Thanks Mike, I love your style and content, I find it very useful. I had to give up on the IAM associate journey, I kept getting messed around. Please keep the training coming, it certainly helps me. Thanks and regards.
Thanks for the positive feedback. Sorry to hear you didn't complete your IAM course. Could you not swap Observer or is there another group nearby. Where are you based?
@@mikeroberts I live in Bracknell. I keep practicing and will see how I feel in the new year. There is an alternative club that have offered to help me. While observers are amazing in giving their free time to help others, one of the most important qualities is to be a reliable person. I guess I've just been unlucky. Thanks for you supporting comments Mike. Best regards.
A god tip if you ride out in low sun.For years now I have placed a piece of electricians black tape along the top and bottom of my helmets visors. This helps to eliminate glare from looking directly towards the sun and acts like a sun visor or the peak of a cap or hat. It stops the sunlight from entering the pupil of the eye and that's exactly what you want. Darkened visors and dark glasses are all well and good but some sunlight still gets through to the retina at the back of the eye and that is the danger. With a strip of black tape at the top of the visor with the visor down it will help eliminate direct sunlight and if the visor is still open face but partly down, the strip at the bottom of it will do the same. None of this will affect the amount of forward or sideways vision that one has.
I much prefer my internal 'fighter pilot' drop down dark visor. Once you have a helmet with one you won't want one without again. I can adjust it to where I need it, and unlike sunglasses or black tape it can be moved in an instant.
hi mike, decided to hibernate my pride and joy for the winter using my commute bike for work and social rides. Low sun and wet roads have found blinding at times, live in north wales so temp drops quickly the higher you ride into mountains, plenty of tea breaks to warm up as core temp can also drop very quickly. Ride safe all and cheers for sharing, good to see back
The problem that you have is that being in Wales its very hilly and so riding up hill and turning bends can sometimes lead you into direct conflict with sunlight blinding you. Please look at my comment about using a strip of black tape top and bottom of your clear visor as it really works and has done for me for over 5 decades.
Good to watch you riding on roads I know well Mike - that route up from Stratford St Mary to Stoke by Nayland and the A134 is part of my regular commute, and there's always a lot of muck on the roads there, necessitating adjustments from the ideal line. If it's not mud in winter, it's sand in the summer (well, nearly sand, it's very light soil). One question I had concerns the road markings in the 20mph zone in S-b-N. There are two of three sections where there is a solid white line around a section of different coloured tarmac (greyish brown). I assume they're some kind of traffic calming or maybe pedestrian refuges. Since they're surrounded by a solid line, I've always avoided riding over them, but I'd be interested to hear your take on it. Good to see you at the SAM meeting on the 16th by the way (I bought a pin badge off you).
Thanks for your comment/question. Yes, those areas are creating artificial pinch points or chicanes to form traffic calming, though I have to say some are quite poorly placed moving you nearer hazards/driveways. You are quite right to avoid riding over them. I'm not sure what legal standing these particular ones have as the official manuals for road markings use hatched areas for this form of paint only calming and not coloured tarmac. To answer the question you diplomatically didn't ask 😉 ... yes, I did ride over one when discussing avoiding the muck on the road. In my defence, the area was filthy and the paint has been worn away by the number of vehicles that do drive over them. Went through there again today and avoided them all. 😀
Great video Mike . Just waiting to my final check ride for my IAM roadsmart test . I was wonder if you could do a video about bike. How long you had it, why you have that model, any issues you had it like a owners review As I am looking for a more upright motorcycle . .
