The "Crowning Glory" - The Effects of Designed (and not designed) road crown on Riding a motorcycle
agcoauto.com
The slope of a road surface to the outside for proper drainage. Excessive road crown can cause a motorcycle (or any vehicle for that matter) to track to the right. Thankfully, if you are riding in the dominant or usual position on the highway, you are more than likely not effected by the crown. However, that is, is all things are equal (that is a fancy way to say if the road is in good repair and the slope from the centre line to the edge of the pavement is approximately as indicated above, and traffic ruts have not been created. Yeah, right! Most of our highways take a pounding from the heavy loads placed on them, especially the increased truck traffic caused by our demands to have things shipped yesterday and pulling out the rail lines. Now that I have got that rant out of my system, back to the roads.
As mentioned, we as bikers ride on the high portion of the highway crown (but if we ride in a group, chances are some of us will be riding on the low side of the crown). This should not make much difference other than the fact our trip to the "edge" can keep us "on edge", partially because of the direction road engineering wants to take us. We don't even think about it in most cases, and subconsciously make the necessary adjustments to ride straight.
With the increased traffic from other vehicles ( and the ravages of winter / spring frost action and softening of the road beds), we end up with rutting of the of the road surface, to add to the crown. Now we not only have the engineered road crown, but the non-engineered road crowns of either side of the road ruts. Fun, eh? To counter this, many of us will ride on the top of the road located between the ruts, forcing us to move out of our comfort zone spacing, and giving us less "useable" road surface to safely work with.
As mentioned, we as bikers ride on the high portion of the highway crown (but if we ride in a group, chances are some of us will be riding on the low side of the crown). This should not make much difference other than the fact our trip to the "edge" can keep us "on edge", partially because of the direction road engineering wants to take us. We don't even think about it in most cases, and subconsciously make the necessary adjustments to ride straight.
With the increased traffic from other vehicles ( and the ravages of winter / spring frost action and softening of the road beds), we end up with rutting of the of the road surface, to add to the crown. Now we not only have the engineered road crown, but the non-engineered road crowns of either side of the road ruts. Fun, eh? To counter this, many of us will ride on the top of the road located between the ruts, forcing us to move out of our comfort zone spacing, and giving us less "useable" road surface to safely work with.
Water discharge along side of road
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/
Another factor to be aware of is water discharge or "pooling" along the side of the road because of the crown dispelling water (as intended) but the curb drains are clogged or not functioning, or gravel or vegetation along the roadways not allowing the water along the edges to drain away. Either way, it makes for careful riding.