Keeping clean underwear while hydroplaning in traffic

[Dirt_Dad]

Tip: purge yourself the night before in the bathroom, otherwise you have a very small chance. I just hope the people (traffic) who watched it did the same.

Observation: Bridgestone Battlax Adventure A40 (90/10) tire is vastly superior in rain to the Mitas E-07. As Dirt_Mom showed today.

Observation 2: It is cruel to have your wife watch you hydroplane in traffic. Sorry DM.

Situation: Heavy rain in the Kansas City area this morning. Everyone appeared to have their wipers on at fast speed, so I assume it was a hard rain. Riding through on I-70, was on the east side of town, heading east. Traffic at the same speed all around the 3 or 4 lanes. I was in the very left lane. Right part of the lane, DM on the left part of the lane.

Everything was going fine, speed around 60 MPH. I noticed a sign that said "Grooved Pavement." A few seconds later a small section turned from asphalt, to grooved cement. About a second later the bike was out of control. Handle bars swerving left and right, back end also out of control. I rolled off the throttle and stiffened my arms trying to stabilize the bars. Feet also went out to the ground like outriggers. Not positive if they touched the ground or not. After 2-4 seconds the bike calmed down and was fine again.

Never had time to get scared, just react. Feel pretty lucky things worked out fine. I've never experienced anything like that. I thought when I saw grooved pavement it should better, not worse. Although I had never given it much consideration.

Take away: Slow down even more than I think necessary in heavy rain. I learned to respect rain years ago when DM totaled a bike in a wet, decreasing radius, downhill turn. Apparently I still have more respect to give wet roads.

The tires, not in that bad of shape.

front

rear

Photos taken right after the event.


Other lessons: So glad I did not change DM's new Battleax tires out for the E-07s. She was right behind me and to the left and never felt a thing. Street tires are better than 50/50 tires in heavy rain.

Please be careful out there...your underwear will appreciate it.

 

[thughes317]

Any opinion as to that solid center strip of rubber being a contributing factor to a propensity for hydroplaning? I've heard of this with the K60's and they have a similar design.

Side note, running on I90 outside of Buffalo NY a couple of days ago in a downpour I decided to reduce speed and run in the right hand lane. A 1/4 mile after I moved over into the right hand lane there was a HUGE puddle in the left lane, looked to be several inches deep and 2/3 the width of the lane itself. Hitting that at 65-70 mph would have been an "experience"........

Stay safe out there!

 

[Jlq1969]

Tip: purge yourself the night before in the bathroom, otherwise you have a very small chance. I just hope the people (traffic) who watched it did the same.

Observation: Bridgestone Battlax Adventure A40 (90/10) tire is vastly superior in rain to the Mitas E-07. As Dirt_Mom showed today.

Observation 2: It is cruel to have your wife watch you hydroplane in traffic. Sorry DM.

Situation: Heavy rain in the Kansas City area this morning. Everyone appeared to have their wipers on at fast speed, so I assume it was a hard rain. Riding through on I-70, was on the east side of town, heading east. Traffic at the same speed all around the 3 or 4 lanes. I was in the very left lane. Right part of the lane, DM on the left part of the lane.

Everything was going fine, speed around 60 MPH. I noticed a sign that said "Grooved Pavement." A few seconds later a small section turned from asphalt, to grooved cement. About a second later the bike was out of control. Handle bars swerving left and right, back end also out of control. I rolled off the throttle and stiffened my arms trying to stabilize the bars. Feet also went out to the ground like outriggers. Not positive if they touched the ground or not. After 2-4 seconds the bike calmed down and was fine again.

Never had time to get scared, just react. Feel pretty lucky things worked out fine. I've never experienced anything like that. I thought when I saw grooved pavement it should better, not worse. Although I had never given it much consideration.

Take away: Slow down even more than I think necessary in heavy rain. I learned to respect rain years ago when DM totaled a bike in a wet, decreasing radius, downhill turn. Apparently I still have more respect to give wet roads.

The tires, not in that bad of shape.

front

rear

Photos taken right after the event.


Other lessons: So glad I did not change DM's new Battleax tires out for the E-07s. She was right behind me and to the left and never felt a thing. Street tires are better than 50/50 tires in heavy rain.

Please be careful out there...your underwear will appreciate it.

Thanks for sharing. It is the best warning, the experience itself, which ended well

 

[bigbob]

So glad you are both ok. You can buy new shorts!

 

[Dirt_Dad]

So glad you are both ok. You can buy new shorts!