Hi Mike, thanks for sharing this ride out. Just a question at 10:00 mins. Totally get why you stopped to wait for the outcome of the opposite direction truck passing the tractor. I was just thinking of some car drivers around, may see you in position 1, and a fair distance back and they come sailing past you thinking you are parked up. Not sure if the tractor had mirrors and agree position 1 gives the best chance of him knowing you are there if it has. No issue if a car passed you, but its slowing your progress maybe, as he will need a better opportunity to pass the tractor than you. Im not an advanced rider, but have done a Police Bike Safe day and considered doing my IAM course. One thing that looks wrong to me, the uneducated, is min 19:55 when you cut the corner of that junction. I realise all was clear with no possible conflicts of course and makes for less lean angle in damp conditions. I see a lot of advanced ride videos use position 1 to enter a right hand bend and then remain in position 1 all the way round it. I see pos 1 opens up the view, but if there was a pot hole or mud part way round using that line, all the way round, your only option then is to add lean angle to avoid it to the right. If 2 was used mid corner, maybe you would have more options? Like I say im not being critical, just wanting to learn the logic in some of the thought process used in advanced riding. Best Wishes Andy
Hi Andy, thanks for the comment/questions. Time for you to get signed up for the IAM course. 😉 If you look in my mirror when I'm waiting behind the tractor, you can see my actions have brought the rest of the traffic to a halt. You could get a reckless driver, but at least I'm out of harms way. For the strange line through the junction you can see from the freeze frames all the early checks I did. I wouldn't routinely cut junctions but with the layout, the camber of the road, the bend with fast approaching traffic and no vehicles exiting, it was the safest option (and nothing illegal performed). Have a look for my video titled "Could you? Would you? Should you?" for something similar. With regards to using P1 for right hand bends then road condition and safety is always going to trump positioning for a better view. Getting the balance right is what some riders struggle with. Hope you go on to do the IAM course. With your enquiring attitude you should enjoy it and build on what you learnt on Bike Safe.
Nice ride tho those wet and dry roads can be a problem. Just a question? You are in a 50 or 60 mph limit country road and approaching a 30 mph limit sign for a town or village., You make all the necessary observations and no traffic following and so you slow accordingly prior to the limit sign so that you are not exceeding that limit after passing the sign . However the vast majority of drivers will actually pass that limit sign at speeds in excess of the new limit and then and only then will they maybe slow down. About 95% plus of drivers will do that. So Understanding that one might have following traffic close behind one on such an approach then would you ever consider it to be dangerous to slow from say from 60 down to only 30 prior to the signage as that could cause a problem behind you and a possible danger.
Good continual updating of mirrors maintains my rear vision. If I know there are vehicles behind then I would slow earlier while showing a brake light and control the situation on approach.
At about 12.50 you are slowly making progress through a village and made comment of the sun being directly behind you as you were obviously casting a long shadow. As said any vehicle being driven directly towards you may not see you, they being blinded by the sunlight shining directly into their eyes. This can be a further and greater danger if those vehicle in front were either entering your road from a junction and not seeing you or are an approaching vehicle wanting to turn right and in front of you. So it is a difficult and dangerous situation where you have very good vison of your surroundings but others a have somewhat diminished view of you and their road ahead. So a great danger and low sun can last for at least 6 months of the year. Its also a danger cos any vehicle ahead of you, when the driver looks into his rear view mirrors may again be blinded by the low sun and not see you at all.So to you he may be completely blinded by sunlight and unaware of your presences. If you are ever suffering from sunlight and its glare in our eyes if you are young then it can take only a few second for that glare to disappear. That's again if you are young but if you are old like me it could take some 20 seconds of more to sort of evaporate away and hen your sight is affected badly by it until you regain normal sight back. . So be aware of that fact that the older you get the longer you will suffer the effects of glare. [ low sun ]
At 11.24 when after a while you overtook a farm vehicle.The load being towed was much wider than his vehicle so even with high mirrors he would have been unable to see you behind him and therefore unable to see you overtaking until the last moment. Would it not have been beneficial or advisable to have sounded your horn warning or indicting to him that you were about to pass. Same again with the second tractor. You assumed he was letting you pass and as such a short bleep of the horn would have brought you to his attention and a safer overtake? Obviously the use of the horn is not obligatory or mandatory in any way and is discretionary but is a tool that could be used effectively and can under some circumstances be an aid to rirdng with greater safety.
