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Warm weather commuting

B

bobgroger

Forum Sage
Past Site Supporter
Or, how hot is too hot.... We are expecting 80s this week,now that the GS is pretty well sorted I am thinking of riding to work once in a while. Stop and go traffic is the norm, but I am worried about overheating. No lane splitting here. Should I be concerned? When is it time to pull over and shut it off?
 
You have nothing at all to worry about. If you're sitting in traffic you need to worry only that you are riding an air cooled bike and after 5 mins of a running engine with no airflow your valves will start to not like you so you need to shut it off. There's nothing wrong with shutting if of and starting it up, you have to in heaving standstill traffic. You can easily go above a 100 and drive all day long.
 
Yeah, wouldn't worry about it. Suzuki would not have sold very many of these bikes if they couldn't idle at stop lights on warm days.
 
The worst I've experienced are 1h long border crossings in the mid-90s...too hot to continue wearing helmets and jackets. In those cases, I've resorted to shutting the bike down, and pushing it. I restart it for the uphills :)

I believe you'll be okay just riding and not worrying about it. I dunno about Eastern Washington though. I've been through there when it was literally hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk...where's Maple Valley?
 
What is considered Washington hot?

We regularly see heat indicies into the one teens in the summer here. I'll be pleasure cruising at night then.
 
I would pull over in 140 F ambient temperature.;)
I have ridden in 110 degrees with no ill effects to the bike.
 
I'm planning to ride to work tomorrow for the first time this year. I live in Federal Way and work at UW Seattle, my usual riding route to work is either Lake Washington Blvd or Rainier Ave. In the morning everything is smooth sailing, but the afternoon traffic is definitely stop and go in places, no issues the last 3 years in temps well into the 80s.
 
eil said:
Yeah, wouldn't worry about it. Suzuki would not have sold very many of these bikes if they couldn't idle at stop lights on warm days.
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What he said, if they did sell such crappy bikes none would still be running. I wouldn't even think about worrying about it until well above 110 degrees or more. If you don get to a place where it's too hot don't leave it runnning when stopped at lights. Easy enough. Around the Seattle area that's just not going to happen.

Still if you are stuck and completely stopped in traffic common sense would tell you to shut it off after a while, or if becomes obvious you will be stopped for a while. Letting it idle it too long is a bad idea even if the weather isn't all that hot. That's what electric starters are for. Some liquid cooled bikes get hotter quicker from what I've seen. When water burps out it's probably a good time to shut it off for a while if you can't get moving.
 
tkent02 said:
Still if you are stuck and completely stopped in traffic common sense would tell you to shut it off after a while, or if becomes obvious you will be stopped for a while.
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Reminds me of my '68 Camaro; I used to shut it off in traffic. No power brakes, no power steering, tape deck wired straight to the battery (yeah, I know).
 
A stinking hot August day in London, all day in and around the city, then home, saw the rings wave me goodbye the next morning. No compression worth talking about on any cylinder. That engine had done 140K at that point though, so it didn't come as a great surprise that something would go wrong. When I took the barrels off there was no wear anywhere, either to pistons or cylinders. Only needed rings.
 
My friend with a Concours says some days are too hot to ride. Never heard of such silliness. Air-cooled rules. Fairings (and radiators) suck.
 
Anything over 110 here in the desert it's too hot to ride. You need to keep the face shield closed while riding otherwise your in a blast furnace. It's a dry heat though right...

I rode back from San Diego last August and it was 113, I couldn't drink enough water. Dehydration is a real threat in wx like that. I was stopping every 75 - 100 miles to rehydrate and stand under a hose somewhere along the way.

Only time I can say I would have rather been in a cage.

Cheers

Oh, and by the way my "G" ran great with no complaints.
 
bbjumper said:
Anything over 110 here in the desert it's too hot to ride. You need to keep the face shield closed while riding otherwise your in a blast furnace. It's a dry heat though right...

