Modern Vespa

The winds in San Francisco can be strong.
Strong enough to easily affect the riding of a 180 lb rider on a GT200.
Is it better to slow down or speed up?

I'm sure this will be covered in the MS Class... but that's not for another month and I'm addicted to riding.

Anyone have any tips on riding a cross wind?

Relax...you just have to go with it, almost like surfing. If you are white-knuckling, you're holding on way too tight. Cross winds and the rain grooves make your bike behave in much the same way, that is, it "dances" in the lane.

If you are relaxed, you can have a loose grip and clear mind to just go with it. If you are scared sh!tless, you'll squeeze tighter and tighter on the grips, get out of the zone where you can make good decisions, and be more likely to incur problems.

Relaxing is definitely the key!

And the rain grooves on the Bay Bridge suck, especially if you have matching grooves on your tires like I did.

Have fun, the Bay Area is a beautiful place to ride!

-Mel

I took an MSF class nine months ago and nobody mentioned anything about the wind. You can imagine my surprise the first time I took Van Ness, then Market Street, both wind tunnels. I totally thought I'd get blown off my bike into oncoming traffic! I've riden 2200 miles since then but was still a bit shaken by the wind just today. I can't decide whether it feels worse at stops or when I'm moving. I do my best to release the death grip, but it's not always easy.

Ride safe. I'm a lot smaller than you (with a smaller bike, too) and it hasn't blown me off yet!

I make frequent trips from the East Bay to SF via the Bay Bridge. The second span heading west can hit you with some gnarly gusts, and there has been a few instances where I felt as if I was 'shouldering into the wind' to fight it.

In my experiences speeding up exasperates the situation, especially in a headwind. I do my best to maintain a safe comfortable speed and stay focused w/o overcompensating or over thinking it.

I do often check the weather reports before heading over, and will avoid bridge travel when there are small craft advisories and gusts of 30+mph.

City riding, even on the windiest of days is typically no problem, albiet sometimes noisy. Biggest challenge is dodging the trash the blows up at ya.

With a cross wind from left to right for example I sometimes push out my left knee and the drag automatically straightens you, obviously opposite knee for the opposite cross wind

On my super bike I use the same technique for coming off the highway, just a little knee out and it starts the turn off and down the slip road, also moves your weight slightly.

In high cross winds I counter steer. If a cross wind is pushing the bike to the right, I counter steer to the left to correct my course.