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How To Ride Your Motorcycle on Grooved Roads

How To Ride a Motorcycle on Grooved Roads

Captain Crash has been been making videos to help motorcyclists improve their skills for over half a decade. He’s also written a couple books about it. Don’t let the name fool you, Crash is a great guy to learn from. His videos are informative, encouraging, and upbeat. In this video, the good Captain shares tips on how to ride a motorcycle on grooved roads.

For the video, Crash uses his 300 lb Suzuki DRZ-400 motorcycle. The motorcycle’s light weight makes it more reactive to bumps, potholes, and ripples in the ground. Crash admits that riding on grooved surfaces can be “a little bit of an exciting experience.” We’ll go one step further and say that on your first time riding a motorcycle on grooved roads it’s cool to feel like you’re going to brown your pants.

The reason I wanted to share this video was because of the great job Crash does at illustrating the difference between what’s happening at the bottom of the bike versus at the top: At the point of contact, the uneven pavement is only causing a faint wobble, however by the time the effect reaches the handlebar, several feet up, the effect is amplified.

How to Ride a Motorcycle on Grooved Roads

Riding a motorcycle on uneven pavement isn’t all doom and gloom

The motorcycle “isn’t shaking, swaying or trying to kill you,” Crash assures us. And he’s right. The bike is simply wobbly ever so slightly down low at the point of contact, but you feel it worse because you’re sitting on top of it. The feeling the rider gets from the handlebars is actually much more dramatic than what’s really happening down low. An extra degree or few in one direction or another has minimal effects on your motorcycle’s handling, but the higher up your handlebars are, the more it’ll feel like the bike is all over the place.

But it really isn’t.

Your arms are at the end of a long lever, so the feeling is amplified even though the motorcycle is ok.

7 pieces of advice on riding on uneven pavement:

  1. Relax
  2. Don’t worry and keep on relaxing
  3. Stay firm but keep on relaxing
  4. Don’t let it freak you out, remember that you’re going to be ok, it only feels worse than it is
  5. Keep up your speed and keep up with traffic
  6. Keep your head and eyes up and looking ahead as always
  7. Sometimes grooved roads and uneven pavement happen, and that’s totally ok, just ride it out

If you haven’t seen it already, check out Captn Crash’s video, How To Ride a Motorcycle on Grooved Roads:

About Adrian from YouMotorcycle

I started riding motorcycles in 2007, founded YouMotorcycle in 2009, and was working in the motorcycle industry by 2011. I've worked for some of the biggest companies in motorcycling, before going full-time self-employed in the motorcycle business in 2019. I love sharing his knowledge and passion of motorcycling with other riders to help you as best I can.

2 comments

  1. RT @YouMotorcycle: How To Ride a Motorcycle on Grooved Roads https://t.co/dutuu6w3ND https://t.co/LRZBjpOIUq

  2. How To Ride a Motorcycle on Grooved Roads https://t.co/7SE7jUk3v3 vía @YouMotorcycle

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