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[Specter]

Good Morning everyone:

Yes I know this is a question that is very subjective, but Id love to hear your ideas on it or experiences.

Mud.  Where I live in Florida, they are building like crazy, and that means miserable dump trucks dropping mud everywhere on the road.  The mud can be runny slime half an inch thick, it can be a goo pit 4 inches thick of squishy slop for 10 to 15 feet.  It can be stiffer slidey clay that smooshes and slithers under your tires, or anything in between.

Now, if one hits this with their bike, say at 40 MPH ish, you came around a corner, and there it is.  How bad of a situation is this really?

Yes, yes, I know, it's highly subjective to 100 diffferent inputs, your speed, lean, mud consistency etc, but what are the immediate dangers one needs to be looking at?   ie, ok you are looking at getting into a high side here the moment your front wheel slides then grabs,  ok you are looking to get into a lowside when your back wheel slides out, type things?  Is it a, yah that CAN turn bad situation, or a, yah that pretty often ends poorly situation?

Besides for letting off the throttle, and gritting ones teeth as you hit that, what else would you do to try to minimize the mess you just got into?

Thank you
Aaron

[TheRan]

I would just avoid that route, if you know it's likely to be covered in shit. And I would also contact some sort of local authority because I would assume the construction company is responsible for anything they dump on the roads.

[Specter]

Agreed on the avoid the route TheRan but sometimes routes can not be avoided, because they are the only road out from where you are at. 

People have called the local authorities often, but nobody seems to give a crap.  The dump trucks dump shit all over the city, nobody cares.  Toxic ash from the power plants are flying out of them like crazy all over 295, everyone sees it, but looks the other way because it's bringing in money.  You know the routine.  Their idea of cleaning it is, just run it over 100 times, it'll squeeze out and flatten out, problem solved...

aaron

[Demoni]

Besides for letting off the throttle, and gritting ones teeth as you hit that, what else would you do to try to minimize the mess you just got into?

Being smooth and soft is your best bet if you have no other choice.
Your tire treads can only clear so much mud or water, if they can not keep up your tires are no longer in contact with the road and you are hydroplaning. Your bike will carry momentum in the direction of travel.
When this happens in a turn the bike will slide away from the apex of the corner. Depending on how far the bike is leaned over you will probably "low side", akin to a cartoon character stepping on a banana peel.
Get the bike straightened up, keep your speed constant or gently slowing, do not touch the brakes and lighten your grip on the bars. Abrupt inputs will upset the bikes stability, you want to keep it tracking straight and as vertical as possible. Gently shift your body weight to help balance the bike.

Riding a dirtbike offroad is the best way to improve your bike handling skills. It gets you comfortable letting the bike move around under you.

Thankfully I have had limited experience with traction events on the street. I had a major pucker moment a few years ago hitting a patch of oil leaned over mid corner. Both my tires lost traction and the bike slid from the left side of the lane all the way to the right side. Bike regained traction right before I ran out of pavement. If I had panicked and hit the brakes I would have probably ended up in the dirt. 

[Specter]

thank you for your inputs Demoni.

Now another question, Regen.  I tend to ride with my regen set high.  Could the regen cause a slide / lock the tire up due to loss of traction or is the  bikes monitoring generally sufficient to not let it do that?   Ive been in a few traction situations, usually involving rain and standing water, where one can easily tell, yah I could cause a slide here real easy if I did this or that, point being go VERY easy if  at all on those brakes!  But when your regen is acting like a fairly heavy braking, could that do you dirty just like if you smacked on the brakes?

Aaron

[Demoni]

Could the regen cause a slide / lock the tire up due to loss of traction or is the  bikes monitoring generally sufficient to not let it do that? 

The answer depends on the bike in question. Energica developed it's eABS system to prevent regen from locking up the rear wheel. The bike monitors front and rear wheel speed, a rear wheel turning slower than the front under braking normally indicates a potential lock up. The system will reduce the regen in an attempt to compensate. The system also works in concert with the Bosch ABS system, and prioritizes reducing regen before the brake ABS system is utilized. ABS systems work by quickly cycling the brake pressure to prevent wheel lock up, the ABS pump can only work so fast and this results in a pulsation. Since the eABS system is electronically controlled vs mechanical the intervention is smooth.

You can test how each system works if you feel comfortable partially locking up the rear wheel. Set regen to medium and accelerate to ~40mph, let off the throttle and apply the rear brake gradually building pressure. As you apply more force to the rear brake the bike will reduce regen, the result is the bike slows at a constant rate balancing the two systems to prevent lock up. Alternately if you quickly apply pressure to the rear brake the ABS will kick in and you will feel the pulsation of the ABS pump.

The eABS and ABS systems provide protection against rear wheel lock ups in situations where traction is limited. However they do not alter physics, aggressive inputs (brake, throttle, steering) can still upset a bikes handling and cause a crash.

[Specter]

Thank you Demoni, great info here, and another testament to the superb design of the Energica Bikes.

My main concern here was, Regen can get pretty aggressive, if you are half a fart's force away from sliding on mud, and a heavy regen kicked in, could it lock your back tire and start the slide?  Fortunately it seems the Energica monitors all this tightly enough to do everything it can to have it NOT happen to you.

This also answers other questions I have had.  When riding on shitty roads, the regen at times seems to be not as aggressive as on a smoother road, for no apparent reason,  now that you explained this, Im thinking because it probably sees that bit of 'slop' in the traction, from the bad roads and is being safer about it.

anything we can do to keep the wheels pointing down and the helmet pointing up is a good thing.

Aaron