no traction on gravel

[demonbane]

called in to Green welly on way to fort william, and almost dropped bike, arse contents and confidence

soon as i hit the gravel, all manner of things went on, front wheel losing traction, skipping all over the place , engine speed dropping and rising and felt like no control over the bike

so assuming this is all torque control, and ABS
when on gravel do i need to turn off torque control and abs or just one, or neither? im just sh#t on gravel?

[Hartley]

Riding on a gravel car park is horrible but i never adjusted the TC.
I just keep everything smooth and slow.

[__Ray__]

Gravel is by definition not the most grippy surface as you ride on marbles when you look at it in a simplified manner.
Lack of grip on it is not just one problem and it starts with tyres, i run the Michelin Anakee Adventure on the CT and on firm sand and gravel they offer more grip than the Anakee Wild (first on both sides but now a Mitals E09 on the back) on my Ténéré and the adventures do on the road nothing less than the Michelin Road 5 Trail (which was better than the Dunlop Roadsmart 3 on the CT).
Any road tyre or 90/10 as they call the Road 5 Trail are not made for anything else than pavement. The 10% offroad is only a slightly firmer carcass to prevent punctures through the side when you end up on a gravel road to get to a fort or any other sightseeing places.
The rest are rider based.
You need to know that the bike will move around and you have to let it do that. When you stiffen up and try to correct it you probably end up horizontal.
Traction control is a bit of a paradox as it should be turned off because drifting through the corners is the best way but to build up some confidence it might be best to leave it on in the beginning.
hen you go up a hill you may need to turn it off, when there is not enough traction some slip is needed to keep momentum and the TC cuts the power ending up in a stand still.
When you find yourself on gravel roads regularly i advise you to do a basic offroad or allroad training.
I did a basic offroad training but that was more for the light to medium sized off- allroad bikes and next week i go for the intermediate training but this time i take the Ténéré as the basis was a hand full on the CT so inform what level the basic is and if it is suitable for a beginner on a heavy allroad which is actually not an allroad.

Edit: Don't know about the later models but on my 2012 you cannot turn off the ABS (i changed that for offroading so i can now)

Edit 2:
This is a blog about the offroad training with the CT with a short video at the end.
https://ride4life.nl/blog/adventure-shield-allroad-training/

[Hartley]

All sound advice Ray on gravel roads, didnt do anything like that on my CT but what youre saying all rings true with what i learned on an offroad course with my Himalayan.

My response was based on Demonbane saying the issue he had was in a carpark where the speeds are (or at least should be  ) very slow and and almost walking pace.

[demonbane]

Ok , perspective time.
Been riding bikes 45 years solid and am aware how gravel is. In the past ten years alone at the green Welly 2 tiger 800's a triumph 1250 se,2 st 1300's and a guzzi bobber, and not one  has acted like the CT did on the gravel. It was uncontrollable. No other bike I have driven on gravel has ever felt so unsafe, but no other bike has had an automatic gear box, hence the question is it to do with torque control , not my ability to actually ride a bike!

[__Ray__]

Originally Posted by Hartley

My response was based on Demonbane saying the issue he had was in a carpark where the speeds are (or at least should be  ) very slow and and almost walking pace.

Where does he says carpark?
I've been to places here and there and often the sightseeing places have a gravel or dirt road from the main road to the Kodak moment so i took that as a reason for the info.
Last week i had a ride with the VFR Ownersclub Netherlands and then i noticed that my recent offroad experience also can be usefull when you don't go offroad.
Here in the Netherlands small country roads often get a layer of split glued on. They spray a layer of tar on the road and cover it with a rich layer of fine gravel.
Traffic pushes the split in the tar and overtime run of the access but in the mean time it's not very nice on a bike.
This time though i didn't rode it with my butt cheeks tight but had some fun with it. 

[demonbane]

It's a massive gravel car park, unfortunately the assumption on my part that people actually knew that,as it's possibly the biggest bike stop in Scotland apart from appelcross, and it looks like they have recently redone it

[demonbane]

Oh, and if you think the green Welly car park gravel is bad, dukes pass is shocking! Already one death and many offs as council refuse to sweep centre line gravel off despite the fact they have a road sweeper in aberfoyle