Total Motorcycle Community Forums

What's it like to hit a sand spot? I've been reading other posts and people have wrecked their biek swerving to avoid them....Are they bad to drive over? What's the fuss?

Riding over sand is like riding over ball bearings.

A little sand in a straight piece of road is not a big deal. Sand in turn - big problem. It all depends on speed, turning angle, and depth of sand. Basically, try to avoid it if you can. If you can't avoid it, go as slow as you can safely and get the bike a straight up and down as you can. If you are rolling through sweepers in the country though you just have to hope you see it early, or roll through with enough contact to the tarmac.

**WARNING**
Simpson's Quote as follows:

"Just think of where we'd be without - sand? SAND! SAND! SAND! *tumpet solo*"

I had to....everyone else was thinking it, haha.

scanevalexec wrote:A little sand in a straight piece of road is not a big deal. Sand in turn - big problem. It all depends on speed, turning angle, and depth of sand. Basically, try to avoid it if you can. If you can't avoid it, go as slow as you can safely and get the bike a straight up and down as you can. If you are rolling through sweepers in the country though you just have to hope you see it early, or roll through with enough contact to the tarmac.

Yep, you try to avoid it. If you can't, slow down! Don't brake on it definitely.

Sand sucks on a road bike. My friend low sided on sand. It was on a turn and he was doing about 30 mph and was leaned over a bit. Not fun. this happened about 2 months ago, the road rash stillhasn't healed. Idiot only had his helmet on . Now that i think of it, the people i know with fast bikes wear only helmets, and the guy i know with a slow bike has a nice leather jacket.

i dont remember who said it on this forum but ill say it now:

dress for the crash, not the cruise.

Another thing I've learned with sand and dirt, is to keep on the throttle somewhat through it. If you let off the gas, once your tire hits pavement again, you have a less chance of connecting again. Just keep on the gas a bit and you may slide somewhat, but the instant it hits some tarmac, it usually just grips back on to it.

nike_soccer wrote:i dont remember who said it on this forum but ill say it now:

dress for the crash, not the cruise.

ya there is really no excuse to not wear your gear.



JWF

Riding a dirt bike through rather deep sand was quite the white-knuckle experience for me. Although it's probably a LOT different on a dirt bike than on a road bike; it was still scary for a first time rider. The back end was really swirly; sliding back and forth. I swear for the whole 3 hours we were riding through deep sand I thought I was going to die