Just a Riding Video

[jfheath]

Just me riding a quiet road in North Wales a few days ago. Following on from @Kaiser Swaghelm II excellent example.

UK, we drive on the left. Mostly.

I was going to make my excuses before posting, but I'll wait for the comments to come in !

Except - my front wheel is about 1/5 of the way from the left hand side of the video - where the yellow ^ is drawn.
And the camera is under outside end of the right hand wing mirror, pointing slightly outwards - so when the central white line is disappearing under the centre of the bottom edge of the video, the entire bike is just to the left of the white line.

 

[ad.hom]

Firstly, before I've watched the video - how very dare you be within 5 miles of my house without dropping by for a brew!

Just from the thumbnail, I know that road extremely well. I'll now watch....

EDIT for video commentary:
42secs, rubbish surface, van on the right and a blue oncoming car emerges. You chose position 3 for the road surface, I would have gone into 1 - you're already slow enough for stopping within the road you can see. Pos 3 put you onto the next rough patch, but this is where local knowledge is king.
1min 07, potential for an overtake, where can we get back in? Junction to the right, when is that dumper turning? Is he turning right? Mini puts an indicator on, so I'd have done exactly what you did, slow & tuck left.
1min 20, I would have been off-siding where you went into 3. Easy enough to get back at that speed (though we can't see what's behind obviously)
Not sure how useful the horn was passing the dumper, but that depends how awake he was. Good speed control though the rest of the village to the NSL signs.

Through the forest section, I would have been travelling faster, and more extreme positioning, including offsiding. But again, I know the road extremely well. Its also unclear how much contrast was affecting your view (shade in the trees vs sunlight).

4min 04. Do you have a tendency to ride the inside of bends? Maybe it's the camera angle and you're in 2, but on a narrow road that still puts your head near the white line. I virtually brush the bushes on the left there, then tip the bike into the corner to come out to 3 for the manhole cover. That red car oncoming is why (esp when its usually a van/tractor).

4min 12, love the offsiding! My thoughts exactly, as soon as the landrover is past, step into his wake & position for the left view.

7min 29 is another instance where you're to the inside of the bend, yellow marker is in position 3. Limited view ahead because of the trees, car turning left and a 4x4 appears oncoming, forcing you to move left. Much easier IMO to just sit left to start with & have a better view into the trees.

8min 36, what happened with the revs there? Changed down a gear with a blip? Doesn't seem your normal riding style from the rest of the video.

Nice to see the yellow paint telling me they'll be repairing some of those damn potholes! For those that don't know the area, that yellow paint tells you the local authority are aware of the awful road surface.

11min 30, position 2 for that S bend is nice, but far too fast for the road surface that you're about to encounter (again, local knowledge).
11min 31, offsiding, this isn't going to be pleasant...
11min 32, I hope your gentleman area is OK after that. I've known people run wide into the grass there for exactly the line you took.

Good, early response to the temporary traffic light / road works signs.

In conclusion, I'm not sure if it's your camera angle, or if you have a tendency towards the inside of bends. I prefer more extreme positioning for view, while trying to never sacrifice safety.

I might get out on that road & video it sometime soon, so others can critique me too. It'll be a lovely road once they've sorted the potholes.

 

[ad.hom]

Edited post #2 with video commentary.

 

[Fenianbastard]

I loved the scenery. It’s making me homesick.

 

[ad.hom]

It is ALWAYS better to be away from the nearside on left handers.

There's no such thing as a constant rule, other than "always be able to stop, on the correct side of the road, in the distance you can see to be clear."

On lefts, I'll sit right, unless something compromises my safety.
On rights, I'll sit left, unless something compromises my safety.

In both scenarios, if I have to lose view to gain safety, the answer is less throttle & more brake.

 

[jfheath]

Thanks very much for the comments. Very helpful.

On this day, I was not riding well. I love the road, and have ridden it in perfect condition and in early march when the winter leaves and twigs are still a sodden squelchy mess in the left hand side of the road. One of the first signs to myself that I'm not in good form is when I wander over to the centre line on right handers before I can see round the bend properly. I know what to do. On bad days I find myself not doing it for some reason. This was one of those days.

