I have use of a Honda Blackbird 1100XX for a week :-)
So far, my impressions are that it's stable, easy to ride, not a sports bike but turns in so much better than I expected it to and it goes down motorway sliproads rather faster than a diesel Xantia ...
Depends how you are driving but on a bike hitting a patch of diesel is in most cases a biker going down.
Own experiance (with a car): spilled diesel in a corner resulted in a car leaving the road, somersaulting twice along its longitudinal axis and rolling 5 times. It came to rest on its roof (which by then was 5 cm above the steering wheel) close to 300 m further.
Car, exactely 10000 km on the clock, had no doors, no wheels anymore and I received 5000 fr (80 UKP) for the wreck. I survived without a scratch and waited for the ambulance/ emergency services sitting on the armco. Highway police was the first on the spot and they slipped on the same diesel, putting their BMW rearwards in the rail (I went airborn on the same rail). Then arrived the firebrigade, who paid no notice to me but started looking for corpses in the bushes.
I had to do some expleaning that I was the driver... some more were due when my mom discovered a month later the cut-out photo of the crash (I had cut out the newspaper-article as a souvenir) because I told her my car accident was "minor", just some panels bruised. I felt that technically I hadn't lied ;-)
But then again: you smell it. That impresses me mighty: you thundering down a road and smelling spilled diesel 100-300 m in front of you. Quite a nose you've got!
Yes, I know you can't always avoid it, but somehow I seem to have managed to do ok so far on this score.
It helps that I've got decent eyesight...
You're 'out there' on a bike compared to in a car, with the air in front of you being rammed straight into your face, ergo you become aware of smells a bit quicker than in a car with the windows all done up.
I've smelt it and avoided it a few times over the last few years - it's mainly on roundabouts you see it round these parts, hence I've tended to not be 'thundering down a road' when I've encountered it.
I know that you have a fair bit of automotive engineering knowledge, but, quite frankly, you post a whole load of self-promoting s**te a lot of the time.
Thanks. I didn't know diesel was slippery, and I've never heard of that happening before. It's a good job no one asked to be told that, or I'd have never found out!
And what do you mean about winter? I've rode through several winters and haven't just randomly dropped to the floor because it's cold...
It's the posting of someone who has obviously not ridden bikes - everyone who hasn't makes the assumption they fall over if you so much as look at them.
I'll chuck in another 7 years of sporadic years. First two being every day of the working week to collenge and back. 15 miles away. And tbh, I've never seen/known of a diesel spill - so either, I've road over it and survived, or it doesn't really happen that often and I've been, well, not lucky really as if you total up every mile that's been ridden on a motorbike in the UK over a year, then divided them by diesel falls, I imagine it's not enough to make a sensible, let's say to 2 decimal places, percentage of 'falls per mile'.
Ha I fell off mine only once, and that was pissing about doing donuts in the college car park in the snow. It was lovely smooth fresh tarmac under there and me an a mate with a KDX125 were pissing around as we were a bit early and I was trying to stand straight up on the pegs and donut... It was doomed to failure really... Still, no harm done to me or the bike.
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