Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Since I got my R69s earlier this year I have mainly been putzing around my neighborhood as I get to know the bike and learn to to trust that it wont break down on me. Today was a beautiful day in SoCal so I decided to venture it bit further out to some twistys. On my way there, I encountered some grooved pavement on an overpass. The bike started weaving back and forth a bit and I found it terrifying! Every part of my body puckered up. Thankfully, this didnt last too long. On the way home I decided to take the freeway for the first time with the R69S. You guessed it more grooved pavement!!! I know I am exaggerating a bit but the bike felt like it was on ice, just moving all over the place. The last time I experienced my bike feeling so loose was when I low sided because of some oil on the road. I got so scared that I actually got off the freeway and took the inner streets home.

My bike has Heidenau tires on them. This is normal for these tires right? I am not actually going to crash with these tires riding over grooved pavement am I???

Sorry for the lame post but I was caught so off guard. I never experienced this weaving before on any other bike I have owned. Of course, my oldest bike other than this is a 1990 Ducati with modern tires on them.

I don't know about your specific tires, but one way to help is to move diagonally across the lane back and forth which gets your tires up and out of being in the longitudinal grooves.

Thanks Kurt. Thats good advice but in my case the grooves were along the path of travel so I had no option but to ride along, parallel to them.

Search below and you can find my post about the SUPERIOR quality of the riding experience using MODERN profile tires,Avon ,Pirelli, etc. Those "vintage style" look great but are TERRIBLE on modern,rain groove roads. Look below,you can see the different tires mentioned. I moved away from the flatter/vintage style tires and never looked back. If your bike is a hangar queen, go for the vintage look,but of you want to ride,get the modern style tires.

Never ridden on Heidenau's, but my Avon RoadRiders don't squirm on rain grooves. I had an old Suzuki that did what you described... it's pretty spooky...

Aren't modern tires tubeless, and need a modern rim?

jeffrey wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 06, 2022 12:24 am

Never ridden on Heidenau's, but my Avon RoadRiders don't squirm on rain grooves. I had an old Suzuki that did what you described... it's pretty spooky...

Thank you. What size do you use? No issues using the stock rim?

808Airhead wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:54 pm

Search below and you can find my post about the SUPERIOR quality of the riding experience using MODERN profile tires,Avon ,Pirelli, etc. Those "vintage style" look great butt are TERRIBLE on modern,rain groove roads. Look below,you can see the different tires mentioned. I moved away from the flatter/vintage style tires and never looked back. If your bike is a hangar queen, go for the vintage look,but of you want to ride,get the modern style tires.

Thank you Thomas. I found your post about the Avons. The experience you described riding over rain grooves is exactly like mine. I dont think I have ever been so scared on a bike. I will have to definitely switch tires.

tboooe wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 05, 2022 7:55 pm

Thanks Kurt. Thats good advice but in my case the grooves were along the path of travel so I had no option but to ride along, parallel to them.

I understand, but you can knock some of the feeling down by going from one side or your lane to the other and back again. You may have encountered a situation where they are doing paving and say only one lane has been paved and the other is original. There might be a difference in lane heights of a couple of inches. Something like this can be what's known as an "edge trap". If you were to run exactly parallel to the taller surface with the edge of the tire right up against it, it can catch the tire and make it difficult to control the handlebars and one could fall over. The way to attack these situations is to come at the edge with something of an angle, and the tire will ride up and onto the new surface.

In the end, the grooves aren't going to knock your bike over as they aren't really tall enough. Loosening your grip on the bars will let the front end float a bit until you can get past that section. Slowing down will help some, too.

Riding on rain grooved pavement is terrifying for any rider regardless of experience. I’m sure your tires are fine. For many years I road and raced off road. My analogy is that road riding rain grooves is similar to riding off road.
That said, what I learned many years ago was to keep a little looser grip on the bars and let the bike wander slightly rather than fighting the urge to keep it straight,(which is impossible). Try this method if you like and see if it helps.