However, the video exaggerates this quite a lot. Because the camera is on the right hand wing mirror and is not pointing straight ahead - it is angled to the right. Also, the view that the camera shows is not the view that I see. I am 2ft higher and can see over the hedges and walls that the camera does not. So some of those bends where I should have been over to the left have already opened up from my viewpoint.

And photos like this are alarming - even to me when I play them back. Strewth, that was close John. Actually, no it wasn't. Look again.



My front tyre is actually just right of 2. The red line is where the widest part of the bike will pass - the outside edge of the wing mirror.

Nevertheless - the comments are welcome and yes for some of those bends I was badly positioned.

I will not often use position 1 on country roads like this. Debris, hidden drives, emerging cars trying to peer down the road from behind an overgrown hedge, last autumn's leaves - and in Yorkshire we have dry stone walls and the rocks from the middle of the wall knocked onto the road by drivers that don't realise that the bottom is wider than the top. I tend to stick to 2 to 3 and try to get as much visibility down the hedgerow as I get down the road. Sometimes venturing into 1.5. I adjust my speed accordingly, because this compromises my visibility, but improves my safety. On this ride I rarely get above 50mph, the first 10 minutes the road was damp, new tarmac. My tyres are recently out of the mould. And I am no hero anyway !

Some answers.
No I did not touch the paint on the mini-roundabout. Ironically, that became illegal the day after our local authority decided to paint such a roundabout on a small T juction that was impossible to negotiate without going over it ! That impossible mini roundabout is still there, and everyone ignores it. It has the desired effect though - everyone stops for everyone else while you can see them thinking - 'What the hell do I do now ?'

The position behind the dumper, trailer and car going up the hill was delibertely wide. Making my presence known. The road was narrow behind me and I wanted cars coming down the hill to know that I was in between the two cars and it wasn't a space through which they could squeeze.

The overtake of the dumper was an 'iffy' choice. I wanted to pass becasue I knew that the road narrowed just round the bend and I'd be behind for the next mile or so. But I had to wait until I knew there was no risk up ahead. I didn't move out to the offside as suggested as that risked the car behind moving up into the space I had left. And I hadn't enough information to decide to go for the overtake when the road ahead became clear. I waited until I had passed the first drive, and the dumper was alongside the second. At that point I was high enough to see through the gap in the trees onto the second drive. The beep was in case there were any other cars that I coudn't see as much as the dumper driver. The only other risk was the road ahead merging into the right hand lane. It was a gentle slow overtake, which was completed well before the Landrover that appeared joind our road.

As it happened, the dumper turned right up that road !

The nasty bump was taken by the tyres and suspension. The loud knock I think was the wiring connector for the camera which is just tucked inside the wing mirror knocking against the mirror cover. The mike in the camera is mounted on that cover so it picked it up very clearly.

The throttle blip at 8:36? For certain manoeuvres I prefer to have a lower gear and higher engine revs - probably because we are 2-up and are often heavily loaded. Being in a lower gear makes it easier to control - particularly if I there is a sharp corner - it helps to have good drive on the back wheel to pick the bike up. The last thing I want is an engine too far down the rev counter. At 8:36 the speed was OK, I just wanted to be in a lower gear for whatever was coming next. I sometimes blip the throttle if I want to go into a lower gear at the same speed make the engine revs that bit higher when the clutch is in so that when I let the clutch out slowly, it is slowing the engine down to the speed of the rear wheel, rather than trying to speed up the rear wheel to match the engine. The latter ends up with helmet banging and sore ribs after being thumped by my pillion..

I did the same thing at 8:11 before a bend at the bottom of a hill. On this occasion I was still slowing when I changed down - I should probably have changed sooner, but it was important to have the engine driving the wheels in the right gear before the corner and the need to drive the bike up the hill.

It is one way in which I can control the jerking free play between the deceleration when the wheels are driving the engine and the drive and accelaration when the engine is driving the bike.

At 8:36 there was no need for it in fact. The gear that I was in would have been OK - but I was probably expecting something different ahead.

I need to treat myself to some new cameras I think.

 

[ad.hom]

I didn't move out to the offside as suggested as that risked the car behind moving up into the space I had left.

This is why I commented that we couldn't see what was behind you. Sounds like a wise choice, given the information you had.

