Hey, it's slippy aht!

While I am not a native Pittsburgher, I have acquired some of the native accent after living here for over four decades. "Slippy" = slippery, "aht" is how o-u-t is pronounced in these parts. Regardless of accent, though, lots of conditions can result in one's tires having a tenuous relationship with the pavement underneath.

I have bicycled, unicycled, motorcycled, driven a car, and of course, motor scootered in non-ideal conditions. Four winters on the SUNY Geneseo campus, often on unicycle, provided me a wealth of experience being able to read and understand the surface conditions of what I'm approaching, and so be able to predict what might happen once my tires (tire!) get there. This cannot be taught; it's literally seat-of-your-pants learning. Not all snow acts the same, and not all dry-looking pavement can be trusted. 

To date, over 4,500 miles of usage, I have dumped the scooter only twice. Once on dry pavement, once while barely moving but on wet leaves. Both cases, I should have known better. In the dry pavement situation, what I didn't realize is that the scooter's tires really don't corner well. The machine itself can get properly diagonal in a tight curve at some speed, but the tires don't grip all that well. That first one, I hadn't replaced the tires yet (it was before the flat), and the back end just went out from under me while taking a corner at about 22 mph. I might have been able to patch that flat, but the crash instructed me not to bother. The tire likely had never been replaced in 4,000 miles, so just spend the money and do it right.

The second one, I was trying to navigate down a back alley (Exchange Way in downtown Pittsburgh), and could not have been going faster than a walk. But the combination of wet leaves, a longitudinal crack in the pavement, and probably some oil in the mix of wet leaves, made the surface such that I had trouble even standing up, let alone holding a 250-pound scooter steady. It's an extreme situation, but the best I can say is, I should not ever have attempted it.

But between those two extremes, there are a lot of shades of grey. Maybe it isn't leaves but rather someone has blown their grass clippings into the street when mowing their yard. Grass clippings are essentially ice, especially if wet. If you don't bike, you might not even be aware of this. If you ever do see someone mowing their grass and letting the clippings blow out onto the street, stop and talk to them. Most people will understand. As a rider, though, you have to be on the lookout for those things, every 50 yards you travel. In a car, you can get away with it, since a couple of tires will always be on grass-less pavement, but not on two wheels.

Leaves are the greatest risk in autumn, when the deciduous trees get colorful. It's not just leaves, though, it's the ground-up leaf litter, particularly on corners. 

Ice is universally difficult to walk or bike or drive on. Most times, don't even try unless you have special studded tires. I cannot think of any use for a big scooter on icy pavement. Leave it parked.

Snow is tricky and for the scooter, probably a no-go. I've successfully biked and unicycled in snow hundreds of times. Many variables exist, and many more values for those variables exist. The colder the snow, for example, the less slippy it is. This also applies to cars. 

Gravel -- and I include road salt in this category -- is second only to ice in unpredictability. 

But the really tricky stuff is when there is just a little bit of wetness. Thermoplastic strips such as are used for pedestrian crossings, turn arrows, line stripes, and divider markings, may as well be ice. Try it just standing up: You have no traction! When in motion, steer around or between them when possible, and be prepared to slip some when not possible to avoid.

Beyond that, though, there are the less visible tar strips manually put down by road crews to fill cracks in the pavement. Sometimes these are in nice straight lines, more often they are haphazardly applied to any random set of cracks that have developed. These are as bad as ice, too! You might only be on these strips for hundredths of a second, but if you shift sideways an inch in that tiny time slice, you will notice and not in a pleasant way.

Finally, take note that on any day when it's just rained after having not rained in a while, little drops of oil that have fallen off car engines get distributed across the road surface, making any part of the road unpredictable. 

All this to say, while movement on two wheels is not inherently dangerous, it is inherently more likely to put you at risk of going sideways. That, in turn, might be recoverable, might not, but the more hundreds of miles you spend on some sort of bike, the better at it you'll get, but it all starts with becoming aware of the surface you're approaching and not doing anything to make matters worse, such as speed or horse around.

I know of no better way to get people to become aware of all this than to put them on two wheels as early as possible, encouraging use of two wheels as often as possible. Let them wipe out a bunch of times. Kiss their boo-boos. Then put them right back in the seat to go at it again.