Always a contentious one. If you watch earlier you'll see the tractor has massive mirrors on wide extensions. Prior to my overtake I had been 'dancing around' behind him for quite some time, so he should have known of my presence. In fact I was happy I'd seen him 'clock' me in the mirror. Using the horn, while overtaking, is often taken as aggression or rebuking these days. I tend to avoid it ... likewise flashing headlights. I will hoot for vehicles coming in from side roads or if I've not been seen in town, but use it sparingly, and always give a little wave after to remove any chance it was interpreted as aggressive.
@@mikeroberts Would you accept that to others the sound of ones horn is a reasonable thing to do at times when we need to inform other road users of our presence. That is what its designed for and if otherwise perhaps the manufacturers wouldn't have put in on their machines.
@@rcraven1013 Yes, it is a reasonable thing to a reasonable person😉 As i said I will hoot for vehicles coming in from side roads or if I've not been seen in town, but when behind a vehicle I won't for fear of being 'brake checked'.
@@mikeroberts You say that he should have known about your presence but by sounding a toot on the horn you are not saying I am behind you, please get out of my way but perhaps a thank you for moving over which he did and slowing to enable you to pass him with safety.
At 21.16 you approached a double bend sign with a 20 mph recommendation, then right after that there was a slippery road sign also. You slowed to between 40 and 45 mph around those bends and came out of them at about 50 mph. Should you perhaps have followed the signage and slowed a little bit more as there was obviously some problems with these bends in the past that required the L.A. to put those signs up. At 23.52 you took the opportunity to overtake a car and in doing so your speed registered 63 mph perhaps an insignificant speed but in that overtake was I right in seeing that you changed gears up twice on that particular overtake. Something which is not recommended in Police Roadcraft. .
For the first item I'll throw in some local knowledge. The corner can at times be slippery when they have been working on the fields and it gets very muddy/sandy. The sign can be left out there for months on end. The 20 limit is there as it seems so many are incapable of steering round a down hill corner. I'll throw a question back at you: Who is the 20 limit for? A car, a motorcycle, an HGV? As for the overtake and my speedo reading. The offence of speeding is one of exceeding the posted limit. For a REAL speed of 60 my speedo displays 64mph. We've done the gear change debate to death on another video.
@@mikeroberts Thanks for that. However not everyone has your knowledge. first the sign is there for ALL to see. It's not their just for others but us as well as everyone else. It recommends all road users to slow to 20 mph. I know its not mandatory but I again I stress that its something very few riders or drivers ever take into account. If they can see no reason for it, there must not be one, they just dismiss it..... at their own peril. There is a danger, its a double bend and at 21.07 there is a slippy road sign well hidden but there all the same, which indicates a slippy road surface. Just after that sign at 21.09 its apparently been raining or there is a water splash on that road as its clear that there is some standing water on the road and just prior to that bend. So it appears their may be a drainage problem all the time at that point with crossing water or after rain with standing water. That can possibly effect ones braking ability at that point or on braking after or to some degree ones steering. Such an area could be iced up in winter without it being apparent.
@@mikeroberts As you say it seems so many are incapable of steering round those bends on a down hill patch of road;. So that is your answer and perhaps its doesn't appertain to you but to all or some other road users. It may be made even mire difficult at times due to mud on the road or as seen due to some regular standing water issue just prior to that first bend when some late stopping may occur. Either way a slowing of speed by all vehicles would seem to be necessary.
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Thanks Mike, I love your style and content, I find it very useful.
I had to give up on the IAM associate journey, I kept getting messed around.
Please keep the training coming, it certainly helps me. Thanks and regards.
Thanks for the positive feedback. Sorry to hear you didn't complete your IAM course. Could you not swap Observer or is there another group nearby. Where are you based?
@@mikeroberts I live in Bracknell. I keep practicing and will see how I feel in the new year. There is an alternative club that have offered to help me. While observers are amazing in giving their free time to help others, one of the most important qualities is to be a reliable person. I guess I've just been unlucky. Thanks for you supporting comments Mike. Best regards.
