[boulevardboy]

The problem with all the snow that we had a while back is that when it goes you end up with a load of grit all over the place. I have been very careful when cornering so as not to skid on it, but tonight I wasn’t lucky and took a spill. The wheels just went right from under me and I wasn’t even really going fast, nor was I even into the turn proper. I am totally fine as it wasn’t bad, and so is my bike, which was the most important thing to me after I realized that I was OK. There are scratches on the mirro, and then my foot peg got bent a bit, but that is the extent of it. I almost didn’t want to stand up the bike for fear of seeing a big rash on the tank, but it was fine. The bike is pretty light at about 350lbs, but it is surprisingly hard to pick up when you are on a hill, skidding on gravel with a bike on your foot!

Got that out of the way though, and it was not a bad experince, so lets hope I don’t have to ley it down again.

[megaspaz]

dang. sorry to hear about your spill. glad to hear you’re ok. sounds like the bike shouldn’t be too much to fix up.

[Munch]

Man… sorry to hear that … I think… I hate that you laid it down but very happy to hear that both bike and owner are in great shape!
Man… you guys are starting to make me worry…. that makes 4 regulars now…. fingers crossed I am not the 5th.

[eon]

I was reading in the paper today how the 12,000 tons of sand the city of Seattle had used on the snow was causing havoc for bicyclists! Some poor guy took a spill and broke his pelvis, wrist and elbow. Ouch…but I gotta wonder what he was doing. When you are doing 12mph you have a bit more time to see and react to road hazards like that. The good city has cleaned up 6,000 tons of the stuff which means there are still 6,000 tons out there. It is so bad that it even jammed one of the movable bridges twice in one day last week.

Glad you survived without much damage.

[Sangria7]

Good to hear youre not injured and your bike is basically in good shape.

[briderdt]

More like 18-25, and if you venture more than 6″ from the fog line, people in cars honk their horn or actively PUSH you off the road. And guess where all that sand collects? Right…

You think cagers are aggressive towards motorcycles? Try riding a bicycle.

[Clay Dowling]

compared to regular bicyclists. Fortunately I live in an area where people are pretty cool, we even have a lot of bike lanes. But there are a lot more cagers hostile to bicyclists than to motorcycle riders. And there’s the occasional redneck who wants to actively hassle anybody on a bicycle.

[eon]

Hah…I thought you would bite at that one
For us normal mortals I think 12 ~ 15mph is the average on a flat road over any type of distance. And I have to say a lot bicyclists do not do themselves any favors with the way they ride, and I am come from a family of bicyclists so if they annoy me then god only knows how much they annoy others. But this is getting way off topic here

[briderdt]

I agree, many cyclists out there are our own worst enemies. I don’t ride with those people.

[boulevardboy]

Thanks guys for all the friendly comments, glad I was only going slow so that I did manage to ride away from it.

What could I have done differnt though and how could I prevent it from happening again? Both good questions that I do not have a really good answer to. As I said, I wasn’t even really into the turn that much before the bike just went from uinder me and it was so fast that there wasn’t even time to realize that I was going down before I was down.

The best thing that I can think of to do is to avoid those areas of rode that are heavily covered in grit as much as possible – I always try to go wide on turns now as I know that the damn stuff is everwhere. I also try to go slow enough to keep the bike basically upright at all times, rather than lean into the turn. That may not be the best way to manouver, but for me it is the easiest and safest for now. I do intend to take the intermediate MSF course though and holpefully that will help for future.

That junction that I fell on was particularly bad though with a lot of grit going all the way across the lane. I don’t go that way often, but if I had to then I would go out with a broom and sweep it all off the road – avoidance seems to be a really good option!

[boulevardboy]

Thanks for the stats – lets hope they get around to cleaning the rest of it up soon!

[Author]

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