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Refreshing low water crossings - Texas style

M

mr-roboto

Guest
As dual-sport riders we all enjoy going through those refreshing, smooth surfaced low water crossing in style...how difficult can it be for a professional rider during the Dakar race?

:yawn:

Texas style water crossings

RB
 
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The audience was enjoying it, especially Underwear Man.

yeah :brainsnap I think he just liked touching their seats.

9 style points for Mr. Hi Side, 8 for the low sides, 10 to the last guy.
 
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What it really is - a moss and algae crossing, and it is like greased glass. I have no pride or anything to prove, I duck walk these in hill country if its warm. No moss no problem.
 
Been there as well. With my wife on the back! :doh::shock:

Luckily at about 5 mph and basically just hopped off. Some of those concrete crossings are so slippery that it's even hard to walk across them.
 
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Wow that would be bad. Nothing slicker than that moss. You sure have to hit the tire tracks.
Mine was in southern Lampasas county.
 
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I've been studying the guy who squared-up and made it without incident. I've been skittish on water crossings since going down with my girlfriend on County 101 (Little Blanco Rd) a couple of years ago on the V-Strom. It was very similar, a left hand corner going into the crossing. Heh, I still remember laying in the middle of the crossing with water flowing into my helmet. Just bruises (and nothing for her), but it left a mental scar.
 
I know down around Kerrville there are a couple of low water crossings that always have water going across them. When I was younger I never rode on the roads so I have not had the pleasure of dealing with them but considering I am hoping to move closer to that area soon and resume riding around there I've been envisioning exactly how I was going to cross them and my first thought I had the other night was that I am probably going to get off the bike and walk across and see how deep the water is on the sides of the crossings and just go waterborne and skip the mossy mess, lol... Nice way to cool off too!!!!
 
hmmm honda guy hit it square standing on pegs.

Yep, the guy who made it across the slick crossing was standing in a very neutral position....most of the other guys that crashed were sitting down.

...it begs the question, why does standing on motorcycle "lower" a bike's center of gravity?

...or could it be something else like the gyroscopic effect that allows the rider to be disconnected at the hips which facilitates the bike to move independently of the rider?

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...the underwear dude probably had a bad night at the local cantina.

:lol2:

RB
 
:tab Standing DOES NOT lower the center of gravity of the combined rider/bike system ;-) It raises it. However, what it does is decouple the movement of the body CG and bike CG by allowing them to move somewhat independent of each other. This is a great help on rough terrain. However, on a smooth slick water crossing, sitting vs standing doesn't make much difference. If you watch real close, you'll notice that all the guys that go down are not perfectly straight up and down AND going straight. They are still slightly leaned and trying to complete the corner when they hit the slick stuff. OR, they get on the power while on the slick stuff. Even if the bike is perfectly straight up and down and you are going perfectly straight, grabbing even a little bit of power can make the rear slide right out form under the bike. Even trying to hold a constant throttle is risky because it can make the back end break loose. Trying to change direction AT ALL can make the front tuck or the rear slide out. The trick for this is to be straight up, standing or siting, and coasting across in a straight line. Even then, if there is enough water current, even that can push the wheels out from under you or cause you to need to make a course correction that can put you down. So ideally, you'd want to start on the upstream side of the crossing so that if you do get pushed a little, you'll hopefully be on the far side of the crossing before reaching the down stream side and falling off or trying to correct your direction.
 
I now handle them like an icy bridge. Get lined up, pick my line and set a reasonable speed. And then avoid ANY movement, including blinking, until I've coasted across to the other side. And when I say coasting I don't mean off-throttle where it'd be like applying the rear brake.
 
That's why you never see the Harley Davidsons go north from Loco Coyote on county road 1004.
 
This is why you approach any wet low water crossing with respect and anticipate algae under that trickle of water that looks so benign

Those are off road bikes in a race, professional expert riders... most of whom fell from less than 1/4 of water on top of algae slick concrete...Street bikes will go down just as fast, but harder.
Slow down, keep the bike upright, keep your body centered and look ahead, keep the clutch in, no brakes, no lean, and coast across the wet area.
 
:tab Standing DOES NOT lower the center of gravity of the combined rider/bike system ;-) It raises it. However, what it does is decouple the movement of the body CG and bike CG by allowing them to move somewhat independent of each other. This is a great help on rough terrain.