A god tip if you ride out in low sun.For years now I have placed a piece of electricians black tape along the top and bottom of my helmets visors. This helps to eliminate glare from looking directly towards the sun and acts like a sun visor or the peak of a cap or hat. It stops the sunlight from entering the pupil of the eye and that's exactly what you want. Darkened visors and dark glasses are all well and good but some sunlight still gets through to the retina at the back of the eye and that is the danger. With a strip of black tape at the top of the visor with the visor down it will help eliminate direct sunlight and if the visor is still open face but partly down, the strip at the bottom of it will do the same. None of this will affect the amount of forward or sideways vision that one has.
I much prefer my internal 'fighter pilot' drop down dark visor. Once you have a helmet with one you won't want one without again. I can adjust it to where I need it, and unlike sunglasses or black tape it can be moved in an instant.
hi mike, decided to hibernate my pride and joy for the winter using my commute bike for work and social rides. Low sun and wet roads have found blinding at times, live in north wales so temp drops quickly the higher you ride into mountains, plenty of tea breaks to warm up as core temp can also drop very quickly. Ride safe all and cheers for sharing, good to see back
Yes, can soon get frosty up in the mountains or down in the dips. Got to have plenty of cafe breaks!
The problem that you have is that being in Wales its very hilly and so riding up hill and turning bends can sometimes lead you into direct conflict with sunlight blinding you. Please look at my comment about using a strip of black tape top and bottom of your clear visor as it really works and has done for me for over 5 decades.
Good to watch you riding on roads I know well Mike - that route up from Stratford St Mary to Stoke by Nayland and the A134 is part of my regular commute, and there's always a lot of muck on the roads there, necessitating adjustments from the ideal line. If it's not mud in winter, it's sand in the summer (well, nearly sand, it's very light soil). One question I had concerns the road markings in the 20mph zone in S-b-N. There are two of three sections where there is a solid white line around a section of different coloured tarmac (greyish brown). I assume they're some kind of traffic calming or maybe pedestrian refuges. Since they're surrounded by a solid line, I've always avoided riding over them, but I'd be interested to hear your take on it. Good to see you at the SAM meeting on the 16th by the way (I bought a pin badge off you).
Thanks for your comment/question. Yes, those areas are creating artificial pinch points or chicanes to form traffic calming, though I have to say some are quite poorly placed moving you nearer hazards/driveways. You are quite right to avoid riding over them. I'm not sure what legal standing these particular ones have as the official manuals for road markings use hatched areas for this form of paint only calming and not coloured tarmac. To answer the question you diplomatically didn't ask 😉 ... yes, I did ride over one when discussing avoiding the muck on the road. In my defence, the area was filthy and the paint has been worn away by the number of vehicles that do drive over them. Went through there again today and avoided them all. 😀
@@mikeroberts Thanks Mike - glad to have your views, I'll carry on avoiding them 😉
A nice steady informative ride as ever Mike, thanks.
Thanks Matt. Glad you found it useful.
@@mikeroberts I always do Mike, thanks.
Great video Mike .
Just waiting to my final check ride for my IAM roadsmart test .
I was wonder if you could do a video about bike. How long you had it, why you have that model, any issues you had it like a owners review
As I am looking for a more upright motorcycle . .
Great suggestion! Hope the IAM test goes well.
Hi Mike, thanks for sharing this ride out. Just a question at 10:00 mins. Totally get why you stopped to wait for the outcome of the opposite direction truck passing the tractor. I was just thinking of some car drivers around, may see you in position 1, and a fair distance back and they come sailing past you thinking you are parked up. Not sure if the tractor had mirrors and agree position 1 gives the best chance of him knowing you are there if it has. No issue if a car passed you, but its slowing your progress maybe, as he will need a better opportunity to pass the tractor than you.
