Top 5: Nearly all motorbike riders worldwide will encounter riding in cold weather throughout the winter, either intentionally or unintentionally. Riding in the cold is a special circumstance that calls for your respect as a rider and your familiarity with safe handling techniques. Riding a motorcycle in the cold has been shown to impair one’s ability to think clearly and physically, as well as severely impact the way the motorcycle functions. In this article, we will share the Top 5 essential tips that you must know before riding a bike in the snow.
Top 5 Essential Tips to Riding a Bike in the Snow
One input at a time
You may be accustomed to stopping into or speeding out of corners while driving on the street. But it’s best to stick to one task at a time when riding on snow. Giving different inputs at the same time may cause the motorcycle tyres to lose traction and skid out from beneath you because of their narrow contact patch.
Ride on fresh snow
Riding on freshly fallen snow is far less difficult than riding on snow that has been ploughed by other cars. This implies that fresher, slightly fluffier snow will provide higher traction. It will be far more difficult to gain traction if the snow has been driven over and compacted by the weight of other cars. To maximise your traction, steer clear of other cars’ tyre tracks and ride on newly fallen snow.
Keep the tyre pressure low
We advise deflating your tyres a little. They will become somewhat less inflated as a result, increasing their contact patch in the snow. Your tyres will have more grip with a larger contact patch, which benefits everyone. Use this advice carefully because riding on deflated tyres for extended periods of time might cause damage to the tire’s design.
Stay easy with the controls
One cannot overstate how important this is. Handlebars should be operated as though you were wearing gloves with oil on them. This is because there is almost no grip between the tyre and snow, yet there is traction between the tyre and the tarmac. You might end up face-first in the snow if you use a sudden and forceful amount of throttle, which was previously sufficient to start your bike on the tarmac. Riding in the snow requires you to be light on the controls whether you are stopping, steering, or accelerating.
Ride in high gear
You are applying less torque to the wheels when you ride in a gear higher than usual. As a result, the motorcycle will behave more submissively rather than spinning its wheels due to insufficient traction. It modifies the power coming to the back tyre and functions much like traction control, which is found on more expensive motorcycles. We strongly advise you to utilise the traction control system if your motorcycle has one.
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