Dirt Roads

[Grappler]

I owned a bike about 20 years ago and rode it a lot them --mostly in urban areas.

I have taken the motorcycle safety class offered through the military.

I just bought an '05 Honda Shadow Spirit 750 which I absolutely love. I am having a blast riding again, and everything is coming back pretty quickly.

On my daily drive to work I have to ride about 2 miles of curvy dirt road. It is graded pretty regularly, and has no traffic.

So here are my questions:

I bought chain wax instead of oil, hoping that this would not attract sand/grit like oil would. Is this the right thing to do?

If I keep my speed down, can I avoid dinging my paint and chrome with the pebbles on the road?

I rode today on the dirt rode while it was still wet after some rain -- the from the of radiator had dirt on it -- will this a big maintanence issue and am I ok just hoseing it off?

Finally, and most importantly, any tips that you can give on riding a road bike on dirt would be great. Right now I am keeping it nice and slow (15-20 mph) to be safe.

Thanks!

[Ninja Geoff]

go slow and keep a steady throttle, just like you've already figured out, Plan bits of the road ahead. If there's a rut 50 feet ahead and no cars caoming and you can see far enough down the road, start moving over then instead of waiting until you're on top of it.

You could always just get some knobbies for the bike