Y’all know I’ve been scooting around the forest on Honey Badger (my new Yamaha TW200 motorcycle). I’m getting one of my favorite experiences. No, not blasting through nature… that’s just icing on the cake. My joy is learning new things. I’m learning that a bazillion miles on a street cruiser taught me jack shit about keeping upright on a trail. Good to know!
The season has changed. It’s my time baby! After a long miserable late winter and spring, I can finally trail ride without freezing my ass off. Also, most of the spring water hazards have reverted to “interesting” from their earlier incarnation of “don’t ride into a pond dumbass”. You’d expect things to get easier. They are but they aren’t. It’s more like I’m leveling up in different varieties of trail conditions. I started with “ice”, rode around “mud” but sank in “water”, and now I’m flummoxed by “sand”. Trails that I traversed fairly easily in early spring are drying out and turning into shifting treacherous sand. They used to be relaxing but now that they’re bone dry, they’re terrors.
This I know: sand sucks!
It’s my fault for being a cheapskate / masochist. I chose a bike over things with more wheels. An ATV has four tires, if it spins on sand it’s just fun. Within reason, I’ve never had issues with an ATV on sand. It’ll still stay upright and steer a bit flaky but good enough. The biggest hazard (I’d guess) is the maintenance hassles of sand getting into CV joints and such.
A motorcycle is a different animal. It has two wheels and requires traction on the tiny contact patch to stay upright. (Admittedly, Honey Badger has about the fattest contact patch I can get. I even aired down a bit to increase stability and traction.)
Lost traction comes in two flavors; ‘not a big deal’ and ‘heart attack now’. If the rear tire loses traction you spin but don’t immediately lose control. So far that almost never happens and when it does it’s not a big deal. If the front tire loses traction (which happens on sand far too often!) shit gets real. The microsecond the front tire washes out, your steering is haywire. The bike goes neither left nor right but just plows a furrow straight ahead. The front tire is now a ski. No, that’s not right; skis are great for steering. It becomes a squealing greased pig. Yeah, that’s the right analogy. Then, and this happens fast, the bike tilts out of plane and starts to go down. Lacking sufficient traction on the fluffy moving surface, you must correct and fast. Otherwise, it’s going down and you are too. On sand, this happens whenever it happens. For no reason. With minimal warning. Fast!
Over and over the bike will come within molecules of going down with a half second’s warning. I correct with lightning speed and we continue merrily down the track. I hate it! It is not conducive to my goal of stress free, mellow, chilled out sputtering around and exploring. The only thing that would make me focus harder would be a cobra glaring at me from the handlebars.
How can I enjoy the chickadees when I’m a split second from doom? It’s damaging my calm!
Yo, AC, that sounds serious! Or, like another chapter…
“Life is a lesson, there WILL be a test.” Tree Mike here, started riding in sand in the South West back when Christ was a corporal, I mean the late 60’s. The ONE thing is, get yer ass off the seat and as far back as straight arms will let you…and add throttle as necessary… those three things are the ONE thing to get you through sand. By lightening the front end, it will tend to not wash out. Have a good time out there, lots of us are addicted to G forces. Jealous Tree Mike.
“requires traction on the tiny contact patch to stay upright”
Only if you want to deviate from a straight line, sir. Gyroscopic action of the wheels, y’know.
In the Real World, what Tree Mike said. For the record, I have ridden in sand N times. And fallen down N minus a few times. Consider minor bleeding a fun thing…