Hydro/Aqua Planeing

[lucky rsm]

What with all the rain were getting, was wondering,

Can you Hydro/aqua plane on a bike?? And have you ever???

Have had minor drift's when hitting standing water in the car, but never on a bike, maybe because of the shape of the tyre??
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cb500s, er6f, er6f, Gsx650fK9

[Pete.]

Yes of course you can. I've had it several times riding through standing water and the rear spins up suddenly.

The front tends to cut through water better but if it's deep enough or you're going fast enough to lift the front and you turn it even slightly you suddenly get a lot of weight on the bars.
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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

[hellkat]

I did it once, coming thru Hyde Park, whilst trying to avoid going thru a traffic light that went red a little bit too soon (speeding, moi?? Never!).

The back end started to fishtail on me, and I have NO IDEA what I did to correct it, but when it straightened out and I pulled up beside a taxi at the lights and went "Wooooooo! What a rush"

The driver looked at me like I was doo-lally, but I still had an adrenaline rush by the time I got home.

Dunno how I did it, dunno how I got out of it, but it was a fab feeling
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[.....]

[HD]

@Pete, surely thats just the back end sliding on the wet tarmac, not actually aquaplaning?
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Rusty '02 Vito Camper + CBR600F3

[hellkat]

yeah, I often toy with the idea of going to dirty Sundays, but I'm too frit of falling off.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[The Tot]

Happened to me on the front when I was riding through the cotswolds. Considering I was tanking it in a straight line in as high a gear as possible and keeping it smooth, it certainly felt different to a front end slide (if you were dumb enough to use the brakes on snow, or be on black ice). Rain was pretty torrential and it was hilly. There was a rivulet of water going diagonally across the road in a 2m band. The front suddenly felt very light and a bit of a wiggle at the bars. Only thing you could do was just be very natural on the inputs. In fairness, I shouldn't have been doing 80mph under those conditions. The lack of grip/lightness was definitely felt through the bars but wasn't similar to what a front end slide would normally feel like.
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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
Never argue with autism

[Pete.]

[Flip]

Yeah, I had it last week on the front wheel. Carried me nicely towards the other lane on a NSL because obviously I didn't want to lean it.

Wiped my arse on the inside of my undies and carried on.

[Paulington]

Of course.

A la Pete, going through a large puddle on the bike and the rear suddenly spinning up when it was happily gripping the tarmac moments earlier.
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"Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul."
Current Vehicles: '89 Kawasaki KDX200, '99 Yamaha XV535, '00 Honda ST1100 Pan-European, '08 Suzuki GSX-R1000, '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GS4 2.0 TDCi, '15 BMW 1 Series 116d Sport Turbo.
CBT: 27/08/08. Theory: 04/09/09. Module 1: 16/09/09. Module 2: 01/10/09.

[warped one]

I did it in the floods we had a few years ago. Never felt the massive curb I went up, just the bike slow down and go off to the left then I was riding on the grass.

Was my own fault, going to fast and couldn't see anything due to the rain.

Hydro a car and it is fun. You get crazy revs then it buggers off to one side lol.
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amnesia - Never in the history of usernames has one been more accurate. Warped indeed. You sir are a fecking oddball.

[pinkyfloyd]

[magpiemale]

I would of thought it would be harder to aqua plane on a bike since the tyres are slimmer than a car ride mag did an article on this a while back but if you hold the throttle steady and the bike you should just ride through standing water ok.I rode on the M1 in real bad rain weather with standing water doing 85mph and the bike was great though when I hit the water the bike seemed to slow slightly but I have had no problem.
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NSR125 1992 (sold) kawasaki Z750S,fazer FZ1 07 now gone present bike 2012 fz1s Fazer,beowulf rad protector,heated grips,sw motech gps holder,power socket.

[stinkwheel]

You have to be going pretty damned quick to aquaplane a motorcycle. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's impossable to aquaplane a motorcycle, even on totally slick tyres at road legal speeds.

You can suffer a loss of grip on wet roads due to having cold tyres and a lubricated road surface. Not the same as true aquaplaning though. Think of a car on a skidpan. They have very little grip but they aren't aquaplaning and they retain some degree of control. You can also suffer abrupt alterations to your steering input when the tyre hits a body of water and decellerates rapidly.

Let's be clear. if you're truly aquaplaning, there is water between the wheel and the road and there is a complete and total absence of grip as if you'd suddenly found yourself riding on a sheet of wet ice. You have absolutely no control whatsoever over the vehicle, where it goes is totally determined by your speed and direction when you started to aquaplane.

If you aquaplane, each wheel will go in whatever direction its momentum was pointing it at the time. If you were going even slightly sideways and didn't fall off, you weren't aquaplaning.

All you can do is try to stay on top of it and hope you run out of water before you run out of luck. Try to make sure the front wheel is pointing in the direction of travel so you don't flip it if you make it to the other side and it grips again.

TL;DR If you think you aquaplaned on a motorbike and didn't land up lying in the road, you weren't aquaplaning.

EDIT: I do remember reading an article about the possability of aquaplaning on a bicycle many years ago (it was in new scientist I think). The conclusion was, after a lot of maths, that you'd have to be doing in excess of 140mph on slick tyres.
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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.

[warped one]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU6ltILm8kQ
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amnesia - Never in the history of usernames has one been more accurate. Warped indeed. You sir are a fecking oddball.

[DrDonnyBrago]

Chuck Norris can aquaplane with a knee down.

[pinkyfloyd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TRCroy3DKs&NR=1

Skip to around 1 minute and if thats not aquaplaning then I dont know what is! They have a dude standing up to his waist in the water and the bikes cross either side of him. Looks great fun.
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illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[HD]

Dunno if that would count as aquaplaning though as the bikes almost swim. Did you see that episode of top gear where they raced a snowmobile and an arctic jeep across a river? I'll find it when I get on the laptop but basically the types paddle as do the fins on the snowmobile and it sort of swims across.

EDIT: Heres the video.
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Rusty '02 Vito Camper + CBR600F3

[stinkwheel]

[pinkyfloyd]

Theres another one doing it at around 60mph on a scrambler. Think the knobbly tires help. But when you ride through any standing water you can feel the grip lessen. I try my best to avoid it or slow down anyway.
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illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[johnsmith222]

[ChowderV4]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcV5-xP8n7g
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V4 Is The Law