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winter riding safety thoughts..

  • Thread starter Deleted member 23845
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Deleted member 23845

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All,
I took the blue goose out yesterday around 4PM here and there around Sugar Land. Dusk arrives early, but what a beautiful day. However: commuter-school traffic was intense, drivers were in a big hurry, and I saw many cars driving without lights on. Given some of our blind intersections, I found myself struggling to identify some cars. Had one sort of pucker encounter with a black Tesla blowing through major intersection double stop near my house. Was happy not to be in his way. Sheesh. Add in the typical foliage at corners: risky visualization and riding for a motorcycle. And, the cagers are not expecting motorcycles at all. Beautiful time of year to ride, but I am done with dusk timing: sticking to mornings and early afternoon I guess.

YMMV, EOM, be safe out there!
 
Getting more and more dangerous out there. Too many distracted drivers.
 
Those of us who ride in have to no choice. Even then, I try to leave early enough to get ahead of the morning rush hour. In the afternoon, If I can't leave the office before 4, I would quite often stay till 6:30pm, so I don't have to deal with the stop and go on a bike.

I look forward to retirement when I can pick and choose the time of the day to go ride.
 
I leave in the dark every morning. This time of year I get to go home in the dark too. Pay attention and I have found that certain spots are where most of the close calls happen. I route around them whenever possible.
 
Retirement helps. Beautiful day today, but no riding-- allergies kicked my butt after finishing power washing front driveway yesterday.
 
With the availability of LED aux lighting, it is easy to get more light out in front of you to be seen. Even the smallest alternators can spare a few amps for LEDs. A single headlight is completely lost in the sea of headlights and foglights of trucks and cars so it is good to add extra output.
 
I'm really lucky that I can ride during the week when the hills aren't choked with squids and cagers. I'll leave super early northbound on 281 while southbound is a parking lot if I'm doing the short day run, or try to get out to Helotes on 1604/16 before solid rush hour hits. If I can survive those two exits from the metro, I feel pretty good about having a nice day. But if I had to ride in constant traffic and morons in densely populated areas each time, I'd sell the bikes, or hope for a lotto tickie to get me away from freeways once and for all. YMMV.
 
Oh, and I haven't been out since July, but 281 north of 1604 is a war zone of construction. I really regretted going that way, and will go up Bulverde next time and cut over at TPC or something like that.
 
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