A true story.
One unusually wintry early morning in Cambridgeshire I dolled up in best warm winter gear and boots to ride to work on my trusty Suzuki GT550. The road looked like UK_Vstrom650's photo but I knew how to ride gently in the unpressed snow at the edge of the road so sucessfully made it to the village crossroads, wanting to turn right. Unfortunately the road surface here was packed snow topped with glassy ice. Cars were sliding in different directions and drivers unacustomed to the conditions insisted on wheel spinning on the spot with no forward momentum whatsoever.
I dismounted my bike having been told that the traffic was backed up as the local bus couldn't manage to mount the hill to my right, just past the bus stop. At this point I decided to retreat, push my bike to the edge of the road and go home and return to catch the bus even if I'd be even later into work.
So in a standing position with hands on the handlebars I pushed gently. The bike didn't move but my feet did...backwards. In a moment I had to lay the bike over before my feet sped up and I found my helmet against the ice. I gingerly recovered, put my feet under the seat and tank and lifted the bike back up. No problem there so I went for push number two. Ooops, same effect, once more losing any traction on the ice and the bike was on it's side again. At this point no-one is getting out of their vehicles to help as it's far too slippery. I got the bike up again and you can guess, the third effort has exactly the same outcome.
I am obviously embarassed now but determined to surmount the problem. I took a far more upright posture and got the wheels moving at last and with a bit of momentum and very short steps I got the bike turned round and back into soft unpacked snow. So home I went without too much delay to change into general citizen gear and return to catch the next bus out of the village.
A little bit later I'm at the bus stop with another traveller and chatting to him about the chaos such bad weather brings to road users. "Yes," he said "you should have been here earlier. Some mad idiot tried to get to Cambridge on his motorbike from the crossroads back there, dropped his bike three times before he gave it up as a bad job!"