Im not an advanced rider, but have done a Police Bike Safe day and considered doing my IAM course. One thing that looks wrong to me, the uneducated, is min 19:55 when you cut the corner of that junction. I realise all was clear with no possible conflicts of course and makes for less lean angle in damp conditions.
I see a lot of advanced ride videos use position 1 to enter a right hand bend and then remain in position 1 all the way round it.
I see pos 1 opens up the view, but if there was a pot hole or mud part way round using that line, all the way round, your only option then is to add lean angle to avoid it to the right. If 2 was used mid corner, maybe you would have more options?
Like I say im not being critical, just wanting to learn the logic in some of the thought process used in advanced riding.
Best Wishes
Andy
Hi Andy, thanks for the comment/questions. Time for you to get signed up for the IAM course. 😉 If you look in my mirror when I'm waiting behind the tractor, you can see my actions have brought the rest of the traffic to a halt. You could get a reckless driver, but at least I'm out of harms way. For the strange line through the junction you can see from the freeze frames all the early checks I did. I wouldn't routinely cut junctions but with the layout, the camber of the road, the bend with fast approaching traffic and no vehicles exiting, it was the safest option (and nothing illegal performed). Have a look for my video titled "Could you? Would you? Should you?" for something similar. With regards to using P1 for right hand bends then road condition and safety is always going to trump positioning for a better view. Getting the balance right is what some riders struggle with. Hope you go on to do the IAM course. With your enquiring attitude you should enjoy it and build on what you learnt on Bike Safe.
Brilliant. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Best Wishes. Andy.
sometimes its nice to just ride along ! ...
And drier!
Nice ride tho those wet and dry roads can be a problem. Just a question? You are in a 50 or 60 mph limit country road and approaching a 30 mph limit sign for a town or village., You make all the necessary observations and no traffic following and so you slow accordingly prior to the limit sign so that you are not exceeding that limit after passing the sign . However the vast majority of drivers will actually pass that limit sign at speeds in excess of the new limit and then and only then will they maybe slow down. About 95% plus of drivers will do that. So Understanding that one might have following traffic close behind one on such an approach then would you ever consider it to be dangerous to slow from say from 60 down to only 30 prior to the signage as that could cause a problem behind you and a possible danger.
Good continual updating of mirrors maintains my rear vision. If I know there are vehicles behind then I would slow earlier while showing a brake light and control the situation on approach.
At about 12.50 you are slowly making progress through a village and made comment of the sun being directly behind you as you were obviously casting a long shadow. As said any vehicle being driven directly towards you may not see you, they being blinded by the sunlight shining directly into their eyes. This can be a further and greater danger if those vehicle in front were either entering your road from a junction and not seeing you or are an approaching vehicle wanting to turn right and in front of you. So it is a difficult and dangerous situation where you have very good vison of your surroundings but others a have somewhat diminished view of you and their road ahead. So a great danger and low sun can last for at least 6 months of the year.
Its also a danger cos any vehicle ahead of you, when the driver looks into his rear view mirrors may again be blinded by the low sun and not see you at all.So to you he may be completely blinded by sunlight and unaware of your presences.
If you are ever suffering from sunlight and its glare in our eyes if you are young then it can take only a few second for that glare to disappear. That's again if you are young but if you are old like me it could take some 20 seconds of more to sort of evaporate away and hen your sight is affected badly by it until you regain normal sight back. . So be aware of that fact that the older you get the longer you will suffer the effects of glare. [ low sun ]
Yep, age can affect 'sun blindness'. Don't get me started on ultra bright modern headlights at night. (I'm sounding old again)
Good video this, it's a shame it won't get the views if you'd be doing wheelies down the pavement or something like that. Nevertheless - nice ride 👍🏻
Thanks 👍 It's hard to make safe riding videos that engage the target audience ;) Hopefully some of the tips will stick with some viewers.
At 11.24 when after a while you overtook a farm vehicle.The load being towed was much wider than his vehicle so even with high mirrors he would have been unable to see you behind him and therefore unable to see you overtaking until the last moment. Would it not have been beneficial or advisable to have sounded your horn warning or indicting to him that you were about to pass.
