, but that is now changing.

I waved at this guy as he was enjoying some sun this afternoon- :turtle: Won't see them out on the roads in the cold, nosir!

When it's pouring rain and I show up at work all soaked (dry underneath, or course), everyone thinks I am nuts. Truth be told, I love riding in the rain. I don't know why. I'm weird, I guess.

The coldest morning I ever rode to work was -23C. Before I had the frozen throttle cable CB400. It was on my XT350, I think. Balaclava under the helmet. Full snowmobiling gloves. Long johns and rain pants for insulation. Visor cracked an inch open the whole way with frost still forming inside my visor. I was bloody cold, but the commute was only 8 km. I will never forget the guy in the car next to me at a traffic light laughing his head off.