The trick for this is to be straight up, standing or siting, and coasting across in a straight line. Even then, if there is enough water current, even that can push the wheels out from under you or cause you to need to make a course correction that can put you down. So ideally, you'd want to start on the upstream side of the crossing so that if you do get pushed a little, you'll hopefully be on the far side of the crossing before reaching the down stream side and falling off or trying to correct your direction.

This confirms my feelings on the COG debate. I would also add that pulling in the clutch when crossing such a slippery surface helps. This helps alleviate excessive surface tension from the rear tire that can cause wheel spin.

The dude @ 2:01 does a high-side. Did he try to apply the front brakes when his tire got on the dry portion of the crossing?

RB
 
My shoulder still hurts from a slimy low water crossing that got me a few years ago on one of Rich's Hill Country rides. I did notice watching the one guy who made it across was perfectly aligned and neutral on his bike as Tourmeister pointed out. All the other dudes had some lean or acceleration going.
 
My shoulder still hurts from a slimy low water crossing that got me a few years ago on one of Rich's Hill Country rides. I did notice watching the one guy who made it across was perfectly aligned and neutral on his bike as Tourmeister pointed out. All the other dudes had some lean or acceleration going.

Just ride them at night....then ya can't see the algae! :lol2: :sun:
 
If any of you have been out West of Marble Falls on CR 310/Click Rd., you know there is a LONG concrete crossing at Sandy Creek. Here are a few shots of it. You can see that the water runs across the entire crossing. As you might expect, there is also algae across the entire thing!

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That is my fully loaded VFR 800 sitting at the start of the crossing. There is NO coasting across this crossing. You HAVE to use the throttle or you will NEVER make it across. It is simply too long.

This was my first ever water crossing...

The GS went first. I followed...

As soon as the back tire hit the edge of the water, it started spinning immediately. I was BARELY giving it any gas at all. I had both feet out just to try to keep the bike vertical regardless of which way it was pointing. Every time I tried to give a little gas, the bike slid and the rear tried to step out. To make matters worse, every time this happened, the force of the flowing water pushed the rear off line and pointed me the wrong direction :-?

Each time, I managed to go a foot or two before the back end was getting out far enough that I had to stop and fight to keep the bike upright. My feet were sliding just as bad as the tire. My hamstrings were not happy about this... I was TENSE and worried. There really wasn't any going back and I still had a good way to go. I was also VERY concerned about the edge of the concrete that wasn't far from my back tire. I kept trying to move toward the upstream edge as I worked my way across inch by inch.

I lost track of time. It seemed like an eternity but was probably only about ten minutes or so. But I finally made it to the far side, cursing my riding buddy for dragging me into such nonsense on a street bike. But... deep down inside, something started stirring within me, and it wasn't lunch. :wary:

My buddy must have noticed the change in me as he offered to let me ride his GS for a while. I had been recently reading ride reports on Advrider.com and I think we all know what that causes to happen :doh: So I accepted his offer.

Moments later I found myself blasting down a sandy dirt road laughing like a little kid and the rest as they say... is history! I had a GS a few months later :trust:

A few years later I found myself leading a group of intrepid adventure riders to Big Bend and the route out of Austin happened to include this same crossing. I stopped to warn everyone about how slick it was and how careful they would need to be. They all nodded their heads as if they understood. I walked across to get set up for pictures and just to check the conditions. I thought maybe this would drive home the seriousness of my warning...

They started across one by one...

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"THAT'S EASY! STAND ASIDE BRIDGE KEEPER! I'M NOT AFRAID!"
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Oh... carrying a LOT of speed...!!
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Soooo close :lol2:
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Seeing the others wipe out, this one stopped to reconsider...
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But then makes it across without any problems once the way is cleared :clap:
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Once everyone was across, I walked back and got my bike, then rode across without any problems this time.

Checking bikes and underwear for hidden damage... :cool2:
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It was a BEAUTIFUL spring day!
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Scott, looks like you were the smart one and let those guys spin up their tires rubbing off the algae for you so you had clean pavement to ride across. :D
 
I've never had a problem when going on the car tire track.
When I went down the middle, slow and straight one time, I went down so fast I didn't know what had happened.
 
I've never had a problem when going on the car tire track.
When I went down the middle, slow and straight one time, I went down so fast I didn't know what had happened.

On that particular crossing, even the tire tracks are slick. When I crossed on the VFR, a farmer had just gone over in front of us and I tried staying in his tracks. It was no use. The bike just slid all over the place! On some crossings that will work, but I've learned to never take that for granted.
 
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