Most intense riding

The other day i rode my bike for three hours in hard rain, and the last hour was in the dark in the rain. i have driven cars in blinding snow and fog but i found out that dirving the bike in the rain at night was much more difficult. when i stopped for gas people gave me pats on the back and all wish me a safe ride. mostly this came from older riders. What are some other bad weather storys from you guys?

 

i brought my bike home over the bay bridge and it was like 40 degrees and i wasn't wearing longjohns under my pants. haha. i was freezing, and the wind on the bridge was making me swerve all over the road (or maybe it was the ganja hahaha)

 

Go to work at 11pm.....61 degrees....leave work at 7am...29 degrees...had my winter riding suit on...but my visor kept frosting over...then it started to snow...lifted my visor up enough to see...got beaned in the eye at 50mph with a huge ass snow flake...but it was still fun. :lol:

 

I rode from Middle Georgia to Jax Beach in Florida once in the puring rain at night. After I crossed the state line, they were doing road construction and had these detours set up that made the road a bunch of s curves for what seemed like miles. A semi was behind me on the curves. Me and my bike definitely became one on that trip. When i got where I was going I had so much adrenaline pumping through me I didn't sleep at all that night. That is not something I would want to do again, but I would if I had to.

 

The last evening I rode my bike it was 21 degrees farenheit (Oct 26th). I had on my standard leather jacket, draggin jeans, and dickies fleece shirt. I had to ride home on the highway and the "d"ring on my helmet pretty much froze to my neck.

The next day I rode my bike to my shop and began teardown for a restoration. Since the bike came apart, there have been very few weeks I couldn't have ridden at least one day. Bummer!

 

Just reading that kicked up my pulse rate a notch or two..........

 

I rode in El Nino 2x while in socal...it's bad when your feet on your bike (yzf600) are actually in the water on a eight lane highway. I did that nearly every day for a half hour 5x a week...it took me forever to get dressed, undressed.

 

The most "intense" (or frightening) ride I've ever had came also at night, in the rain. I was on a state highway that winds through southern Indiana, which is very hilly and heavily forsested. On this particular stretch, there are about 30 curves over a ten mile length. I don't like riding on these roads at night anyway, due to the high deer population, but I really didn't have much choice.

It was about eleven pm on a Saturday night, light rain, and I'm only going about 45 or so because of the conditions. I catch up to a rusty pickup with three guys in it, going even slower. I back off a bit, and follow them for a few minutes.

After the fourth beer can flies out the back window at me, I decide to pass them. I gun it, pass them, and boogie as fast as I dare to put some distance between them and me. Big mistake.

For the next couple miles, I see them gaining on me. I don't dare to ride any faster than I am, and I don't feel particularly safe pulling over in a driveway to let them pass, because I think they might stop in front of the driveway, block me in and then beat me up. Eventually they catch up, and start tailgating me (with high beams on) on a curvy wet road I've only ridden once before, in the dark.

After what seems like forever, but was maybe ten minutes, I arrive at a small town and pull into the police dept. parking lot. They immediately take off fast, as I sprint to the door and begin pounding on it. A cop comes out, I tell him what happened (including the beer cans), and he gets on the radio to the sheriff's department and the state police.

I guess I looked pretty shaken, because he invited me in for a cup of coffee. While we're sitting there chatting about drunk redneck jerks, the radio crackles with a deputy sheriff calling in a traffic stop on a red GM pickup fitting the description of the "reported suspect drunk driver". Sure enough, it's them, and the driver is arrested for DWI. His buddies are arrested for open containers, and assault on a motorist (for throwing beer cans at me).

I then rode to the county seat to i.d. the truck, which I confirmed was the one, and filled out a report. I was told that I might have to testify at a trial if it came to that, but was never called about it. I imagine they pled out to the misdemeanor charges against them.

 

21 degrees this morning..little icy out....anyone else take it on?

 

Took a nice long 180 mile ride in a down pour....in Nebraska! Is there anything I missed? I didn't think so.

 

I've had a few good ones... I have ridden in the snow. I thought to myself as I pulled up to a light that I was the only one stupid enough to be out... and the only other biker on the road pulled up next to me. It was funny... it was a nod and smile moment.

I've had a few moments on the CBR. In the summer I run track tires - great dry weather grip, cheap, but down right scary in the rain. I now run pilots on the road because they're ok in the rain. The track tires - pirelli super drago corsas - would free spin at 60mph with no additional throttle... damn near lost it into a guard rail, when I was commuting and NOT driving like a mad man.

The hardest drive I had was when I was going to NY for a bike meet. I left my home at 4am to make the 8am boat. Drove through thick thick fog in deer territory and got wet through... got off the boat at 8pm, and rode from Portland ME down to Albany NY through the most intense thunder storm I've been in... I was following a car at one point and a blown out truck tire came out under it... over that. Later in NY I just about hit a racoon that I thought was a log on the road. The damn thing started running with the bike. I got in about 3am...

 

It wasn't me, but, last Friday morning it was -10degrees F, -30 windchill.
I didn't catch the make of the bike, but there was a guy riding his bike!
He did look very well bundled.
He also had a sidecar, which is probably an immense help in the snow and on the icy roads.
Being Wisconsin, it was probably a Harley, but I can't say for sure. But that is pure nutz!

