tips for riding on gravel

[Eddie]

I dated a woman a few years ago that had a new HD Sportster 1200. She wouldn't so much as ride it across flat, unpaved, hard dirt without reservations. We went on a campout & stayed at an area with an unwashed river rock parking area. I had to stop,park, have her dismount her bike and then ride it for her the 20 yards to the tent. (and back out again the next day.) On rides afterward, I had her try easing down a similar roads and ultimately talked her into riding 1/4 mile to a different campsite - all in hard gravel. She did great. We went to/from that site several times. Her confidence built up until one day she went too slow and bounced her front wheel off a fist-sized rock in a slight rut. The front end tucked under and she went down in a heap. **Thud**. I nursed both bike & rider back to health (skinned knee, scuffed clutch lever and saddlebag) wondering if she'd ever go off pavement ever again. Her version of the story grew in magnitude each she told it. 5mph turned into 10, then 15 mph until one would think she'd dropped the bike in turn 3 @ the San Jose Mile. Reality? She was riding the brake(front) and going at a walking pace. All it took was a moment of hesitation for a bump of the wheel to turn into an oops. I finally had enough of her milking the story for all it was worth. While on a two-up ride one afternoon, I purposefully rode to the end of a paved county road and two more miles up a winding, twisting gravel road. The GL1800 was shuddering and wiggling while I had actual fun horsing the roughly 1300 pounds of bike, rider & passenger up that road. After the turn around and trip back to asphalt, I calmly informed her that it was entirely possible to safely ride a street bike on gravel as long as you progressed quickly enough to be steady but not so fast as to lose control. She didn't speak much for 1/2 an hour. It was great..... eddie

[Jud]

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "eddie" wrote: She didn't > speak much for 1/2 an hour. > It was great..... > Was that long enough for her to build up the pressure to fart?

[Kevin Powers]

Seems to me there are two approaches to riding gravel, or for that matter most loose surfaces. In nautical terms you can proceed in displacement fashion (through the medium) or planing fashion (over the surface). Bike behavior and the techniques required to navigate will be markedly different in either approach, and trying to use planing techniques at displacement speeds will not be effective. -- Kevin Powers White Bear Lake, MN