Just come back from a trip to Brussels to see a gig, and celebrate my wife's birthday (as you do). As you are probably aware, we've had some fairly extreme weather for this time of year, with temperatures ranging from 0°C to 7°C when the sun shone (which to be fair, it did a few days). We travelled two up on the Ducati, with a friend on a well-matched bike, an SV650. Here we are at the Channel Tunnel terminus at Folkestone, waiting in light sleet to load: and a few days later at Brugge: The wind was gusting over 20 mile an hour (North Easterlies) on a couple of days, which blew me from left to right on the outward journey, and right to left on the return. I would say that I'm reasonably used to riding a motorbike through wind, and the technique is to relax as much as possible, drop the speed so that the gusts don't blow you into the next lane, and keep the revs high. I've experienced cross winds on the Duke before, appropriately at Windy Corner on the mountain, but I didn't expect the bike to feel like a barge on this journey. Coming back it was too much, and I dropped my pillion at Ashford for the return journey to London this afternoon. Checked tyre pressures (36/42), and wheel bearings (seem OK), but nothing else. What do you guys reckon is causing this? The SV was fine, by the way, and losing the pillion only made it more controllable.
I found on my SS that I got blown all over the place especially on the motorway. It unnerved me to quite scary In the end I used to get into the slow lane and just run at 40 till I could pick up speed again and stay safe.
its all you can do I'm afraid when you have what is tantamount to a sail as a fairing panel Its got no real curvature as such so is pretty rubbish at deflecting anything unlike the SV. Fire a garden hose at the side of the SV fairing and then do the same at the SS fairing and you'll see what I mean.
Agreed..........the SS full fairing makes the bike so slab-sided unlike most other fully faired bikes I have ridden / rode / rided..... The half fairing eases it considerably (obviously)..... AL
I used to commute Weymouth to Bournemouth along the Tollpuddle Bypass(cheese wires up the middle) with gusting cross winds of 30-45 mph at times and I found that it was better if you only held the bars lightly (even single handed..just the twist grip)and rode as fast as you could so that the gyros (wheels) would have maximum effect. Let your upper body get moved by the wind. Yes I realise the multi is a bit more see thru regards wind resistance but it was proved by my riding buddy Pierpaolo on his Beneli 900 Tornado when we came back from Scotland just as the hurricane arrived in 2011 he was getting blown all over the motorway until he tried it then we just cracked on and he was fine....he had only been riding about a year. its down to your survival reactions (SRs) whether you do it or not.
Yes the 900 definitely has a problem with crosswinds, I remember heading up to Heysham over the M62 one night and had to ride on the white line between lane 1 and the hard shoulder to be sure that the next gust only blew me as far as the other side of lane 1. The technique of holding the grips lightly and riding as fast as possible sounds like a good plan, but it is rather difficult to do it when your arse is trying to take big bites out of the seat every few seconds.
With you on that one .....survival reaction is to fight it.....I know and each time I have to force myself to relax (shoulders down and chicken wings)and let the bike do its thing......those cheese wires don't even look friendly from a distance.
I used to experience the same problem with my Superlight when riding in windy conditions, or even when following large vehicles the bike would handle like a pig caused by turbulence.None of any of my other bikes,fully faired or not,do this.It certainly took some enjoyment away from an otherwise fun bike,I regret selling it though!
