Dont know how to "Split" a thread, sorry.
Mcatrophy-"a little bit of light rain riding"
There is blue sky in your video, bloody hell man, that'a barely a sprinkle!
When water is bouncing back off the road and there is a cup of water in your crotch, now thats rain.
Seriously now, can you take a moment to explain the etiquette of riding on a single lane road? I thought I had the rules figured out, I see where you pull over when being overtaken from behind; I am confused about your actions with oncoming traffic.
Thx
-Steve
Well, a bit off topic, but it is the weekend
.
Not much point in me videoing "real" rain riding, all you'd see is a stream of solid water running on the windscreen. But my hands still stay dry
(feeble attempt to be on topic).
As for the etiquette for the single lane roads: In Scotland, many of the roads are single lane. They are almost always provided with passing places every few hundred yards, where the road is widened on one side or the other for a short distance. A vehicle in one direction has to stop within that length while the vehicle in the other direction goes by. The system relies totally on the cooperation of all drivers. There is no actual rule, but usually as you approach each other, the one closest to a passing place will stop, even if it's on the other side of the road; here the stopper will stay on his side of the road, the passer will zig-zag through the passing place.
In the main tourist months, the roads can get quite busy, and, inevitably, many visitors are more used to city driving, and progress can be very poor. Which is one reason why the trips we go on are at the beginning of (or just before), or at the very end of (or just after) the season, when traffic is lighter (and often more rain
- feeble attempt ...), and most of the traffic that is there is locals who allow almost seamless progress, whether it is them or us who are the stoppers.
It is also seems that generally car drivers are more likely to stop early when they see a group of motorcycles approaching, even if we've already stopped. On such occasions we start moving again without anyone going by, which probably seems peculiar to someone watching the video.
The one vehicle that passed us was a tradesman's van (that's what I think would be referred to as a panel van in the 'States). Naturally, these vans can travel much, much faster than any motorcycle, at least on these roads, so our group's leader pulled us over to let him/her by. We won't hold up any person doing a job since we're merely enjoying the scenery.
You are not supposed to park in passing places, but we're motorcyclists, so we have been known to ignore that rule. But only when there really is no other traffic around.
(Click on image for larger view)
Ps. As for pulling over to let faster vehicles overtake, usually there are notices at the beginning of single lane roads asking people to do this. There's one of these notices at 8:35 in my video, but I can't read it because of the water on the windscreen. Again, locals are very good, some visitors are not, and will hold us up for miles. Yes, we generally are significantly faster than most traffic, vans excepted, of course.
