Slippery Wood

[Ribenapigeon]

Its not often an experiment works out but this time I've a success. I have a shallow ramp of plywood to get my bike into my shed. It used to have some strips of grip tape on it but thats long since gone. The wood has become a bit slippery though the culprit is algea or moss like growth. So remembering my lost youth when I used to work with a slater i remembered we used to run a copper wire along the ridge of roofs which suffered heavy moss growth. The copper reacting with acids in the rain producing copper salts which would stop the moss growing. So i mixed up a strong copper sulphate solution and sprayed the ramp down for a few days just before xmas. Im pleased to say it's worked and the ramp is now free of whatever green slippery growth was there and its no longer a slip hazard. So there you go, if you have a tricky slippery wood problem try some copper sulphate. Buy it neat as copper sulphate though its cheaper that way rather than buy the stuff for keeping ponds free of algea. I bought a kilo of the stuff for just a few quid.

[MCN]

And 'Mould-Pal®' (copper wire device)?
Is that still in development then?
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[bhinso]

[Ribenapigeon]

[yen_powell]

I usually see wooden bike planks used to get bikes into vans etc wrapped in chicken wire for grip.
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Blackmail is a nasty word........but not as nasty as phlegm!
XT1200Z and a DR350 in bits

[Sister Sledge]

The thread title gave me pleasing excitement and lured me in - only to discover it's a ramp..

Why not just wrap some bare copper wire around then?
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CCM 404 DS

[stinkwheel]

I used to use a plywood ramp for loading my bike until I found out how cheap a proper folding aluminium one was. Then I wondered why I'd fucked on lugging huge heavy bits of ply about and nearly dropping my bike for so long.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Nobby the Bastard]

A ten quid folding Ali ladder makes a fucking wicked ramp.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[BTTD]

Interesting.
The roof on my mums house has quite a bit of moss growth on the North facing side and I have been spraying it periodically with a moss killer solution which has worked reasonably well, however I'm wondering if a straight up copper sulphate solution would work better.

[Pete.]

Jet wash gets rid of algae instantly.

BTW I have been carrying a 5 foot scaffold board in my van for about 15 years. Rescued dozens of stranded bikes with it including my own at times. When I had my ' busa I had to use a 7 foot board or it would ground out when it was stretched and lowered.
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[NutsyUk]

You can always glue on that rough roofing stuff found on sheds and so on... Grippy as heck
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Yamaha FZ8/Fazer800 (split headlight one) 2014, gingerly getting used to the massive increase in HP and not killing myself in the process! That was easy to get used to.
Kawasaki ER6F 2007 650 Gonna sell as a project bike!
Lexmoto XTR S 125 Sold!

[grr666]

Can't believe people don't just spend £30 on a ramp. Surely reducing the chance of dropping your bike while moving it
by using something purpose made, grippy and strong enough is worth the price of a budget crash helmet?? Couldn't be
without mine, wouldn't chance getting my bike from my shed to the roadside any other way, in my case doing so is
a process that needs a ramp twice. I have alu checkerplate screwed onto the one piece of wood I do have to cross. There's
a bloke on ebay that makes panels for landrovers who sells his off cuts.
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[Riejufixing]

[M.C]

Something like this I guess... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-Pro-Range-B5249-Folding-Steel-Motorcycle-Ramp-Van-Loading-Motorbike/401421984297?epid=0&hash=item5d769d6229:g:6rUAAOSwwohZ3i4Q:rk:25:pf:0

I've thought about getting one after having a total fail trying to load a bike into a van, and needing the help of some burly polish builders

[grr666]

I have a pair of these, bought about 5 years ago. Gave about £35 each for them as I recall. That was a delivered price too.
Seems they've gone up since but there you go, thats life. Plenty of change out of 400 quid though even at this price.
They were used quite successfully to get my ER6f onto my Sprinter back when I still had both vehicles. Again, if there's a
chance you might need a ramp, why not buy a ramp? It's not like they're bike specific FFS, you'll get plenty of use out of it
if you're the sort of person who might need one... These ramps are pretty decent, I ride the bike down one of them,
to get the bike into my back yard so that's a good 270kg combined weight. So they are pretty robust. Used them
for the wheel barrow a few months ago when I was laying slabs in the back yard and had tonnes of aggregate to get
from front to back. Very handy thing to own. And I maintain that even at todays higher prices it's still worth the expense.
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Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[M.C]

[MCN]

Don't be to careless with a bike on a ramp.
Take time and a few practice goes to get it spot-on.
For a result.

https://youtu.be/mXQSPF26uM0
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[Ste]

If riding up the ramp you've got to be careful that once the front wheel is in the van, the back wheel doesn't just throw the ramp backwards.

Have got ones like this rather than the ones grrr posted https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/382370494566 as there's more grip and less slide than the ones he posted a link to.

Dead easy to use, loading bikes into the back of a lifted pickup truck was fun.

[MCN]

[M.C]

[Ste]

Next pro tip... don't touch the brakes, have the bike in gear and use the clutch to control the speed when unloading.

[Riejufixing]

[stinkwheel]

Mine is one of those blacks folding ramps. We loaded my neighbours suzuki M1800 into a box van with it because the tail-lift wasn't man enough.

I must admit that gave me a bit of a squeaky bum but the ramp never moved.

That was a FUCKING heavy bike.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[MCN]