Thanks, fortunately my shorts are still usable.

Can't speak to why from a design standpoint. Never had any problem before with the E-07 in rain, and I've used them a lot in rain.

I suspect the gyroscopic effect was my greatest ally in this episode. Those two big spinning gyros want to stay up. I avoided doing anything to upset them (brakes), and they did their thing. Of course that's my non-trained opinion. I'll be curious what a train opinion (checkwrecks) has to say.

 

[Don in Lodi]

I've read where some tire patterns have issues with grooved pavement, without rain being added even.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Scary and glad you are OK. From the perspective of water pavement, that rear tire is a racing slick and losing traction is not a surprise. There's nowhere for the water to be channeled away. Groove it, replace it, or avoid standing water for now.

Need to do another brunch when you get back.

 

[Cycledude]

Witnessed something like that happen to a friend while riding in Texas many years ago, it happened while he was switching lanes in the light rain, at the time I kinda thought crossing the wet white line might have been what triggered the crazy wild wobble. For a couple seconds I thought for sure he was going down but very fortunately he managed to keep it up.

 

[wjfawb0]

I've done lots of night time thunderstorm riding on Bridgestone Trail Wings on my WR250R. Decreasing radius wet turns going down hill are really hard on the adrenal glands some times. I'm glad you kept the rubber side down. I'm sure I'll eventually change over to some street legal knobby tires on the Super Tenere. I will ride it even more cautiously on the road when I do. My Jeep Wrangler's oem bfgoodrich KM tires are similarly horrible on wet asphault. It's worth it being able to go offroad and rock crawl, though.

 

[WJBertrand]

I wonder if you were already aquaplaning just an undetectable smidge out of line to your direction of travel, then when you reached the grooved pavement the bike regained traction was snapped somewhat violently back into line? Happened to me in a car once, scared the poop outta me!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[EricV]

Glad you came thru the event nicely and upright. Well done!

I've ridden a lot in the rain, 45 years living on the wet side of Oregon. Lots of grooved pavement and grating deck bridges. Tires play a big part in what we feel, as does bike geometry. Water certainly may have been a tipping point factor in your experience, but I suspect you were not actually experiencing hydroplaning. Hydroplaning typically results in total loss of traction, and movement completely out of control, not bar wag. Bar wag indicates, (to me), that you had traction, but something else was going on. Again, not to say that the water on the road was not a factor, and may have pushed you over the edge in terms of control.

When was the last time you checked/re-torqued the steering head bearings?

It's hard to tell, but there appears to be some cupping on the front tire. How severe is that?

A cupped tire will naturally want to wag the bars when it has less input from the rider or the road. This may be a situation where the cupping and water combined with the grooved pavement to cause the bar wag.

I have had bar wag on grooved pavement before, but not to the level you describe w/o some other factor, (diesel spill, antifreeze spill, snow/ice). I have also seen some tires that did this on grating bridges, while other tires on the same bike, same bridge grating, were perfectly calm. Tread design, more than wear, seemed to be the factor. I regularly traveled over those bridges, so was able to experience them with fresh tires of different types as well as worn tires and a wide variety of weather conditions and speeds.

My worst experiences with bar wag have all be directly related to front tire cupping/wear.

 

[jeckyll]

Agree that checking steering head bearings is a good idea.

I had weird side to side movement at 70 mph before and it turned out to be a new rear knobby creating a harmonic with the front while heavily loaded. Made worse by slightly worn swing arm bearings. (not on the superT fyi)

Weird interplay can happen...

 

[Tenere man]

Pleased to hear that you kept it upright and safe, & you and your good lady are both OK. I see that you have the ES model, same as me. I was just wondering if you had the cruise control in operation, would it have turned itself off when it noticed the loss of grip on the highway ? Is the system designed to work it out, i e You arn,t braking, but instead its a loss of traction when travelling at 60 mph ?
My Mercedes turned its own system of when i drove across a smallish amount of standing water running across the road, in between the white lines painted on the road a while back.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Need to do another brunch when you get back.

I feel like I'm back. We busted butt doing 1100 miles over the last 2 days to get here to Canaan Valley. Our favorite local resort. Relaxing here tonight, then a short 2.5 hr ride home tomorrow.

When was the last time you checked/re-torqued the steering head bearings?

It's hard to tell, but there appears to be some cupping on the front tire. How severe is that?

My worst experiences with bar wag have all be directly related to front tire cupping/wear.