And photos like this are alarming

I see nothing wrong with that photo. I would have done exactly the same, including the right/left flick for offside view into the left bend.

 

[STJohnS]

I kept waiting for something to happen and nothing did. Please refund my 15 minutes of my life back!

 

[jfheath]

The clue was in the title. Next time I'll put a heading like "Nothing to See Here, Please Move On".

 

[STJohnS]

The clue was in the title. Next time I'll put a heading like "Nothing to See Here, Please Move On".

If you do that I will surely watch!

 

[ad.hom]

I might get out on that road & video it sometime soon

Soon is relative, right?

So, I did get out on that road a few days ago. As I have sort of discussed privately with John, riding to Cerrig, my head simply wasn't in it. I was doing my usual Talk'n'Ride style, but I'd had a rubbish day at work. As a result, that run was truly atrocious. I won't go into the detail there, because I'll probably upload it anyway as a talking point following the theme (no point in always uploading things you're happy about - right?).

So, I got to Cerrig, span the bike around just before the fuel station, and had a word with myself. Then headed back. This has taken a while to edit, because I've been playing around with image stabilisation (and I'm still not happy with it, but it's been a faff). Comments are welcomed, especially negative ones.

 

[jfheath]

No negative comments from me there. That is exactly the way that I think that I ride.

Except it seems that I don't - or didn't on the occasion of my video.

As commented - I spend too much time in position 3. Not enough time in position 1. I'll have to put the camera on my helmet, get a better perception of what I do.

But I was cringing in one or two places on @ad.hom's video. You were exactly by the book, so in no way is this a criticism of you. Far from it. It is more an observation of my reaction to you doing what is the correct method. I found myself being concerned about vehicles emerging from the left in a few places - probably a throwback to my own past experiences.

I need to ride again and try to ride like I do when I have ridden a lot. I nearly always talk to myself - a sort of IAM commentary - for some of the ride to help me to concentrate.
But getting way over to the left hand side of the road is clearly an issue for me (though probably not for the speed that I ride), and drifting to the centre line seems to be a recent thing after not much riding. I'm clearly out of practice. I need to fix a camera to my helmet, get a more central, high up, straight ahead veiw of the road, rather than the low down, extreme right hand side, and angled towards the right. Even though I put a marker on my videos, it is difficult to think of being the centre of action being 60% left of centre.

A good run. Thank you for posting. I'll now look at it again and learn some more - see if I can rationalise why I would have chosen different lines in those places. I know you are right and I am wrong according to the book. I need to think about it.

John

my cringing moments were around
3:54 - I'd have stayed wide - as soon as the drive appeared on the left.
4:14 - ditto - although the drive seemed to be clear
3:18 - I would have been in P3 on that right hander - the drive wasn't clear, but road uphill around the bend was and then moved back to P1/2
6:42 - you missed the pothole !! Where's the fun in that ?
7:34-7:58 - Nice run around the 'S' bends.
12:22 - two side roads on left. I'd have been in Pos 3 I think - but you looked so must have seen it to be clear.

 

[ad.hom]

To paraphrase, there is no right or wrong, only dead or alive. We both got to the end of our rides alive, so by that measure, both were successful.

About that long right hander, with an early enough and near constant view of oncoming traffic, I think your thoughts on appropriate line actually make more sense. As you likely know, the dip at the bottom loads the suspension on a heavy ST1300. It's not the place to be changing positions, If the trees etc weren't on the inside of the bend, I'd actually consider offsiding there too.

The nice thing about the local knowledge, is that I know 99% of the time, no-one is going to be using those driveways. But that leads to complacency too, and at 3min46, that bites me. I know that driveway is there, I know I can't see through the trees, but I still head to position 3 for view around the left bend. Then a Rangerover nose appears.

 

[jfheath]

Anyone seen Kaiser recently ? Seems his profile isn't available. Last seen Oct 18. Can't find any posts of his either.

 

[Mellow]

Anyone seen Kaiser recently ? Seems his profile isn't available. Last seen Oct 18. Can't find any posts of his either.

Banned.

 

[jfheath]

Oh dear. I won't ask.

 

[Sadlsor]

Don't have time to watch and read all the comments, so my brief distraction here will ensure I'm notified when more comment, so I can find it again later.
Carry on.