Snake Rd. turn 3 claims another victim

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reciprocity said:
the first problem here was the belief that your tires were in any way warm enough.

Given the temperature in the area, there is no way there was any heat in the asphalt and unless you spent 30 min doing circles on sandpaper before heading down to that turn, your tires were well below temp.
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and thats where experience comes to play i guess hah now i know
 
Neil44 said:
were you the guy on the bike?
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I was the guy that stopped in the black Audi. The one that gave your buddy grief about "spirited" riding in running shoes. :director:

Coming home last Thursday at the same time (in the car) it was about 5 deg. cooler. My front end pushed in both 1 and 3. Dropping into the valley is very deceptive. Once the sun goes down behind the trees there is always condensation, and it can be anywhere from a little to treacherously slippery.
 
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Simply touch your tires right after a let's say 20 min street riding when it's less than 10C outside temp. The tires will be barely warmer then the road. You do not need heaps of experience, it's very simple.

What kind of tires do you have on your bike?
 
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Englishj said:
Before giddying up to a 600, take a couple of Tdays or some schools next year to help your roadcraft.

FWIW, turn 3 or any other turn on snake road is like every other corner on a European road :rolleyes: Some ppl are making it out to be the hardest corner on the continent lol.
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I've ridden in Europe, California, been to Deals Gap and drove all over New Zealand. IMO, this IS a very difficult corner. Most corners in Europe are not a decreasing radius, except for some of the steep mountain ones, but with those the visibility is usually much better. But hey, to each their own..... find me a tougher corner in N. America.... I'm sure it exists, but the casualty rate at this corner is nuts. I'm sure Mulholland has more crashes, but those guys are trying to get nice pictures taken.
 
It's not the corner..........it's the guy holding the handle bars that causes the crashes on Snake road.
 
I was thinking of starting a photo business either at the hairpin at the Forks or Snake Rd. :)

Anyone want to invest?
 
killerkeith said:
I was thinking of starting a photo business either at the hairpin at the Forks or Snake Rd. :)

Anyone want to invest?
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Unfortunately this isn't Tennessee.
Your photo stand will be torn down before you get it set up.
You're not the first person to come up with the idea ;-)

OP - glad you're ok.
 
Gary said:
Unfortunately this isn't Tennessee.
Your photo stand will be torn down before you get it set up.
You're not the first person to come up with the idea ;-)
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would be kinda cool ....or a live 24h live cam so we can all sit back and watch people all day
 
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I live 5 minutes from the top of Snake and hung my head when I read the title. Fantastic that this was just an expensive learning experience.

Advice that can ease up on the bad crashes: If the turns are lined with trees and or guard rails - relax! Slow in, smooth throttle out and forget the hero crap as much as possible. Snake is a garbage road in my opinion. A few turns are nothing to get excited about.

I rode Mulholland and especially Palomar Mt for a few years and the serious difference (besides warm, smooth pavement) is that you are hitting hundreds of really tight turns and all out switchbacks, every 20 seconds or so for hours. That's a lot of warm up time to get REALLY good at cornering your bike, and you do that every weekend. Cripes, the roads leading to them make Snake look lame.

Southern Ontario does not have anything like this so we have to make do the best we can. Everyone who says to do track riding is not kidding. Riding mountains in California IS track riding (with the potential of a 5000 ft fall unfortunately) but up here we HAVE to go to the track to exploit our bikes properly. You would never regret it.
 
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