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Burgman on a gravel road?

15K views 98 replies 40 participants last post by  january14  
#1 ·
Obviously the Burgman isn't meant for dirt biking or dual sport duty, but I was wondering how it handles a gravel road? Controllable or slip-sliding away?
 
#2 ·
If it's really soft, fresh or deep gravel, you'll have issues. If it's fairly well packed, just be really careful ... not too fast and no really sharp turns.

I found the transition from a hard surface road (asphalt) to a gravel road was really dangerous and that's when I dropped my scoot.

Seems the little gravel bits that spray up from the gravel side onto the asphalt act like ball beaings on the smooth asphalt side! Watch out!
 
#4 ·
I avoid gravel roads when at all possible. I rode about a half mile on a washboarded out gravel road last year (once!) and didn't enjoy the experience at all. I went as slowly as I dared, the washboard surface really challenged me. The Burgman is many things, but not as an off road vehicle.
 
#5 ·
I went down on my Burgman twice. Both times were when the front wheel sunk in soft sand (fortunately at slow speeds). Hard packed gravel can be managed with care, but don't let that front tire sink, for you will drop as fast as it does.

Arnold
 
#6 ·
It's possible, but not very fun. One good thing about the Burgman is that you can transfer your weight and "stand up" easily on the floorboards, which lowers the center of gravity and makes the bike handle better on dirt/gravel roads. I lived on a gravel road for over a year, (with a 1/4 mile gravel driveway ! :shock:), and got pretty used to riding the 400 on it, but I kept my speed way down, and didn't bother for the first two weeks after the town "refreshed" the gravel, until it got packed down. Now I live on a main drag, and I don't miss the "Baja" on the scooter!
 
#8 ·
Burgman vs Gravel Road

"Suziblu" pretty much nailed it.
Did It. Didn't think Burgman liked it.
Bottomed out front forks on soft ground.
Center stand caught when front forks bottomed out.
Bent centerstand, Slid around a right turn.
Luckily never put her down.
I had trouble going up a steep incline with gravel, the
rear wheel skated back and forth going up the incline.
Bottomed out the front disc rotor on large rock (Not much clearance)
I still road the Burgman on alot of unimproved roads though.
It can do alot if your careful.
Came home thinking about a second bike.
Found used F650GSD bike for dirt/gravel.
 
#9 ·
bikinbiddy said:
One good thing about the Burgman is that you can transfer your weight and "stand up" easily on the floorboards, which lowers the center of gravity
Kindly explain to me how 'standing up' on the floorboards can lower the center of gravity? I would think that just the opposite would occur.

Am I missing something? (It's happened before). :wink:
 
#11 ·
Burgers absolutely NOT built for anything but smooth concrete or asphalt!! Long wheelbase, low clearance, short suspension-travel, flakey rear suspension, fat small diameter tires, no direct control of clutch. Everything says 'NO' to gravel or dirt.

Also, ANYTHING ON that smooth concrete, ....dirt, sand, gravel, leaves, WalMart bags, paint-lines, wet/oily spots, you-name-it, needs to be treated like ice.

This is the way you keep your ride rightside up and everybody happy. :D
 
#12 ·
Weight control

Hey Burglar,
Standing up gets the weight between the wheels,not mainly over or biased to the rear wheel. If you still have the F650, experiment,if not think about whats involved when the weight is moved. Do you watch any bike racing or best to understand bike control is the trials riders. They are awesome. If your state has an association contact them and go watch. It'll be free and in the country in a nice scenic location,bring a picnic lunch.
 
#13 ·
Surprise-gravel road

I was forced to ride many kilometres on gravel roads, riding two up last year for a couple of reasons.

One, it was a long way back to where the last intersection was and it was getting dark out in Bambi land.

The second reason was my wife was on the back, and the idea of trying to make a U turn, two up on a narrow gravel road with a ditch on each side didn't appeal to me much.

Fortunately these roads had two narrow tracks with not much loose gravel in the tracks, and I was able to ride slowly along in the tracks.

Kept trying to remember what I had been taught. Keep the speed up a bit, so you don't wallow in the soft stuff, counter steer, don't turn the wheel, put some weight on the floorboards, stay off the brakes etc.
Don't know if I got it all right, but it worked anyway.

If I wandered into the loose stuff it got a little hairy, but by relaxing as much as possible and not oversteering, we managed OK.

Not much fun, and you can't look at the scenery, only the track ahead, but it can be done, if you are very careful.

