I came off

[Rooster1]

Nice that Rubino doesn't look too worn though, be interesting to see how you feel about the new tyres, I propose a test ride

I fancy doing a stop test also, same road, same speed, brakes on, red tyres vs new tyres - see how far I go (in a staight line this time)

 

[Rooster1]

Agreed. I would say there's plenty of life left in that tyre.

i will run them again in the spring maybe

 

[ColinJ]

I fancy doing a stop test also, same road, same speed, brakes on, red tyres vs new tyres - see how far I go (in a staight line this time)

So, would that be on a damp road again ...? It is perfectly possible to lock your wheels up, skid and fall off on a straight, damp road if you overdo your braking!

You didn't fall off because your tyres were no good - you fell off because your riding was no good for the conditions and the same thing could happen in your brake test.

I think that you would be better off spending your time practising your bike handling skills. When I was learning to ride as a child I used to ride up and down the cinder track to a local club. I used to deliberately lock up the back wheel so I could get used to controlling rear wheel skids on its loose surface. (Don't even think about doing the same for the front wheel ... there are very few people who can recover when their front wheel goes from under them!)

I got to try out my bike handling very early in my Yorkshire riding 'career' when traffic lights at the foot of a steep local descent changed back to red after an unexpectedly short period on green. (The lights are on-demand only in that direction and give priority to traffic on the A646 below, but I didn't know that at the time.) The road surface was damp and I had not factored that in either! My emergency braking led to a rear wheel slide which I managed to get under control and I came to a stop just in time. I think that I would have gone down if it were not for all those skid sessions as a child.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I haven't had time to study all of THIS discussion but it looks interesting and I will return to it later!

Make time. It is the most layman-palatable piece of writing on tribology that I've seen in a long time. It is just a pity it didn't touch on lubrication in context - water on the road.

@Pale Rider. You and I exchanged words once on the linear nature (or not) of the inflation and contact patch relationship. There's a nice graph in there that deals with it.

 

[Milkfloat]

Slightly off topic - but I was led to believe that like for like, coloured tyres were less grippy than black. Is that just an old wives tale?

 

[mjr]

Slightly off topic - but I was led to believe that like for like, coloured tyres were less grippy than black. Is that just an old wives tale?

I'd not heard that one. I'd heard that black tyres withstand UV better than gum due to the black colouring, but I've no idea if that's true either.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Slightly off topic - but I was led to believe that like for like, coloured tyres were less grippy than black. Is that just an old wives tale?

The stuff that makes MOST tyres black is carbon black. It is very fine pure carbon obtained by burning acetylene in oxygen. It's not posh to call it soot. Nevertheless, it was discovered probably 100 years ago that if you add carbon black to natural rubber, it makes for a very durable tyre and as it turned out, a grippy one too.

Later on someone discovered you can create coloured tyres by adding coloured sand (silica) instead of carbon black. That created a tyre with lower rolling resistance and it because quite popular on bicycles. However, its performance and durability was poor enough for it to be banned on car tyres, hence our black rubber until today.

Most black bicycle tyres however are made from black silica. Companies who use carbon black like to brag about it and will add the magic word Carbon somewhere on the casing.

Not all black is carbon.

 

[Rooster1]

So, would that be on a damp road again ...? It is perfectly possible to lock your wheels up, skid and fall off on a straight, damp road if you overdo your braking!

You didn't fall off because your tyres were no good - you fell off because your riding was no good for the conditions and the same thing could happen in your brake test.

I think that you would be better off spending your time practising your bike handling skills. When I was learning to ride as a child I used to ride up and down the cinder track to a local club. I used to deliberately lock up the back wheel so I could get used to controlling rear wheel skids on its loose surface. (Don't even think about doing the same for the front wheel ... there are very few people who can recover when their front wheel goes from under them!)

I got to try out my bike handling very early in my Yorkshire riding 'career' when traffic lights at the foot of a steep local descent changed back to red after an unexpectedly short period on green. (The lights are on-demand only in that direction and give priority to traffic on the A646 below, but I didn't know that at the time.) The road surface was damp and I had not factored that in either! My emergency braking led to a rear wheel slide which I managed to get under control and I came to a stop just in time. I think that I would have gone down if it were not for all those skid sessions as a child.

I already said I know it was my riding.

 

[Alan O]

there are very few people who can recover when their front wheel goes from under them!

I've only ever had that happen to me once (well, twice, minutes apart). I braked on black ice and the first thing I knew about it was that I was lying on my back and the bike was sliding down the road.

I got up, walked the bike past what I thought was the extent of the ice, got back on and tried to pedal away...

 

[ColinJ]

I already said I know it was my riding.

But despite that, you keep talking about your tyres ...

 

[ColinJ]

I've only ever had that happen to me once (well, twice, minutes apart). I braked on black ice and the first thing I knew about it was that I was lying on my back and the bike was sliding down the road.

I got up, walked the bike past what I thought was the extent of the ice, got back on and tried to pedal away...

I've had it happen several times in 30 years. 3 times in one ride on black ice!!! A couple of times on mud, and at least once on wet leaves. Some near misses on gravel ...

 

[Rooster1]

I won't be commenting further, bad luck

 

[mjr]

I used to deliberately lock up the back wheel so I could get used to controlling rear wheel skids on its loose surface. (Don't even think about doing the same for the front wheel ... there are very few people who can recover when their front wheel goes from under them!)

Surely very few people recover when their back wheel goes from under them? By the time a skid has got to that point, you've probably lost, whichever wheel.

I've remained upright through a few front-wheel skids, often when I've a heavy load on the back or a trailer, but none got as far as the wheel going from under me. Probably still not the best idea to deliberately skid your front wheel, though.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I won't be commenting further, bad luck

Sorry you have to go. Your video was really thought-provoking and I'm glad you posted it. With a slightly - dare I say Accy - slant to it it could have evolved into an anti-car thread again but it kinda swayed off course in a good way. It elicited some good debate and you never placed blame anywhere other than on your skill and/or luck at the moment. May I ask that you wipe your camera's lens more often and switch it to a higher frame rate when you sense excitement? I really wanted to see what happened with those brake levers moments before the slide.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Surely very few people recover when their back wheel goes from under them? By the time a skid has got to that point, you've probably lost, whichever wheel.

I've remained upright through a few front-wheel skids, often when I've a heavy load on the back or a trailer, but none got as far as the wheel going from under me. Probably still not the best idea to deliberately skid your front wheel, though.

If you lose traction whilst cornering - you lose it. One reason being that a skid induces even more lean. However, controlled rear wheel skids are very common. Fixies use it to scrub off speed and change direction - on tarmac. Trail riders use it to maneuver fast corners. Kids use it to show off and piss daddy off.

Front wheel skids are a different animal altogether. Firstly, it cannot be induced on good surfaces and on poor surfaces it is irrecoverable unless the surface is poor for just a very small area and it improves as the wheel moves into the better section. But scale is important here.