Same again with the second tractor. You assumed he was letting you pass and as such a short bleep of the horn would have brought you to his attention and a safer overtake?
Obviously the use of the horn is not obligatory or mandatory in any way and is discretionary but is a tool that could be used effectively and can under some circumstances be an aid to rirdng with greater safety.
Always a contentious one. If you watch earlier you'll see the tractor has massive mirrors on wide extensions. Prior to my overtake I had been 'dancing around' behind him for quite some time, so he should have known of my presence. In fact I was happy I'd seen him 'clock' me in the mirror. Using the horn, while overtaking, is often taken as aggression or rebuking these days. I tend to avoid it ... likewise flashing headlights. I will hoot for vehicles coming in from side roads or if I've not been seen in town, but use it sparingly, and always give a little wave after to remove any chance it was interpreted as aggressive.
@@mikeroberts Would you accept that to others the sound of ones horn is a reasonable thing to do at times when we need to inform other road users of our presence. That is what its designed for and if otherwise perhaps the manufacturers wouldn't have put in on their machines.
@@rcraven1013 Yes, it is a reasonable thing to a reasonable person😉 As i said I will hoot for vehicles coming in from side roads or if I've not been seen in town, but when behind a vehicle I won't for fear of being 'brake checked'.
@@mikeroberts You say that he should have known about your presence but by sounding a toot on the horn you are not saying I am behind you, please get out of my way but perhaps a thank you for moving over which he did and slowing to enable you to pass him with safety.
At 21.16 you approached a double bend sign with a 20 mph recommendation, then right after that there was a slippery road sign also. You slowed to between 40 and 45 mph around those bends and came out of them at about 50 mph. Should you perhaps have followed the signage and slowed a little bit more as there was obviously some problems with these bends in the past that required the L.A. to put those signs up.
At 23.52 you took the opportunity to overtake a car and in doing so your speed registered 63 mph perhaps an insignificant speed but in that overtake was I right in seeing that you changed gears up twice on that particular overtake. Something which is not recommended in Police Roadcraft. .
For the first item I'll throw in some local knowledge. The corner can at times be slippery when they have been working on the fields and it gets very muddy/sandy. The sign can be left out there for months on end. The 20 limit is there as it seems so many are incapable of steering round a down hill corner. I'll throw a question back at you: Who is the 20 limit for? A car, a motorcycle, an HGV? As for the overtake and my speedo reading. The offence of speeding is one of exceeding the posted limit. For a REAL speed of 60 my speedo displays 64mph. We've done the gear change debate to death on another video.
@@mikeroberts Thanks for that. However not everyone has your knowledge. first the sign is there for ALL to see. It's not their just for others but us as well as everyone else. It recommends all road users to slow to 20 mph. I know its not mandatory but I again I stress that its something very few riders or drivers ever take into account. If they can see no reason for it, there must not be one, they just dismiss it..... at their own peril. There is a danger, its a double bend and at 21.07 there is a slippy road sign well hidden but there all the same, which indicates a slippy road surface. Just after that sign at 21.09 its apparently been raining or there is a water splash on that road as its clear that there is some standing water on the road and just prior to that bend. So it appears their may be a drainage problem all the time at that point with crossing water or after rain with standing water. That can possibly effect ones braking ability at that point or on braking after or to some degree ones steering. Such an area could be iced up in winter without it being apparent.
@@mikeroberts As you say it seems so many are incapable of steering round those bends on a down hill patch of road;. So that is your answer and perhaps its doesn't appertain to you but to all or some other road users. It may be made even mire difficult at times due to mud on the road or as seen due to some regular standing water issue just prior to that first bend when some late stopping may occur. Either way a slowing of speed by all vehicles would seem to be necessary.
45 seconds...... 😉 😂
😂 I didn't realise the intro was that long. You know where the FFWD button is 😉