Unexpected Weather Stories

[foggyhelmet]

I suppose we could all claim genius status on avoiding bad weather events, but just for some light conversation I was wondering if anyone had any stories where you were caught outdoors far away from proper shelter or home, and the weather was just not even close to what was being reported. Mud, ice, hail.........what is your story with the PCX?

[Brent]

Last week I rode home in a 45mph crosswind! That was not fun! I was leaning about 10 to 15 degrees to the right just to keep my Piglet (baby HOG) going straight! When the wind died off or I passed a building, I had to quickly correct the lean before I started going off the road! Lucky it only ten miles home. Once I turned left and had a beastly tail wind with some oomph! My medium windshield acted like a sail, and I doubt I barley twisted the throttle the rest of the way home!

[fish]

Last winter just two blocks into my afternoon commute home from work it started snowing heavily - a regular snow burst - after a 10% chance or precipitation according to the weatherman the night before.
The wind was blowing and the road surface was already very cold but dry - so the snow was not melting or "sticking" - just big, heavy & blowing away. My problem was in watching the road surface so closely that I missed seeing a truck pull up to a side street.....he barely slowed, just ran his stop sign, and came out at me. I did not pick up his presence nearly as quick as usual. Had to do some fancy braking and swerving to stay out of his grill.
Lesson learned - negotiating a snowy road surface is still secondary to watching every car in my area.
Verdict: stay off the scooter if any chance of snow.
This was on my KYMCO LIKE200iLX, with very good disc brakes and Michelin City Grips, both ends.
Fish
A better ride....
Or, if Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot had a scooter...

[honkerman]

Two summers ago I was relying heavily on my Kymco for transportation. There was a stretch of a couple weeks where thunderstorms would roll through Lancaster county just as I was getting out of work. I tried to beat one of them to a softball game and ended up sheltering in an Amishman's stable until the storm broke. Had a nice talk with the horse in the stall. I think he thought I was crazy, but he was polite enough not to say so. After the storm passed, I said goodbye to the horse, thanked the Amishman and waved farewell to all the Amish younguns who had gathered to spy on the englisher with the scooter under the eaves of the stable. I never did make it to the softball game.

[foggyhelmet]

Cars being secondary to the snow. That happens a lot going North from Colorado Springs to Denver. Daredevils love to plow through almost any weather recklessly and with full abandon. The right couple of lanes have pressure cracks and bad paving, tens of miles worth at a time, and the baby pcx-150 chugs up those inclines like a champ, given that its 150 cc's! Avoiding tailgaters and reckless lane changers does become secondary to that first hour or two of snow.

Found myself doing ten different things all at once. Clearing the visor of excess snow, lifting the visor to clear fog, clearing the visor of frozen sweat and residue, .........everything a windshield wiper does I do riding one handed. Then someone cuts in and it is like Finnegan's Wake out there for about twenty long seconds, and like a pop-up ad I tell the fog, "Not now!" and I hear a click and I know I lost another small part of my soul. Then the highway evens out and I'm going downhill again.

And I think for the next endless minute exactly how much slush has accumulated on the road surface and wonder why I am still here...

[sendler2112]

I'm not very picky about when to ride but got into trouble this time when I left for home a half hour too late. I had to give up and turn back when my chin vent got clogged with ice causing terminal fogging inside the visor.
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[flyingzonker]

One seemingly clear-skied evening in early November a few years ago I took my PCX for a ride to the supermarket. I was in the store for maybe 20 mins. When I came out I found, to my horror, that the lot was covered with an inch of wet, slippery snow. I could barely walk without falling down, let alone ride a bike in the heavily snowing dark! Scared to death, I mounted my machine and, using my feet like outriggers, I slowly rode out of the parking lot and down the two lane road toward home. After a mile of skating and fishtailing, I turned left with a little too much gas and wiped out. I managed to get the bike back up--a herculean task given the pavement's almost compete refusal of traction to either boots or wheels. I was afraid to remount and tried to walk the scooter the rest of the way--about a half mile. Needless to say, it wasn't long before I started to rethink my program--pushing a dead scoot up a snowy incline was doing me in big time. So I modified my strategy to the extent of starting the engine and gently, gently twisting the throttle, while I walked beside and guided the machine. At first I twisted a little too much and almost lost it again, but soon enough, under the pressure of great desperation, I learned how much gas to give so that the wheels would move without sliding sideways. After moving right along for a quarter of a mile in this manner I got the courage to get back on my bike and continue the rest of the way outrigger fashion, the technique I had started out with. All I can say is that fun never had a chance that night til I got off that bike and had it safely locked in the garage.

[Mel46]

Well, I have never been in a snow storm while on my pcx. However, when I was much younger and stationed in west Texas, and friend asked me if I would take him to pick up his car 50 miles away. Like a fool, I said,"Sure. Just fill up my tank." I had a Harley Sporster. Well, it was winter and winter in west Texas is unpredictable. The wind was blowing at about 25 mph when we started out, but picked up slowly. Then it started to sleet, which eventually switched over to blowing snow. We plugged along and finally made it to where we were going. He hopped off of the bike, said have a good night, and was gone. I still had the 50 miles to ride back, by myself, in the middle of the night, on a dark road, with snow blowing across the road at around 30 mph. I was leaning while riding the whole way back at about 45 mph, and boy was I cold! That was the last time I volunteered to give anyone a ride on my bike.