I was out today with one of the founding instructors of Rapid Training and it was all going very well. We met up in Aylesbury and rode north up past Market Harborough. Anyway, we were heading for lunch up in Uppingham and we were riding down the B664 where there are, I think three humpback bridges. The road is pretty straight so you can see well and I quite fancied it, so I, for want of a better word, attacked the final bridge thinking I should be able to pop a nice little wheelie of that. According to Mark my instructor, I got my entire 1098 at least 3 feet in the air I thankfully landed with both wheels and the same time is a great cloud of dust I only knew about it when I landed as I took pretty much all my weight through my hands and one of my feet popped off the pegs. Its fair to say it shook me a little bit for the next few mins as it could have been a lot worse. Thankfully there was a nice cup of tea waiting for me in Uppingham. Beans Coffee store, highly recommended :biggrin: Moral of the story, dont ride at a humpback bridge at 80+ mph. See, the problem with being a city-boy is all our bridges are massive :biggrin::biggrin:
In some hilly areas there are hump-back bridges over canals, where the canals follow round the contours of the hills (for cheapness of construction) so each bridge has an uphill side and a downhill side. The first time you take the bridge going uphill, the hump turns out to be less acute than you thought. Coming back the other way, you remember that fact and take the bridge more vigorously - that's when you find the hump is much more acute than you thought in that direction. That's also when you find out about contour canals, along with what it's like to slide downhill with a bike* on top of you. By the way, the Highway Code doesn't tell you much about this sort of thing; you discover it from personal experience. * a Norton 750 Atlas, as it happened.
I hit a humpback bridge in my old Reanult 11 Turbo when I was 17 - when I landed one of the front fog lights fell out! I also hit one on my old 350LC - as I crested I saw a cop on the other side, so grabbed a handful of front brake just as i crested. This had a somewhat inevitable result, a heavy front end landing and two small oval dents in the back tank. I wobbled past draped over the tank groaning in pain while the cop had a damned good chuckle... I pee'd blood for a week.
I know that road really well. Was it one to one, what did you pay for your day if you dont mind me asking?
Yorkshire Dales are air city unless you brake for each crest. Which I did. Didn't want to meet any dry stone walls.
I've done it a couple of times in the past. I think the correct phrase is "I shat myself when I did it" :tongue:
It cost me £170 and I took the risk as this was the price for 2 to 1 training, but it ended up being 1 to 1 as nobody else booked up. Result