Still, I would NOT want to ride in deep soft gravel ever(or try to).
That was scary enough!
Sure was glad when we came upon a paved road at the end. :)
 
#14 ·
On Cof G shifts I suspect what the author is alluding to it is if you are sat with very little weight on your feet then the weight is acting through your ass at seat height, whereas by standing up there is a C of G shift with the weight acting through your feet.
 
#15 ·
I recently added a Honda Big Ruckus to my fleet and the folks over at "Total Ruckus.com" tell a few stories about how this 250cc scooter can manage the dirt roads and one guy even talked about taking his "swamping" through mud holes with a buddy who was riding an ATV. Sounds risky to me but I am hoping the BR can handle a few gravel roads better than the Burgman(definitely a street bike.)
 
#16 ·
Re: Weight control

mulepwr said:
Hey Burglar,
Standing up gets the weight between the wheels,not mainly over or biased to the rear wheel.
I understand that standing on the pegs (or floorboards, in our case) would change the overall weight distribution of the bike/rider from the rear to a more forward bias, but a standing rider, as opposed to a sitting one, MUST raise the center of mass of the entire bike/rider unit to some degree, just as piling on fifty pounds of camping gear on the back seat would, or on the gas tank, for that matter...all the same. You can slide the front/rear weight bias all over the place, but strictly speaking, weight that goes upwards from where it was, raises the overall center of gravity, not lowers it.

A relatively high 'center of gravity' doesn't ALWAYS mean unstable either, bicycle riders have an extremely high center of gravity as compared to your garden variety motorcycle, and they (like trials riders) can perform all sorts of maneuvers at very low speeds.

I sometimes feel that a super-low center of gravity on a motorcycle is over-rated as a desirable characteristic. Relatively high center of mass motorcycles are considered to be more stable 'at speed' than lower ones. Pick yer poison, everything's a trade-off somewhere. :wink:
 
#17 ·
IN the immortal words of Nancy Reagan: "Just say no." Gravel sucks for Burgies.
 
#18 ·
So.....I have a 500 ft driveway. It is topped with grey stone. I would be in trouble then? :x To make matters worse I had it restoned this past Christmas. I want to understand better... When I get my 650, I should get the 06 exec cause it'll match the stone better than the 07 when it falls over? :?
 
#19 ·
The quote is from this thread, but I do not agree with it.

" .. a standing rider, as opposed to a sitting one, MUST raise the center of mass of the entire bike/rider unit to some degree, just as piling on fifty pounds of camping gear on the back seat would, or on the gas tank, for that matter..."

Here's how I se it.
Camping gear on the tank or seat would raise the Center of Gravity to that level for the weight of the load.
If that load was placed lower, as on the floorboads, the C of G would be lowered.
Now take the rider's weight, and instead of having that on the seat, lower it to the floor by standing up, transfering the weight to the floor. The C of G must be lower.
It is the same as if the rider was hanging below the bike on a sling supported to the floorboards, as is done at some Circus rides. The C of G is lowered, and the ride is safer, in my opinion.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Harry.
 
#20 ·
That could be, my ideas on this topic aren't written in stone.

Standing on the floorboards does indeed place all of the weight of the rider on those low floorboards....and that's fine for seeing what your total weight is as measured on a bathroom scale while standing in a static position. Add motion and inertia to the equation though, and it's a very, very, different ballgame.

I know that there's some babble in physics that states something to the effect of: a body in motion tends to remain in motion until it's acted upon by some outside force.

This is a potential 'can-O'-worms' topic, but look at it this way, if the riders weight (mass...same thing) was only on the floorboards, we would have a tough time dislodging the rider from the bike in a panic stop situation....BUT! If hes' standing on the pegs, whatever....and he hit's the brakes HARD, he's likely to fly over the bars, through the windshield, and smack the ground somewhere in front of the bike....becuz why? Becuz' his weight was held higher (center of mass again) than it would have been in sitting position, and the unavoidable inertia of that 'weight-held-high' threw his butt foreward off the bike. I think this has something to do with a thing called 'moment' or some egg-head, Newtonian idea, I don't know, I only managed to scam a GED. :(

And your 'camping gear on the floorboards' analogy, as opposed to being stacked on the seat, is valid.....assuming that you can squash that much gear into a flat, two-dimensional existence that has no height, only width and breadth.

