Brave the Briskness or Mothball the Motorbike?
Wait for Spring, or get out on the winter roads?
Article by Ben Curwen, photography by Andy Barnham
I have to admit that I have become a bit of a fair weather biker. Perhaps I should qualify that and say that I have been ‘allowed’ to become one. Work these days requires far fewer journeys and luxuriously this means more transport choices. Cars, motorbikes and the seemingly always-tempting Uber allows for a more considered choice of arriving without courting the journey roulette of public transport. This wasn’t always so.
Many (many) years ago when I first got my license I didn’t pass first time. This became a slight source of embarrassment on the second fail, and a little irritation at the examiner who said that the source of the fail was ‘debatable’…. The third attempt was an utter relief to both myself and the garage that had been waiting for me to collect the motorbike I had ambitiously tee’d up in advance. What started as a fun summer activity had actually put me on the roads with a full license in the midst of a cold November. On a 600cc sports bike. With summer tyres. Yes… you are right, I was not smart.
I was so eager at that point that no weather conditions were off-putting as all of it was liberating compared to years of long public transport commutes. Central London was a breeze, and the wealth of parking opportunities for two wheels meant that my car started to build small turrets of leaves around the wheels.
If I’m honest, some of that enthusiasm was perhaps misjudged. I favored the motorbike to ride from East London to Hertfordshire that Christmas Eve with family presents cargo netted onto the back. Thankfully despite the net failing, I didn’t arrive empty handed. Frankly it would have been hard to tell if I did have presents in my hands, as they were so cold they had lost all sensation. That same Christmas a friend who had also started to ride at a similar time became trapped at a petrol station forecourt in northern France when the winter weather took a significant turn for the worse. He still can’t feel the important bits of his digits to this day.
It is therefore fair to say that years of riding, and a touch of hard earned wisdom have tempered my desire to ride when it requires wearing the entire contents of my wardrobe. The strange thing is however, I still love winter riding.
From a pure riding perspective it’s arguably some of the best fun you can have at legal road speeds. Traction is tricky so feeling the back squirm around at very moderate inputs puts a grin under the slightly fogged visor. Normally this would require a more liberal attitude to the observation of speed limits. Allegedly. Officer. You have no choice but to be more progressive with the power, more deft with the brakes, and being in the right gear becomes both a necessity and a pleasure as you push on. Normally this finesse can only be played around with on track, or off-road.
I would also argue that winter riding isn’t always exactly in winter. Many of us dream of long bike journeys through European summers. Here’s a bit of news though, it isn’t always sunny. My girlfriend and I rode our respective bikes to World Ducati Week in 2014. A trip upwards of 2,000 miles was never going to be blue skies the whole way. In actual fact just most of the way would have been nice. Bad weather dogged the first three days of the trip and my other half experienced what cold, wet and smooth tarmac can do to the rear of the motorcycle. Mostly that it can make it overtake the front. This timely high-side did little for the cosmetic or mechanical integrity of her bike.
This was a somewhat inconvenient. It was a Sunday in France and therefore everything was shut. Monday was Bastille Day, apparently a rather major national holiday, and so realistically there would be no chance of repair for at least two days. We had 12 days to make it to WDW and back. Good times. So with a bit of gaffer tape, a few zip ties and some generally ham fisted road side repairs we had a pretty ropey but just about functional Triumph Street Triple R. The other half had the fun of trying out a twin for the first time in the form of my Ducati Streetfighter 848, and I had the dubious pleasure of riding her motorcycle with largely no brakes, skewed bars and dodgy radiator for a good 100 miles south. Not quite the summer biking we had envisaged.
Also those picturesque mountain passes are surprisingly up in mountains. I know, I’m sharing some revolutionary stuff here. This means definitely cold, possibly wet, and a more than reasonable chance of fog. All pretty reminiscent of winter riding if you ask me. It can be even more wintery than that at surprising times of the year. A friend shared a video with me of him and some fellow riders being pelted by massive hail at the end of an Easter on the famous Stelvio Pass in Italy. Not quite the fair weather biking dream. Whilst the narrow wintery roads with steep drops in those conditions can make more than the back tyre squirm, if you get clear weather they are utterly glorious and well worth the risk of inclement weather. If you can learn to love the winter weather, it’s not even that much of a risk. These are the roads that stand out in your memories, and urge you to want to make the trip again in the future.
This is also where the technology improvements are genuinely exciting to me, particularly when it comes to winter riding. Purists may lament the advent of traction control, ABS and other electronic aids, but I do not. I love them. Not sure if your tyres are warm? No problem – turn up the traction control and simple throttle inputs give you flashing lights to tell you now is not the time for foolish acceleration. Riding through a tree-lined pass that is still damp? Sure ABS won’t save you from totally inappropriate behavior but it will substantially increase your chances of slowing your speed using your tyres rather than your backside. Kevlar, leather or no, that’s never fun, but the road might be.
The tech doesn’t stop at the bike level. Aside from the wonders of heated grips, heated gear is starting to really make progress. In relative terms they have both become more effective, more affordable and look a whole lot better. They take less space than bulky winter layers so are perfect for the summer adventure too. I have a lot of time for technical layers but after a while it’s all just a bit too much bulk. Being so trussed up that you can’t turn your head is not doing wonders for your sense of security, even if you know the roads you’re riding well. In the case of the WDW trip I could of course have gone the textile route but to be honest I’m a bit of a ponce and rolling round Italy in a leather jacket was always going to be the preferred sartorial choice. Sadly I didn’t have heated gear in the bag that time. Wished I had them then, and definitely on the packing list for next time. If you’re warm, you’re happy.
Motorbikes don’t need to be mothballed for the winter, and are a missed opportunity for biking memories. Now if they could only work out how to make waterproofs actually ‘waterproof’…… 