In my last post I was wishing for rain to try out my Michelin Pilot Road 3s – well as if made to order, the heavens opened up a day later and the rain came forth 🙂
As it was a day when I abserlootley needed to use the bike as it was booked in for my air horn, I wrapped up in wet weather gear and a tad nervously but also excitedly ventured out. First it was off to Luton’s High Town with a mix of roadworks, manhole covers, mini roundabouts, potholes and lots of lovely painted wet road signs. Silvano (my Triumph Sprint ST 955i) on his new tyres made light work – in fact it was as if running on air in the nicest possible way! Getting round corners wasn’t remotely hard work on the wrists and counter steering was a breeze. Never mind the Road Pilots – this was just the effect of round rather than square tyres 😛
With the rain steadily pounding down I was careful not to push too hard as there were literally streams of water going diagonally across my path and man-hole covers were being pushed up by the volume of water! However when I hit the Thorn turn (between Toddington and Leighton Buzzard) I definitely had a big grin on my face as I took the s-bend with ease – hoorah!
As I pulled up to Flitwick Motorcycles, I was unimpressed to see the rain stop and the sun come out – and realise that for the first time in six years my waterproof Daytona M-Star boots had let me down – urgh wet toes are not cool 😦 AND two fingers of my left hand were distinctly damp. Having said that the Halvarssons gloves are at least three years old and, like the boots, have kept me dry in the most horrendous of rain storms. We’ve also racked up about 45,000 miles on the boots and about 30,000 on the gloves so I think I’ve had my moneys worth. Will have to look into replacing or repairing and will let you know how I get on with that!
Since I have no wish to show any pics of me looking less than fab here’s something else to laugh at 🙂
Anyways back to the biking – once the air horn was fitted I decided it was time to play again! With water all over the place but no extra chucking it down I wanted to see if the Road Pilots would engender confidence or confusion.
Taking the twisty back road from Flitwick to Westoning I went into those corners without a hiccup – then a water and gravel strewn hill to Barton – and again, whilst avoiding the gravel, those new boots on my baby stuck to the road like glue 🙂 That new technology seems to work a treat but Michelin explains it so much better!
Incidentally I may finally have solved a little bit of a problem I’ve been experiencing with my braking. At times I’ve been concerned by how light this bike can feel under hard braking – as if the back wheel hasn’t got the weight of the bike on it. A quick discussion with some older biking mates gave me a solution. Back in the day, when they were taught and I was just a twinkle in my mum’s eye!, they were always told “use your back brake first to settle your bike then pour on the front”. Whereas in my day the back comes on at the last moment when less front is needed.
I guess it’s also a case of different bikes different circumstances as the Fazer didn’t really have this issue. So on the way home I tried it several times – t’was indeed an EUREKA moment 🙂 and Silvano is nicely settled and driving to a halt each time rather than a back tyre developing a new relationship with air!!
So all in all a good day indeed to test out the new tyres, and also find out that my waterproof kit isn’t so waterproof 😉
Ride Safe
)
A bird's eye view to biking! 