Modern Vespa

A wierd thing happened the other day. I had just completed a left hand turn on to a stretch of straight road. The seams in the road had been tar and chipped. All of a sudden I could feel my scooter veering to the right towards the side of the road. I kind of freaked out and pulled over to the side. My husband was riding ahead of me and he turned around and came back. I told him what the scooter was doing and he took it for a spin and said it seemed fine. He thought maybe I got stuck in a groove in the road that caused that to happen. I got back on and road it for 50 more miles and it seemed fine. Can the road surface cause this to happen? I asked him what I should have done and he said if that was the case to just ride it out. I really thought I was going to end up in the guard rail. I really thought something was wrong with the scooter.

I've had a similar sensation, travelling on a tar snake, my back tyre tracked it quite well and snaked to the left a little with the tar line. The first time is slightly disconcerting, but you get used to it with the state some British roads are in!

Tyres will more than happily track grooves and tar snakes, especially the rear - if it happens again without any visible grooves in the road, get it checked!

I assume that you are probably as much of a newbie as me. There is a stretch of road between here and my best friend's house that has been tar and chipped and tar snaked to death and it *STILL* gets me every now and then after 8 months. Your hubby said the same thing mine did and it works, just ride it out and you learn to sort of lean out of it. I didn't understand at first that it is like riding in high wind - you eventually don't even realize that you are compensating for it. Keep practicing and it will become second nature.

You may have heard of the infamous M25 ringroad around London - there are stretches on this motorway that are very much like driving on rails - the grooves are so deep (from articulated lorries riding on rims, no doubt) that it can be quite a struggle to get your rear tyre out of them at speed.

I guess all you need to try and do is avoid them as best as possible if you can. However sadly, the way roads are ripped up to lay cables these days, it's hard to avoid them all!