| Author | Message | ||
     Greenlantern |
Set aside some time for a leisure ride on Saturday. I set out with no destination in mind, just a romp around Long Island for 3 or 4 hours. The only things different on this ride from previous ones would be the addition of a Laminar Lip to my 12Ss and my resuming the good habit of wearing earplugs on my rides. I am not one to stare at my speedo that much usually following the slightly faster than the flow of traffic rule, but an hour into the ride I am entering a left turn lane applying my brakes and..WHOA!!!, back ends swinging wild. OHhhkay I sez, what was that about? I glance at the road beneath and behind.....No gravel.....No goop,gunk or slipperies. I make the turn and pull over to check the bike just in case I am loosing some kind of fluid.... Nope all is well. I continue my ride until a half hour later..AGAIN!!! the back tire is sliding. I check the bike again , I ride and experimentally jam the rear brakes alone to see if they are "grabby" for some unknown reason, everything checks out. Well the clincher comes when stopping for another red light I get still another albeit slight slide out of the rear. It's break time, a sandwich and some reflection are what iI need now. I think to myself...well the bikes fine....there was nothing wrong with the pavement at any time.... so that only leaves me?!? Hmmmm.... I feel fine,rested (a little fat) but okay?? The Laminar Lip?!? Noooo... how the hell would a piece of smoked plastic affect my riding ...that's the only thing i'm doing different today besides the......EARPLUGS!!! Let me try something here, earplugs out,fatass on motorcycle and Buell AWAYYYY. Hmmmm restored helmet noise tells me I'm going(glance at speedo)...HOW FAST whoa there cut it back there cowboy!! Sonuva...It was me! The combination of the Lip's reduction of buffeting at my chest combined with the relative quietness of my earplug equipped noggin also factoring in a light traffic day along my routes had me riding 15mph-20mph faster than normal in the same conditions without the former and latter. That's the story, I just wanted to share in hopes It's lesson can help someone else besides myself. I fell into the worse trap a motorcyclist can fall into, I became too comfortable with my riding ability! I will do my best to make sure that does not happen again before complacency puts me in a gurney or worse. | ||
| Xbullet |
earplugs are the devil!! they are a great way to not hear those sirens behind you.... (oops)  | ||
| Diablobrian |
It's much easier to ride an IL4 "by ear" than it is to ride a Buell that way in my experience. the rev range is relatively narrow and a relatively small change in rpm can make a pretty large change in speed due to the way it's geared. Still, you know what you call a rider that keeps his eyes on the speedo/tach don't you? Roadkill. | ||
| Djkaplan |
I always wanted a tach for my speedo only M2, but at this point, if I did get one, I'd probably go flying off a cliff because I was looking at the tach instead of the decreasing radius corner. At least I'd know what rpm I was at when I hit the ground. It would be quiet too, because I always try to ride with earplugs. |
