my scariest ride yet!

whats up guys, just came back from one of my scariest rides yet and thought i'd share my story, i woke up today beautiful day out high way going to be 65 which is plenty warm for me to ride and i was going to ride to work, forecast said windy 15-25mph but i was fine with that. my job is about 30 miles away mostly highway riding. my work schedule was 9-4, 4 o'clock came around and 2 of the people who were supposed to come and finish the night shifts grandfather passes away and were not able to make it, so by default and the greed of overtime i stayed til 9;30. what i failed to check was the temp. and wind forecast for that night, i got outside put on my gear, i always wear my jacket and helmet, but i had tinted lens on thinking i'd b back while sun light was out. mistake #1 so i had to ride at night with tinted lens. the temp was down to around 40 which is even colder with wind chill and boy was it windy and i haven't even started riding. i checked the weather forecast again and wind gusts were 35-50mph, i hop on my bike start riding home, and the wind is playing with my bike like a fan plays with a ballon. i couldn't stay in a straight line to save my life. i'm on the highway going about 60 holding on hard, pretty much freezing, and everyone in their cages are flying by me. the highway i was on had like no trees to protect me from wind and i was near water so wind was at full force. i was in middle lane and one big gust came in that literally pushed me almost all the way into the ditch near the break down lane and that scared the shit out of me. but i held on and kept riding focusing as hard as i can and holding on for dear life. couple more of those big gusts came and it just sucked. finally i took the exit to my house and let out a big sigh of relief. never riding in a windy ass day again. i can handle the cold but wind no thanks lol have any of you guys ridden in bad weather? whats your story i want to hear it. and how strong do you think the wind would have to be to knock some one off their bike.

 

Every once and a while when the wind cracks 35+ kph.

I have 3 major bridges to cross and they all get the onshore winds full force.

F-kin scary. I am not a fan at all of wind.... I have been blown from one side of the lane to another (in peak hour traffic). Is friggin scary. Updating my suspension reduced how much I was affected by this.

I'm pretty sure most of us would have at one time got caught out with a tinted visor at night. It sucks..

I now have a clear visor with an inch of tint at the top. It stops sun in my eyes in the morning arvo and is sweet at night...

 

i might have to look into a visor option like that, or just carry sunglasses for morning to wear under clear visor. but yeah freaking wind is terrible, i'd rather ride in the rain to be honest.

 

A lot of the newer helmets have the built in sun shades. Scorpion makes a few of them. Their EXO-1000 has it and those are going on close out special all over the net. I have a helmet with one and it's great. I had to ride in the dark a few times and no worries, just raise the sun shades. In the morning and afternoon, lower the shades and I'm good. With my Shoei I have to remember to bring my sun glasses!

 

Those things are friggin sweet. I cant wait to get one! I always like my mirrored visors though....

 

I've rode across nevada, utah, and wyoming. All three states had really bad winds, but wyoming (where i almost got sucked under a semi because of the winds) had the worst at 60+mph constantly, but I live in arkansas so I didnt have a choice. Wind sucks.

 

my friend has one of those helmets, he seems to like it, i am considering getting a new helmet, that option would def be a plus, too bad they got nothing against the wind lol

 

Hzaza, you are correct that the "modular" helmets are, for the most part, not as strong as a full face helmet. There is the Shoei that is "rated" as a full face helmet because it uses stronger closure pins for the flip face, but I'm still more confident in my actual full face that's a one piece shell personally.

On the scary ride issue, aside from cager interference, wind does seem to suck the most. Caught me off guard more than a few times at stop lights, don't think I ever dumped because of wind tho :knocking on wooden skull:. I was allways nervous of wind coming from the outside of a turn while I was leaned over and causing an instant low side, till I had it happen one day and realized it just flows right over you with little to no disturbance at all. I have found out recently, while riding the 500, that strong winds coming from the inside of a turn acts like an air wedge between you and the road and shoves you quite hard to the outside of the turn. Pretty good pucker factor had on the uber light 500 too!!

Hail sucks too for the record, and snow ain't too fun, ask me how I know............