I rode back from San Diego last August and it was 113, I couldn't drink enough water. Dehydration is a real threat in wx like that. I was stopping every 75 - 100 miles to rehydrate and stand under a hose somewhere along the way.

Only time I can say I would have rather been in a cage.

Cheers

Oh, and by the way my "G" ran great with no complaints.
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Rode my 1100E in Tempe all the time in city traffic, no ill effects. It IS hard on the rider though! At the time my bike ran hot, due to non-stock exhaust, with no carb re-jetting, but it still did ok. If these beasts can make it in the AZ desert, they can make it anywhere!
 
Rob S. said:
My friend with a Concours says some days are too hot to ride. Never heard of such silliness. Air-cooled rules. Fairings (and radiators) suck.
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Guess you haven't ridden in the southwest heat have ya. I've been riding in this heat now 34 years now. When it starts hitting the 105 degree mark, ain't gonna do it. Made the mistake of riding one day without checking for that days temps for the late afternoon. 118 degrees that day. I hit that temp right at its peak for the day say 3:30pm A 56 mile ride from Alamogordo through the White Sands Missile range to home turned into torture. No trees, no shade, no where to hide. Ask GSXRED he has been through twice now, though not with the heat yet lol.

Now that I'm pushing 60, not able to handle summer heat like I used too. I can tolerate 100-105, higher then that I look for a place to wait and let it cool down in the evening. When I was younger and dumber and still full of c...um never mind, heat? what heat? heat don't brother me any! What I mean by younger I was 29 when I started riding lol.
 
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mrbill5491;20 I can tolerate 100-105 said:
I got that, some of the most beautiful rides I have had here have been in the early pre dawn hours during the summer. Out in the open desert at three am with a full moon, probably high 80's - low 90's waiting fur first light on an open highway, don't get any better than that.....

Cheers
Click to expand...
 
mrbill5491 said:
Guess you haven't ridden in the southwest heat have ya. I've been riding in this heat now 34 years now. When it starts hitting the 105 degree mark, ain't gonna do it. Made the mistake of riding one day without checking for that days temps for the late afternoon. 118 degrees that day. I hit that temp right at its peak for the day say 3:30pm A 56 mile ride from Alamogordo through the White Sands Missile range to home turned into torture. No trees, no shade, no where to hide. Ask GSXRED he has been through twice now, though not with the heat yet lol.

Now that I'm pushing 60, not able to handle summer heat like I used too. I can tolerate 100-105, higher then that I look for a place to wait and let it cool down in the evening. When I was younger and dumber and still full of c...um never mind, heat? what heat? heat don't brother me any! What I mean by younger I was 29 when I started riding lol.
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I'm pushing 60 also! This will be my first summer in 25 years on two wheels. Back in the '80's, when I was invincible, I'd come home from Wall Street and hop on my '73 Z1 with sneakers, a miniscule shirt, sometimes tiny shorts, and cruise at 75 on the highway.

Of course it rarely gets into triple digits here in NYC, but the reasons my Concours friend (who was also my riding buddy 'back in the day', we've known each other since birth) doesn't ride on hot days are his fairing, his radiator, and his clothes. Which brings me to my approaching conundrum.

No radiator or fairing on my '82 1100e, but what about clothes? The one time I've ridden recently in shorts and sneakers, I burned my leg on the exhaust (1-minute trip to the gas station).
 
bbjumper said:
ATGATT!

All it takes is once without to make you a believer. Even here in the desert it actually acts like an insulator against the heat, your gonna sweat but you were gonna do that anyway.

This is what I wear. 400 bucks total but a s**t ton cheaper than possible damage to your body otherwise.



http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/revit-airwave-jacket
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/revit-airwave-pants
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Yup, I wear my boots, heavy jeans(at least), jacket (or heavy demin long sleeve shirt), gloves and my full face helmet. I really need to get myself a good warm weather jacket. I feel a bit naked with the shirt at times lol.
 
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