YIKES!
Steve

 

I took a trip to college today about 50 mile round trip in a dust storm (about 100 feet visibility) and 50 mph winds. It was interesting to say the least.

 

Change your oil, oil filter and air filter.

 

My dad was a cop for 33 years in Toronto and rode there bikes in the 60 all year round. Back then thay had narow tires and side cars. I heard many stories about the cold but doing donuts in parking lots made up for it.

 

haha :lol: If I did that every time the dirt blew around here there wouldn't be enough oil in the world for the rest of you guys. :roll:

 

In June of 1983 after I graduated from high schhol me and best friend decided to take the trip of a lifetime on our bikes. I was riding a Yamy Verago and he on a CB 750. We covered 27 states then up through the AlCan highway to go see my friends sister who works in the oil fields in Alaska.

The trip was going well, only ran out of gas twice but did'nt on the AlCan thank God. We had gotten about 110 miles out side of Katchican when it sarted to snow, I mean really snow.

After 20 miles the road became a never ending banana peel. My friend touched the front brakes to avoid a coyote that ran in front of his. He hit the ditch, luckly the only thing hurt was his pride.

We rode with much caution to Katchican and over dinner we decided to find somewhere to keep the bike and we would find alernative transport to Anchorage. This guy at the restaurant was heading the same way and offered a ride. We took it.

40 miles out of Katchican we look at each other and said we didn't ride all the way up here to ride in a truck. We stopped at the next town and found a way back to get the bikes.

The next day was so beautiful so off we went. We hit snow conditions anther 3 times. By end of this adventure we were very adept at riding in the snow.

 

I used to work at a radio station south of town just out of high school, had to open up the station at 5am Sunday morning. It was about 10 below, windy and snowing...I had an El Camino at the time, and the starter froze up on it, too much snow...also had a big Ford Bronco, but the engine was getting rebuilt, so the only mode of transport I had was-my 72 honda CB750, under the cover in the garage. So, pull the cover, turn on the gas, choke, and crank it...started in about 15 seconds (I started it about every couple weeks over the winter) and let it warm up for about 15 mintues.

While it was warming up, I bundled up for the 7 mile ride, mostly gravel (I grew up on gravel, no biggie!) put on snow pants, boots, layers of jackets, my snowmobile gloves, a hat under my helmet, and off I went. My road was good, for the first 2 miles, then I turned, and was in the crosswind, about 30mph, in a blizzard. I was going about 25mph, and it wasn't that bad, really. I got onto the big gravel road, nice and wide, good road, well traveled.

The snow wasn't accumulating on the road, just a few finger drifts every now and then, but I'd ridden in the snow before, so it didn't bother me. Anyway, as I was on this nice road, I was getting cold, so I decided to speed up a little, I was probably doing around 45 or so, the station was about 2 miles away. I caught really small air on a couple little drifts, but I was fine, then, the engine reved up, and the speedo started climbing really fast....then "WHUMP!" I landed.....

I had ridden up a drift, it must have been fairly long for me not to notice, and with the snow I just didn't see it. I didn't get much height, but I was not touching the ground long enough for the engine to rev, and me to hear it! That shook me up quite a little, to say the least. I slowed down and lived with being cold after that! Rather be cold than broken! At least I was well protected if I had crashed, but that still would have hurt.

 

I guess my story would be the maden voyage of the xj700. Went to get plates for her and on the way back I ran into quarter sized hail and a ton of rain. About 20 to 25 mph was all I wanted to do. Probably 25 to 30 feet of visability. Got home and thanked god for helmets and windshields. That hai hurt like crazy, especially on the knee caps. !0 minutes laer the sun came out and it was 70. Got to love the weather in the rockies.

 

Here's my worst ride that comes to mind: It was in the wee hours of the morning and I was on my way home from a friends house that lived about 30 miles away. I was riding (don't laugh) a little 200cc Yamaha twin two stroke. I don't even remember the model, but it did have electric start which I thought was cool for such a small bike. Well, I'm 6 foot one and weighed around 220 pounds so as you might imagine that little 200 could barely make interstate speed with me on it. Most of the ride was on an almost empty, straight, four lane highway with a wide grass median. I had less than ten miles to go and was riding in the slow lane when a pickup full of (expletive) came roaring up behind me right up to my back tire. I was doing about 60 mph and that bike had maybe 10 more mph left in it. I sped up as much as I could to put some distance between us but his hopped up truck just stuck right to me. I could have reached out behind me and grabbed his grille. I could even hear his engine running. At that point I was praying the he wouldn't ram me and run me over. They were cussing and throwing stuff at me and I was trying to think if I did something to piss them off, but I hadn't encountered any traffic at all for the first twenty miles. Anyway, I was scared (expletive)-less and just knew they were going to run over me since there was no one around to witness it. But thank the good Lord, up ahead was a semi that was slowing down in the fast lane to make a U-turn. The instant I passed the cab of that semi I swerved over to the the fast lane and crushed the brakes. The pickup couldn't stay behind me but it did slow down deside me - still cussing and throwing stuff at me (beer cans, I think). At that point they cut off their lights and tore off faster than I could keep up with. I REALLY wanted to get their license plates, but wasn't able to. They got away with it, but I was thankful I was alive and in one piece. I also vowed I would never again own a bike with a top end of 70 mph.