 

I rode on the interstate for the first time today with some pretty strong wind gusts, thankfully it was a headwind and not side to side... Not my favorite though.

 

The worst and scariest ride I ever had because of wind was in South Dakota back in 92. Two of us were heading to the national BMW ralley in Rapid City. The west bounds lanes of I90 were being replace so both directions of traffic were running on the east bound side. We had about a 30mph wind out of the north and our bikes were leaned in that direction at about 20+ degrees for hours. We were running between 80-90mph. The passing traffic going east didn't really bother me that much even the semi's. The exception was a furniture moving semi, low sides close to the road, passed by moving at least 80. When the rear of the trailer passed the vacuum behind the trailer sucked me in. The bike went from leaning 20 degrees to the right to like 40 degrees to the left in a micro second. I thought the damn tires came off the ground! I flipped so fast to the left I had to do everything possible from going in to the other lane to keep getting hit head on. Talk about a wake up call. Scared the shit out of me. That was the first surprise I got on that trip. The other one happened at the ton mark 5 days later!

 

Oooooo I so don't like "suprises" ton up..............

 

Scarriest was when I was 16 riding my gsxr home from school and my principal pulled out in front of me without looking I was doin the speed limit. His big ole suburban stretched clean across the road it was full on brake from and rear as if the rear helped it was prolly off the ground lol I just barely tapped his front driver fender oooo u talk about a white knuckle hair raisin moment. The other day over in fayetteville,ar bout hit a raccon as it crossed the road on 1 of my 1krs talk about a hair raisin moment

 

It gets windy as hell here on the bridges sometimes. Not a fan of the wind ether but I did learn to NOT hold on tight but to loosen my grip and relax. My bike suspension was also setup wrong at one point and the wind played with me like a dog toy. I redid my front with different oil and less, dropped it 4mm and put more preload in the rear and it solved the toy issue. Now all I have to deal with is the push of the wind which can be delt with.

Now for the helmet/shield issue, I HIGHLY recommend getting a Bell Helmet with the Transition Shield. I absolutely love mine and it works just like glasses that have transition lenses. During they day it darkens and at night it is clear. Great shield and it's also fog resistant.

 

wow i didn't know they made transition motorcycle lenses thats really cool , def interested in one of those

 

Yeah they rock too. I know they make them for Bell Helmets but I do believe they make them for others now as well. They are pretty spendy but when you consider you only need one shield it rocks. It's one of the best purchases I have ever done for a bike. The only one better is heated grips

Just look up Transition Photochromic Motorcycle Shield on google and it will come up.

 

I too dislike crosswind. I've had to ride down the interstate before looking like I was doing a bad-a$$ lefthander. I By my point of view, I was at about a 60 degree angle to the left, looking from behind. Weird. Plus, in this area, going across the old I74 bridge across the Mississippi river, there is no shoulder. none. well, maybe about 5 inches. I've caught gusts across that, being it is several feet off the river, and with no wind protection, it just sucked. Those bridge rails are solid steel, and even doing the speed limit (50MPH) with a cross wind is not fun at all.

 

Tires can also be an issue with wind. If the rubber is worn or old, it aggravates the situation.

 

Three severe wind experiences:

Puget Sound area, riding along on a sunny day with dense forest flanking the road. No wind issues at all. Came to a little bridge linking the mainland to one of the little islands dotting the coast of the Kitsap Peninsula and the next thing I knew, a 40 knot cross breeze hit like a switch had been thrown. I was blown to the left, into the oncoming traffic lane, fighting to keep from being pushed into the side rails of the bridge. That I am able to describe this testifies to the lack of any oncoming traffic at the time. Be wary of any transitions from sheltered to exposed roadways, and vice versa.

I aborted a planned weekend visit to Michigan when gusty side winds on the OH turnpike started forcing me all over my lane. Holed up in a motel and turned around to go home the next day.

Riding to Denali National Park from Fairbanks, one of the crossings of the Nenana River had an aviation wind sock mounted on the side of the bridge and it was completely horizontal. I stopped and then paddle-walked the bike over that stretch.