To demonstrate my idea about this point, I'll take that fifty pounds of camping gear, and 'stack' it up vertically about six feet from the floorboards, with thirty pounds of it distributed to the top three feet, and the remaining twenty pounds in the bottom three feet (sort of a human-like arangement). measured at the floorboards, it STILL weighs precisely the same as the squashed 2-D camping gear when measured at it's lowest point of contact. But will the two differently configured masses of camping gear behave the same when we add motion? No! the stacked version will tip backwards as we accelerate and likely topple over...because by vertically stacking the camping gear (standing up), we've raised the center of gravity, not lowered it, and that mass, held high, will resist the foreward acceleration (remember that 'Newton thing' I mentioned before) of the bike, become unstable, and 'go boom'.


By the way.......this is fun stuff to think about. :wink:
 
#21 ·
yup yup yup - i like it (topic)!

i have stood on the fb many times but i found the ergonomics to not really be dual sport like (like - duh?). :wink:

i think that those of you who do tip toe thru the tulips (occasionally) should share your ideas about guiding this 600# long fat fella over a cow pasture. i would love to read about it! i (we) know that simon has gotten jiggy wid it on snow-covered roads.

i prsnly have guided moonpie through 5 and 10 acre beach parking lots (after Huricane Ivan) with nothing but thick beach sand blown ALL over it, and - while alone - i made it through - but i had to stand "on the pegs" a few times. I also had to get low and squat and I also has to "dob" on several occassions.

yet - bottom line - white beach sand is different than most other substraights.

i guess that it was like a drunk paris to dakar bike - or maybe one with flat tires. in other words - its **** tricky. I deffo would NOT do it w/a passenger on board.

me
 
#22 ·
OK! try this one.

Short and sweet!

If the rider, by standing on the bike, lowers the center of gravity of the entire unit, and makes the bike easier to maneuver at low speeds,..just imagine how much better it would handle if the 'driver' had his 200 pound passenger sitting on his shoulders, therefore adding even more measurable, stabilizing weight to those low floorboards?

I rest my case! (This was a brilliant analogy, if I do say so myself).
 
#23 ·
I like the topic too, as Pete said, but as far as the C of G is concerned, Burglar may be right, but it's fun seeing what others think as well.

As for the handling of the Burgman. I did own a 400 a couple of years ago, and sold it just because I didn't like the handling on loose gravel or sand. (I know that the 2007 has a larger front wheel.)
I currently ride a Shadow ACE 750, and I am toying with the idea of moving back to the Burgman, but I would chose the 650 for personal reasons. I do not mean that the 400 is not a great machine. It is !!

Enjoy the ride !

Harry.
 
#25 ·
Well, Burglar, before you dislocate your your rotator cuff patting yourself on your back, from where I sit, the Burgman handles gravel roads as well as "most mootorcycles, and much better than the "average" bike. :D

People freak out when they have to ride down a gravel road... if I had a buck for every rider I have helped lift up their bike after dumping it on a gravel road, I would not be here...I'd be on my yacht in the Carribean, helicoptering to and from each islet I would encounter. :)

Gravel roads are a mainstay in this country....just get outside your paved-over city into the "country", and gravel roads RULE out there.

What most rider are apprehensive about doing is using their THROTTLE HANDS to control their path through the gravel. In a nutshell, if your bike starts to get "squirrely", nail the throttle and you will gain SO much more control. This is NOT INTUITIVE....it is a LEARNED procedure. One that has to be practiced. You can watch training films all day long, but if you are unwilling to go out there and try to replicate what you see on the films, it is IMHO, all wasted.

I have had my 650 Exec on several gravel roads in the past few months, and although it is NOT as comfortable as my former Kawasaki KLR 650, or before that, my R100 GS Paris Dakar (BMW); or my Ducati 650 Elefant, the 650 Burg has way more power than you need to absolutely spin the shi* out of your rear tire, which on gravel, keeps up you momentum and I might add, is a MAJOR hoot to do, no matter what you are aboard at the time.

Most riders, when they encounter gravel roads for the first time, would have their pictures in Wikipedia, next to the topic of "rookie gravel road riders. :D They just lack the proper training, or an empty scrotum, to twist that throttle to keep their bikes upright.

They just have not been trained in how to manuever on gravel, which is LOTS of throttle, LITTLE brakes, and when you think you are losing it, NAIL the throttle some more. That is, in a nutshell, how to survive gravel roads. When in doubt, NAIL it. If you pussyfoot around on gravel, you will pay the price. My 0.02 worth.

pr