First highway ride

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Reddemon · #1 Unread post by **Reddemon** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:31 am

And it was like skipping a rock across the water! I have a Honda CB250 Nighthawk. I know it's lightweight, but it was awful on the interstate.

First off,as expected, I had to rev the hell out of it to make the speed limit. That's OK though, I anticipated that. What I didn't expect was how it was skipping all over the place on the rough, bouncy highway! It doesn't have fork dampers, and it's about 300 pounds. It was hopping around like a grasshopper on a hot skillet. Thank goodness I was only going one exit, and had deliberately gone up there to get my first highway ride in. I guess I'll keep going back up until I get used to it, or figure it out. I can't ride around for a year avoiding the highway everywhere. It does get better with a larger bike, right? Any other advice (besides get a larger bike?) Next year for that...

avoidalliteration · Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:35 am

I have a Ninja 250 and I was generally okay on the highway. My bike is about 300 lbs as well, but the ride was pretty tolerable. I have about a week's experience on actual road right now so I couldn't tell ya if it gets any better =P

#3 Unread post by **bok** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:41 am

things to check:

tire pressure
sag/suspension check your manual and set it for your weight

rough roads and wind will throw you around a bit, but it gets easier honest

dieziege · #4 Unread post by **dieziege** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:21 am

You may want to pay attention to *how* the road is rough.

Around here they went through and put little parallel grooves along most of the interstates... if those grooves align with your direction of travel they are not noticeable, but if they put them in wrong or added a lane and changed how the lanes are striped those grooves can drag you around and make things feel very weird.

Even weirder are expansion joints between lanes... fortunately you don't see this too often but there are roads that are made of parallel slabs of concrete... the joints between them can be right in the middle of the lane and may not align with the lane... net result is that if your front tire snags on and you aren't careful it'll try to push you out of your lane. Those are especially nasty because they develop long narrow potholes that are almost perfectly shaped to drop the entire front wheel into. Don't even want to think about what happens to you when you do that.

Then you have the classic decayed concrete roadway, where too much heavy traffic and not enough maintenance has caused a part of the lane to crack, break, sink, and/or rise... you can catch some air on those but they aren't as innately dangerous as the fissures between lanes.

However, once you are used to all of those, highway riding is really quite pleasant. It took me a few hundred miles before I stopped being surprised by the effect of the various freeway surface textures around here...

My bike also weighs about 300lbs.

Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:55 pm

It does get better, i'd suggest getting on during an off time like really early in the morning so you can ride some distance on it and start to getting use to the transitions. What get's me sometimes is the transition from pavement to concrete like on passover bridges, most of the time they aren't level. Also during road contruction where they literaly scape up the white lines to re assemble the lines, I had my front tire slip intp them a coupleof times, a little unnerving.

Randy · #6 Unread post by **Randy** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:14 pm

Man, riding on the highway is a bummer most of the time. No twisties and all kinds of cagers slamming on their brakes all the time.

Reddemon · #7 Unread post by **Reddemon** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:36 am

I knew I-91 was in tough shape, having been thrown around in the truck, but I was taken aback at how nasty it was on the bike. I'm hoping that the 3 miles I rode were just worse than usual (all the bridges up here are awful). Mostly, it was the road surface was all dips and bumps, crowned in the middle, and lots of half-assed patches thrown in. I really want to be able to commute to work on the highway on the days that I (ahem!) run a little late. It generally cuts about 8 or 10 minutes off.
And I'd like to start taking longer trips, trips that involve some highway riding.
(oh yeah, forgot to add, tires pressures were spot on where they should be. How do I check the frame/sag?)
Hey thanks for the warnings about the expansion joints and fissures. I'd hate to have found those on my own!!!

Any other joyous things to look out for on the highway??? Besides the usual jerks in cages? And semi wind blasts? (I got to feel one of those the other day too!)

jstark47 · #8 Unread post by **jstark47** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:55 am

It's gonna be hard to convince you right now, but the more you ride out there, the more used to it you'll get. If you're like me, your body is reacting unconciously to the bumps and hops. This makes the "out of control" feeling worse. As you get more experience, your body will stop reacting - the bike will move around underneath you, but you won't react so much, which will actually keep the bike more stable. My Bonneville is heavier than your Nighthawk, but it still skips and hops around at 85mph, and never mind crosswinds and wind blasts from big trucks.

As a tip, grip the tank firmly with your inner legs, and let your upper body be relaxed and flexible, with as light a grip on the handlebars as possible. Your small unconcious body movements reacting to bumps can actually create additional steering inputs which the bike doesn't need.

Andrew · #9 Unread post by **Andrew** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 4:09 am

My bike weighs 650 lbs, and I was still disconcerted after that first ride on an interstate. Hopefully that passes. Not sure about the skipping though...try putting on some weight. Lots of sweets, fast food....

Scott58 · #10 Unread post by **Scott58** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 4:11 am

Something isn't right. My Rebels fine on the interstate.