Another little article in Adventure Rider

[nick949]

Plenty of Guzzi (Eldorado) content, and germane to the current discussions re: Dempster and Nordcap

https://www.advrider.com/get-to-the-gravel/

Nick

[kingoffleece]

Well done............... ..........yet again.

[Tkelly]

Great article,many years ago I rode gravel without a second thought,now I have this huge  tall heavy Stelvio and I feel intimidated by the thought of how painful it would be to go down.What tips do you folks have to help me get over this,what speeds do you ride at?

[nick949]

Great article,many years ago I rode gravel without a second thought,now I have this huge  tall heavy Stelvio and I feel intimidated by the thought of how painful it would be to go down.What tips do you folks have to help me get over this,what speeds do you ride at?

I ride according to the conditions - which essentially means I plod. On hard-packed surfaces I might reach a heady 55mph occasionally, but I'm always looking for the soft and loose spots so my averages are much lower. I'm more interested in getting where I'm going and enjoying the ride than maintaining a particular speed. In my opinion, some people rely on the bike too much, believing that high-tech suspension and appropriate tires will protect them, and disregard the road conditions and their own, personal skill level, then are surprised when they end up getting air-lifted from somewhere. Speed is not your friend. Technology may help, but it's not the answer.

Nick

[Moparnut72]

When I lived in Colorado many years ago I rode a lot of gravel roads on my R75/5. It was good on the gravel, it had roughly 8" of suspension travel. But like I ran Dunlop K70 tires. I think they were a good all around tire. I also did a lot of super slab riding and still got 10k miles out of a rear.
kk

[Stretch]

I liked your article Nick! Lotta hard-won wisdom there.

I'm in agreement with some of your comments, too.

Riding according to conditions is sorta the Golden Rule.
(Winter drivers in Maine please note!)

And if you're going too fast on the wrong line into that corner -
on pavement OR gravel - all of the technology in Christendom is NOT
gonna save your sorry a$$.......  Technology, used intelligently, can enhance
control as one approaches various limits, but it's not going to enable one to refute the laws
of physics........   

                                                                  -Stretch

[Tkelly]

I was looking for riding techniques on gravel as I feel like I ride too slow.On a straight moderately hard gravel road what speed do folks maintain while watching for potholes?What do you do in deep gravel?

[Moparnut72]

Way back when I lived near Denver I was on my way home from Sturgis riding my R75/5. I was running pretty fast and didn't have much left. A guy on a V85 passed me, then dropped back, passed again. He did this several times just screwing with me. There a 50 mile stretch of road coming up where the DOT had torn up the highway for rebuilding. I had run over it on the way to Sturgis and knew that it was in decent condition. When I got to it I dropped my speed down to about 55, turned around on my seat and waved bye bye to the Honda rider. The Beemer was decent on gravel stock but I had upgraded both ends of the suspension so it was really good on marginal roads.
kk