Um, Wanna bet?

Its done on concrete highways for the express reason to channel water off the road.

 

As for the original question, its more a TIRE issue than a bike issue. So far, my 09 seems to be better, since the new OEM tires no longer have the constant (although staggered) groove pattern around the circumference of the tire.

 

I'v had 3 bikes, suzuki, kawasaki and now a HD. All touring type bikes. all "wallowed" when riding on grooved pavement. how can you get a smooth ride on that stuff??

 

if I am understanding you right not sure if we have the same roads in Canada as that but we do have grooved highways. My 09 Ultra is alot better than my v-Star was. this is my first tourer so not sure if it is better than previous years or not. I do know that my dealer told me HD and Dunlop designed a new wider tire to take care of that problem and I have to say I don't feel anything out of the ordinary. I have ridden it in the rain and it tracks alot better than any other bike I have owned.

 

Ok - fair enough - I stand corrected. Sorry for the thread hijack too. Maybe I just haven't seen stretches long enough to think that they were deliberately grooved for "rain water" purposes. Plus I didn't see the logic. I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area - and we have plenty of seasonal weather - nasty torrential downpours, and plenty of snow & ice accumulation - and there just isn't that much grooved roadway up here.

When I tried to reason it out - it didn't make sense - still doesn't totally - cuz I would think anything meant to get water off of the roadway or make it safer would channel it away from the road - not leave it in place in a recess. I mean - how much rain or melting ice/snow would it take to fill those grooves up - and then you'd have even bigger puddles of varying degree's; I would think those grooves would make the roads even more dangerous in wet weather - for any vehicle, much less dry roads for bikes.

I think the biggest patches we have up here are 50 - 100 foot stretches - often in curves - and my understanding was it was so that vehicles would "mind their lane" and not veer into the other lanes which - all of which are confined to a fairly tight area with concrete barriers on the side...

Terry, I don't doubt you have those grooves - and in turns - and I know they suck riding'em; my question was mainly about the actual intended purpose of those grooves. I may contact a few states' DOT's just for grins and get their technical explanation of those things cuz, while I understand the explanations given - I have to wonder if that's what those things are meant to do - why aren't there more of them, especially in areas that have nasty weather frequently?

And my bad on the wallow vs the wobble Beary. Definitely two different things - I understand completely now. (for what it's worth - I didn't have my head in the game when I posted my reply earlier. If you look at my photo album - you'll see why. I was looking forward to meeting a certain someone for a little "lunch" today )

 

Rain grooves make the wallow worse. Many have the wallow or wobble in any sweeping bend at 80 mph regardless of road surface conditions. I'm going to find out first hand if the new 09 chassis has helped the problem.

 

I found the details I was looking for - and now I'll shuttup on this topic; great article on how grooved pavement came about (a NASA discovery) and the reason why it works & is used on roadways today: http://www.nasaexplorer.com/show2_5_...d=01-053&gl=58

The gist of it is that instead of giving your tire (car, truck or otherwise) only 1 option of sandwhiching a layer of water between it and the pavement, it instead has the abilisty to smoosh the water into the grooved channel - and then make contact with that top ridge of the grooves, thereby providing better traction. It wont help with "drainage" of water from the roadway (and I suspect it could make it worse ultimately) - yet it will still help with traction:

"The grooved pavement provides escape routes for water compressed between the tire tread and the road."

 

No apology necessary sknyfats, I’m not sure wallow defines it either, maybe it does have more wobble than wallow. Or maybe it jittery. But I’m glad to hear that maybe the new tire has reduce the problem.

Thanks for the great replies everyone. Have a great weekend.

Beary