Blue Knob Ride - I broke things!| Motorcycles and Bicycles forum |

foxtrapper SuperDork
8/23/11 7:08 a.m.

I must be getting better, I snapped the swing arm on the TT250 doing that ride. That might explain the weird handling I started getting partway through the trail ride.

Still trying to learn how to go up steep slopes of muddy rocks. Man that is hard! Go too slow, and you bang on every rock there and get knocked all around. Go too fast and you bounce over every rock there and get knocked all around. Basically, I just get knocked all around until I end up sideways and flipped off the bike. Or in a tree. The bike seems to like cuddling up to trees.

Curmudgeon SuperDork
9/4/11 8:15 a.m.

Trees = magnets. The secret to rocks etc is to crash a couple of times, that way you learn what does and does not constitute good traction. You thus learn something called 'line selection'.

The really fast guys will put a good steering damper (Scotts or WER) on, turn it to 'real stiff' and banzai the rocks, trusting the damper to keep the forks from whipping side to side. Next to big loose rocks, the worst thing I have ridden through was in Florida, it was these palmetto roots which are roughly like half a bowling ball sticking out of the ground. The fronds cover them so you can't see them. The locals call them 'monkey balls'.