Cronorider
Well-Known Member
I know some of you will have been hit by cars, hit dogs, cattle on the road, etc - let's hear those stories and yes I do have one...
This happened on a club ride on one of the steepest hills around which is about 2 kilometers long and is a straight run from top to bottom. Everybody likes to swap max speeds at the bottom and previously I had run at around 95 - 96 kilometers per hour. (59 mph) This time I was determined to top 100 kmh so I started at the back of the group and sprinted my ass off as I used the slip stream from the others. Coming on to the steepest section of the hill I was almost past the first rider in the group when I felt a subtle vibration in the front end. Uh oh. It quickly turned into full on uncontrollable speed wobble. I thought the sensible thing to do would be to move to the other side of the road to get out of the way of riders behind and tried to control the shaking, to no avail. A bad decision, the road had quite a turtle back to it, so as soon as I moved toward the other side of the road, I continued to move across the road toward the ditch. I could not steer. This was all happening at over 60 mph. Unable to stop or control the direction of my bike, I prepared to hit the ditch by popping one of my shoes out of the pedal and straightening my leg on the other side - the panic position! As soon as I did that, the bike cleaned up, I veered away from the ditch at the last moment, regaining control. My max speed was 99.6 kmh - or 61.88 mph. Found out after that I had just the slightest play in my headset which could have been the problem, but I have not been back there to test that theory...
This happened on a club ride on one of the steepest hills around which is about 2 kilometers long and is a straight run from top to bottom. Everybody likes to swap max speeds at the bottom and previously I had run at around 95 - 96 kilometers per hour. (59 mph) This time I was determined to top 100 kmh so I started at the back of the group and sprinted my ass off as I used the slip stream from the others. Coming on to the steepest section of the hill I was almost past the first rider in the group when I felt a subtle vibration in the front end. Uh oh. It quickly turned into full on uncontrollable speed wobble. I thought the sensible thing to do would be to move to the other side of the road to get out of the way of riders behind and tried to control the shaking, to no avail. A bad decision, the road had quite a turtle back to it, so as soon as I moved toward the other side of the road, I continued to move across the road toward the ditch. I could not steer. This was all happening at over 60 mph. Unable to stop or control the direction of my bike, I prepared to hit the ditch by popping one of my shoes out of the pedal and straightening my leg on the other side - the panic position! As soon as I did that, the bike cleaned up, I veered away from the ditch at the last moment, regaining control. My max speed was 99.6 kmh - or 61.88 mph. Found out after that I had just the slightest play in my headset which could have been the problem, but I have not been back there to test that theory...