Sitting here tonight after 5,800+ miles in the last 2 weeks, I can say for a fact the steering is not torqued to the correct specs. It's been really annoying. I had the bike to a Yamaha dealer one week ago in Colorado. He confirmed the front right brake disk is warped. He also gave a good pull on the front forks and determined from my description the front was not dangerously loose at that point. He was doing me a favor taking a break from another job and we did not torque it. The bike rides fine at speed, no problem going no handed 80 mph all day. I only time I feel it is the last few seconds of stopping. Hell, I was so annoyed by the loose steering a few days ago that I bought the necessary tools at an auto parts store, then just told myself, since I only feel it when stopping, I'll just deal with it when I get home. Based on what you're saying that was some dangerous complacency on my part.

Interesting you mention the steering because that is the first thing that popped into my head as it was happening. I then figured it had to be hydroplaning, since it only happened on that one section of grooved pavement.

I don't believe the cupping is all that significant, but I'll take another look in the morning. The bike is parked too far away at this point, and I don't want to look at it again today. I will report back.

 

[EricV]

I think your instincts are well trained. As I indicated before, perhaps one of the several things going on created a tipping point. Glad your experience gave you the right reactions to handle it well.

Make no mistake, You did very well under conditions that were seriously adverse to staying upright. Props DD.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

It's hard to tell, but there appears to be some cupping on the front tire. How severe is that?

My worst experiences with bar wag have all be directly related to front tire cupping/wear.

I'm not really seeing much of any cupping.

Possibly a tiny amount, but I'm used to seeing dramatic cupping, so this level doesn't even register with me.

I'm back home now, so will probably take the bike out to Romney tomorrow. At 38,440 miles I'll have them lube the steering bearings, and get that torque set back correctly, and see if we can get YES to cover the excessive warp in the front rotor.

 

[EricV]

I agree, it doesn't seem significant in terms of cupping or tread wear. Good thoughts your way on getting them to step up on the Rotor. They like to call rotors wear items. Try and stress the abnormal aspect of it warping and that this isn't your first Super Ten.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Good thoughts your way on getting them to step up on the Rotor. They like to call rotors wear items. Try and stress the abnormal aspect of it warping and that this isn't your first Super Ten.

Will do. Its Romney, they have an excellent track record of going to bat for their customers on warranty issues. One way or another, all stops will be pulled. I'll end up paying what ever is appropriate.

 

[PhilPhilippines]

So glad you are both ok. You can buy new shorts!

Probably disappeared when he "clenched"!!

 

[Madhatter]

I stumbled upon this slightly old thread , but it is interesting and has a topic that can effect us all.
was it hydroplaning or was it grooved pavement ? I'm leaning toward the grooved pavement side of the argument and this is why. if the tire hydroplanes it has no contact with a surface that it might hold traction , so that is very bad and would have dumped you im pretty sure. as for grooved pavement (the devils on invention ) it has lots of edges to create traction and on a tire with lots of space between lugs it also has lots of edges to mate with the pavement grooves . and the grooves are never straight but have a wiggle like a snake.
I have never measured the with and depths of the grooves , it varies I guess to the work being done , but sometimes the grooves look a half inch wide . now imagine a half inch wide grove and the space between the lugs on the tire inter meshing . lots of traction at both ends of the bike . its going to wiggle and shake and freak you out (not a fan of grooves for all these reasons ) my bike no matter the tire has handled the grooves better than me .
relaxing the grip on the bars is better than the death grip , the death grip could cause a crash , but slowing and allowing the bike to follow the grooves is safer.
a street type tire that does not have the wide groves tends to ride over the cut rain grooves rather than grabbing each other ,still get shake but not as intense . a repaving of the local interstate here had grooves so bad it would shake my truck and it weighs 48000 lbs when loaded . and I avoided riding it till their work was done .
now traveling to places we are subject to what project that is going on and we have to react , that's our dilemma to solve and in quick time mostly . now for the good news .
the Tenere is a very stable bike , it saved you Dirt Dad , and that stability has saved others . had a friend run through a giant pot hole at over 70 mph , he was almost launched off the bike but his knees caught the crash bars . the bike just did a wiggle and settled right down . good bike .
I don't ride a lot in rain , so im anal and ride really slow . but I do ride in the rain when I can not help it.
pavement grooves or riding in the rain , I would choose the rain , and when there is both I would probably be twice as anal about it .
not a fan of things that cause a loss of traction , rain ,sand, mud ,oil the list goes on . but grooved pavement is all about traction and it can over whelm a single track vehicle . and that is my opinion .