Cold Ambient Air.....
....means longer warmups, colder tires, roadtemps and falling on yer arse if you are not careful.
I grew up riding in Minnesota, where riding conditions can vary by the hour....leave for work in the morning and watch out for black ice under bridges, come home in the afternoon in the seventies. If you've done any trackriding at all, you've also noticed (I hope) that 15 minutes worth of warmup laps can have a huge difference in available traction.
Todays sticky tires are especially compounded to operate best in a fairly narrow temperature range. Go outside of that temp range and traction can fall off drasticly. Riding at a spirited pace on cold tires on a cold road and what would normally be a little "twitch" during warm weather can become a lurid slide or a crash.
And just because it warmed up in the afternoon, doen't mean the road is much warmer....stop on the shoulder in the shade on a day that starts out in the thirties, and put your hand on the road surface. Now do it in the afternoon, in the shade. Even though the air temp may be 30-40 degrees warmer, the road temp will be in the forties. Something to think about before pitching it into that blind curve like you would in the summer.
Think while you ride.
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After The Fall...
There seem to be a lot of threads on here lately from folks who have either crashed, know somebody who has crashed, or come upon a recent crash. While I have sympathy for anybody who has gone down or been involved in a multi-vehicle accident, my response is always the same; what happened, how can another such incident be avoided, and what did you learn?
If my approach sounds a little cold, well, sorry; but if you screw up and don't LEARN anything, sympathy won't get you anything but killed.
My EXPERIENCE has shown me that ANYTIME I wreck......IT"S MY FAULT.
YEP! Me. The Rider. My Fault. YEP. Even if (or ESPECIALLY IF) the other guy did something stupid. MY JOB IS TO KEEP ME SAFE!!!
And therefore, if I do go down or get into an accident, or witness another accident; my job is to put aside the emotions and analyze WHAT WENT WRONG and what I can do as a rider to avoid doing it AGAIN, because the only guy lookin' out for me out there is ME.
My screwups have come in a couple basic catagories:
> The Doin' Somethin' Stupid Screwup. Like drinking and riding....or riding without gear....or doing a showoff move...in traffic. You know what I mean.
>The I Didn't Know How Screwup. Like braking in turns....target fixation.....locking up the rear brake.....dropping an unfamiliar bike. Those that could be taken care of with a little training and/or a little practice that I didn't do because I was in a hurry or too lazy.
>The I Had No Business Being There Screwup. Like riding at 2 am on a Friday or Saturday nite after the bars just closed....or just about any holiday weekend nite....or during or just after dusk on back roads in deer country
>The I Have The Right-Of-Way Screwup. Oh really? You gonna dent his car with your face to MAKE A POINT? (Sort of a subset of the Doin' Something Stupid Screwup)
>The Riding-Over-My-Head Screwup. See #2 above.
There are a few more generalizations I could make, but you get the idea.
In order for me to survive out there, I need to throw away the blame of others and accept the fact that the worlds' roads are full of lousy drivers, stupid, ignorant drivers, sand in corners, decreasing radius blind turns, nails in tires, cell phones, Buicks, deer, dogs; ad nuaseum and accept the fact that, as a rider, navigating all these hazards is my lot in life that I volunteered for!
Now, what do I do about it?
Not; Who do I blame?
OTB
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