Another short vid from yesterdays FJR voyage around the San Juan Loop. This was shot as I was heading north, head first into about thirty miles of seriously technical riding in dry, warm conditions. It got pretty sporty as soon as I headed down into deep shadows where the atmospheric temperature causes snow melt, and the entire thickness of the road structure is literally colder than a block of ice. Guess what happens when that melt water runs across the road (which features no guardrail system of any kind, and dropoffs of multiple hundreds of feet on one side, a rock cliff face on the other, and opposite direction traffic in the same jackpot. I could not get my tire temps into any kind of comfort range. It was a pretty dicey deal. Im glad I was aboard a motorcycle with enough fine balance and linear response (both drive train and suspension/steering) to finesse my way through it. Being on ice on a motorcycle is a really bad caper to begin with, let alone aboard one with stump pulling torque. By the way, engine braking is off the table in such conditions. The back starts coming around, and patches of clean, ice free pavement, normally your saving grace, become a minefield of high side inducing traction events waiting to happen, coming at your fast and relentlessly. That aside, it was an awesome ride. I even ate a two pound bag of grapes out of my tank bag on the fly in the more sedate sections. As you can see, in the sunlight it was a stunning day.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 20:34:45 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015