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oxbow1 wrote:

jstark47 wrote:

oxbow1 wrote:..............and now it's raining and it's going to keep on raining on every day I can ride for the next week.

It's supposed to clear off by tomorrow morning, and Wednesday is supposed to be clear too.

and I'll be working and picking up the kids after work,then I have to make dinner and then I have to make phone calls and set up more work,I'll be free by saturday but then it will rain again.

DAMN YOU AL ROKER! DAMN YOU AND YOUR INFERNAL WEATHER!

Bah, the rain wasn't that bad this weekend up in Hackensack where I took the MSF course this past weekend. It cleared up as the day went on both days.

And I got to learn riding in the rain on Sunday - that pissy it doesn't really feel like raining, but it seems it has to rain a little bit kind of rain, too.

So, I'm not super afraid of riding in the rain, but I do have my doubts about manhole covers in the rain and other metal objects.

But you know... There is never anything wrong with saying Damn you Al Roker... And all weathermen (and I won't be sexist, weatherwomen, too) everywhere. Oh, except that cute one I saw on the weather channel ages ago before she got pregnant.

Now, she, I wish had done some naked news....

RhadamYgg

RhadamYgg wrote:So, I'm not super afraid of riding in the rain, but I do have my doubts about manhole covers in the rain and other metal objects.

STAY OFF manhole covers and all metal objects in the rain. Painted lines on the road can be slippery too - you can't avoid them altogether, but try not to lean the bike on them or brake hard on them.

I was just out today in a light rain. What's the deal with manhole covers? As long as I don't brake or accelerate on them, I mean. Can't I just coast over them?

jstark47 wrote:

RhadamYgg wrote:So, I'm not super afraid of riding in the rain, but I do have my doubts about manhole covers in the rain and other metal objects.

STAY OFF manhole covers and all metal objects in the rain. Painted lines on the road can be slippery too - you can't avoid them altogether, but try not to lean the bike on them or brake hard on them.

The first day it was mostly dry and I was turning and went through a puddle... Bleh skidded - scared the hell out of me - but I straightened up and I didn't low-side the bike. It did make me wonder about what I would do in a turn if that happened. And then that made me wonder about all the single-vehicle motorcycle accidents in negotiating curves.

Then the next day - the course was wet and actually being rained on most of the day and I was ok. I guess I wasn't traveling too fast through the turns.

RhadamYgg

I have new tires with 12 miles on them,I'm not taking any chances on wet roads.

MZ33 wrote:I was just out today in a light rain. What's the deal with manhole covers? As long as I don't brake or accelerate on them, I mean. Can't I just coast over them?

I prefer not to lean, accelerate, or brake on wet metal - to be safe, I just stay the heck off metal in the rain. Manhole covers are mostly easy enough to avoid. In dry weather I tend to use them for "object avoidance" drill anyway. As an experienced rider, YMMV. I was mostly speaking to Rhadam who just passed MSF this weekend.

oxbow1 wrote:I have new tires with 12 miles on them,I'm not taking any chances on wet roads.

I agree, I won't take new tires out in the rain either. Scrub those babies in first!

As an experienced rider,

NOT!! That's why I asked. Yesterday was my first day out on roads in the rain.

Have you noticed my avatar? That's my real license plate! I'm up to, oh, a whopping 100 miles on my V-star. All of them great miles, I must say. And, as an aside for other newbies, blazing my inexperience across my tail may be working to my advantage. No one has tailgated me yet. (Knock on wood) 'Course, that just brings us back to my whopping 100 miles of experience, but I'm hopeful it's really working.

If it is, I may keep that plate forever.

oxbow1 wrote:I have new tires with 12 miles on them,I'm not taking any chances on wet roads.

Oh, yeah, new tires look a little problematic on their own - much less with rain on the ground.

RhadamYgg

jstark47 wrote:

MZ33 wrote:I was just out today in a light rain. What's the deal with manhole covers? As long as I don't brake or accelerate on them, I mean. Can't I just coast over them?

I prefer not to lean, accelerate, or brake on wet metal - to be safe, I just stay the heck off metal in the rain. Manhole covers are mostly easy enough to avoid. In dry weather I tend to use them for "object avoidance" drill anyway. As an experienced rider, YMMV. I was mostly speaking to Rhadam who just passed MSF this weekend.

oxbow1 wrote:I have new tires with 12 miles on them,I'm not taking any chances on wet roads.

I agree, I won't take new tires out in the rain either. Scrub those babies in first!

I slide once during the MSF course on a puddle while making a turn (not accelerating or braking at the time, just turning) - and I just had a vision of doing that on a manhole cover in the rain. Bleh. So I'll be avoiding them.

Somewhere in NJ there is a motorcycle accident maker - the only train that runs with traffic in Garfield New Jersey. One of my RiderCoaches was talking about it. The metal tracks are parallel with the road and the train has to stop at traffic lights (it is actually on the road, not running with the road off to the side or something).

He said a lot of motorcyclists crash there during the rain because of the tracks. Fortunately, that is like the only place in the world - or at least the USA - where a train runs on regular roads.

RhadamYgg