What is the most dificult road that you have ridden?

[Rocker66]

I found this video of a pass in the UK that I have ridden. At the time I was on a hired Royal Enfield 500. I was doing OK until I arrived at an adverse cambered hairpin with a mini van hanging over the edge in a simular manner to the scene in "The Italain Job".
Wrynose and Hardknott passes on a Honda NC700X - YouTube

 

[mpgandfun]

My 18 mile commute home from work last year in December on my 150cc scooter.

A guy on 3rd shift saw that I had ridden the scoot to work. He told me that when he stepped out of
his Jeep, he slipped and fell in the parking lot. Great, I was due to head home in 30 minutes .

Black ice the whole way. A 15 mph white knuckle ride every second.

 

[Rocker66]

My 18 mile commute home from work last year in December on my 150cc scooter.

A guy on 3rd shift saw that I had ridden the scoot to work. He told me that when he stepped out of
his Jeep, he slipped and fell in the parking lot. Great, I was due to head home in 30 minutes .

Black ice the whole way. A 15 mph white knuckle ride every second.

Nasty but I was thinking more of a difficult road rather than difficult conditions

 

[mike5100]

I found this video of a pass in the UK that I have ridden. At the time I was on a hired Royal Enfield 500. I was doing OK until I arrived at an adverse cambered hairpin with a mini van hanging over the edge in a simular manner to the scene in "The Italain Job".
Wrynose and Hardknott passes on a Honda NC700X - YouTube

It's my video that one Rocker - and I think I agree with you it's probably the hardest road I have ridden. If you look at 45 seconds into the video you can see that it nearly had me off. The very wide angle lens tends to reduce the apparent steepness of the hill and the camber - and of course the state of the potholes doesn't help.
Mind you we tried the road up to Tan Hill from Hawes last week and had to give up becuase of ice and slush, but that could happen on any road.
Mike

 

[Rocker66]

Hi Mike I hope that you don't mind me sharing your video. I know what you mean about the road up to Tan hill and we did it in the dry. Another very interesting road is the one down to the little 4 car ferry over to the isle of Skye. I widh that I had a video camera on the bike that day

 

[mike5100]

No problem Rocker - in fact the more it gets shared the better really. I was hoping to do the ferry from Skye over to Mallaig in Oct as I was booked into a hotel in Salen, But the wind got up and they wouldn't take bikes on the boat so I had to go back round the long way.
I dream about the couple of rides I have had up that way and am just itching for the Spring to go up there again and beyond up to Ullapool - The NC700X is such a magic bike for this kind of riding.
Mike

 

[Daboo]

Nasty but I was thinking more of a difficult road rather than difficult conditions

I would say my most difficult road was on the trip to the trailhead to Barclay Lake in Washington. It was 4 miles in and 4 out of forest road with some large pot holes, etc. All this with a passenger, our hiking gear...and on a Burgman 400 scooter. If you look at the screen capture I made off Google Maps, you'll see it has about a 1600 foot elevation gain. I wasn't as worried about the elevation gain, but I was a bit concerned with the downhill run out of there and keeping the bike upright. If you're familiar with a scooter like a Burgman, there's a lot of plastic on the outside. Scrape that up badly, and the insurance companies will total the bike even if it runs fine.



Chris

 

[Beemerphile]

Dempster Highway in Canada.

 

[treybrad]

Most difficult would have to be some NF road in the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico on my (over)loaded Bandit 1250.

The pictures really do a bad job showing the grapefruit to soccer ball sized rocks that were everywhere that would pitch me off course every 50'.

50+ miles of this to get where I was trying to go. I asked a Ranger before I decided on this route... apparently his interpretation of 'no problem' for a street bike was a little different than mine....

trey

 

[Billy Budd]

Great video! Nothing too tough on the 700x yet, I have done a bunch of wicked stuff on DS bikes though.

 

[happy]

Hard roads, or twisties and so on are quite "easy" compared to this:
(Not my photo but googled for a similar road condition. I did 20km once in Malaysia in 4 hours, a friend was on his brandnew GPZ1100. We never saw him ever again on a tour with us)

 

[MZ5]

It wasn't exactly 'difficult,' but very fun and VERY slow & twisty, riding up South Mountain in Phoenix. I'd like to ride Schnebly Hill road into Sedona. I've only driven it so far, and it's just BARELY passable in a standard passenger car without ripping up the undercarriage. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL scenery, though. Some pictures of the general area can be seen here:
Forest Road 525C - Sedona, Arizona

 

[mike5100]

Rocker - I guess you probably meant 'normal' road that is a recognised public route between A and B, because otherwise any off-roading is going to be more difficult than the roads we have been describing.
Although Hardknott was the most difficult because of the combination of conditions and road surface, there are several bits of road on the North Yorkshire Moors that are very tricky because of the very tight hairpins - tighter even than most of the roads I have ridden in Scotland. There are a few in the Yorkshire Dales like this too where people on (say) harleys really have to know what they are doing to get round them without dropping them.
I intend next spring/summer to put together a video of every hairpin road in North Yorkshire .... well it sort of gives a point to a ride-out doesn't it?
Mike

 

[Cutter J. Duke]

Most difficult would have to be some NF road in the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico on my (over)loaded Bandit 1250.

[The pictures really do a bad job showing the grapefruit to soccer ball sized rocks that were everywhere that would pitch me off course every 50'.

50+ miles of this to get where I was trying to go. I asked a Ranger before I decided on this route... apparently his interpretation of 'no problem' for a street bike was a little different than mine....

trey

That's not a road thats a nightmare, maybe if I had an enduro bike. As for me the toughest road was the Angeles Crest as it got older and the pavement got sketchy in long runs of it.

 

[Rocker66]

Rocker - I guess you probably meant 'normal' road that is a recognised public route between A and B, because otherwise any off-roading is going to be more difficult than the roads we have been describing.
Although Hardknott was the most difficult because of the combination of conditions and road surface, there are several bits of road on the North Yorkshire Moors that are very tricky because of the very tight hairpins - tighter even than most of the roads I have ridden in Scotland. There are a few in the Yorkshire Dales like this too where people on (say) harleys really have to know what they are doing to get round them without dropping them.
I intend next spring/summer to put together a video of every hairpin road in North Yorkshire .... well it sort of gives a point to a ride-out doesn't it?
Mike

Yes thats exactly what I meant. Sue and I visit Yorshire most summers and hope to do so again in 2013. We have certainly found some good roads over the dales such as the one up to Tan Hill. I look forward to your video with interest

 

[mike5100]

Here's a video of Tan Hill but it's the easy section from there up and over to a nice biker cafe in Middleton in Teesdale, Although the road isn't hard it's very pretty. There'ssome nice music from 4;00 minutes on, played by a mate of mine.
Mike
[video=youtube;Kvs_nhj-zu4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvs_nhj-zu4[/video]