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Lowsided on a downhill right hander on route 116 in Mass. On an '83 750 Maxim. Extremely forceful wobble while scraping the peg broke my wrist, and the bike just decided not to stay up. I slid and tumbled at 60mph on the asphalt with the bike in hot pursuit. Gear (textile pants, leather jacket, helmet, boots) did its job and I have two minor abrasions. The bike has a broken brake lever and turn signal. I have a broken ego (and wrist), and decided I need to stop being cheap and buy a more modern functioning bike.
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May 23, 2009 04:19
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aventari posted:Good thing you're okay, I can't imagine what an off at 60mph on the street is like.. No doubt. However, I lack the mechanical knowledge or tools to ensure the bike is mechanically sound. I'd prefer to get a naked standard that I can put a bit more trust into without having to wrench. I learn what I can from places like this but when I have no tools or money, I'm pretty limited. I couldn't do anything about the wobble. My 250 never acted like that. That said no I don't think I have perfect technique or am God's gift to motorcycles. I know I can and will improve. FuzzyWuzzyBear fucked around with this message at 12:42 on May 23, 2009 |
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May 23, 2009 12:35
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 Updating this with a picture of my awesome cast! I'm out of riding for six weeks at least. Driving a stick shift is quite the adventure in itself. For a lowside at highway speeds, I'd say I'm drat lucky.
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Jun 2, 2009 05:53
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Drunk Pledge Driver posted:Are you still in Western Mass? I'm always looking for more people to ride with. I was out of riding for a month last year but for much dumber reason :\ I live in Southern CT but I'm down for riding anywhere in the New England area. AIM is Kokonut M0nkey, hit me up sometime. My cast comes off July 6.
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Jun 16, 2009 05:44
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Z3n posted:It doesn't matter if you didn't hit exactly in the spot where there wasn't any liner...as you discovered, when your head hits the ground in a helmet, you're compressing the liner all across that entire side of the helmet. Glad you're alright, and I'm glad you decided to replace the helmet. This. The impact is spread over a wide area of the helmet, not just the square inch that touches ground.
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Jul 7, 2010 00:00
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I still think the scariest thing on a bike is a massive tank slapper that results in a highside (which I got to experience on my Maxim last year). The doctor thought that it wasn't the impact with the road that broke my wrist but the violent twisting of the handlebars as I hung on like a listless ragdoll for a bit too long.
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Sep 30, 2010 17:03
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Looks like you got off relatively scott-free. Gotta love dual-sport hardiness. I don't really like using knobbies on the street because it seems that they don't give any warning when they're about to let go. I lowsided like an rear end in a parking lot doing weaves on knobbies.
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Oct 21, 2010 14:48
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Crashed tonight. Saw frost on my car's windshield. Don't know why I ignored it. If you had a supermoto you could have weighted the outside peg, gassed it, and completed the drift and then pretend it was intentional. 
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Nov 11, 2010 19:58
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Drifter posted:Lowside during lean. All sorts of stuff can cause a lowside during a lean. It's still mostly rider error, but the more leaned over you are, the less warning you get. For your case, I'll bet you chopped the throttle abruptly in the turn, causing you to lose ground clearance and traction at the same time. I say this because you clearly weren't comfortable with how leaned over you were and were probably pretty stiff on the controls, and you mentioned feeling the rear squirm around. The only advice I can give is that you can almost always lean farther than you think you can, and that you need to stay on the throttle and keep counter-steering to get the bike over. 30-35mph is pretty slow and the bike can take a really tight corner comfortably at that speed, even a decreasing radius. The other advice is that to combat the threat of blind corners and decreasing radius turns, avoid taking the "fast" inside line through corners. Instead, purposefully stick to the outside long enough so you can visually see through the corner, and then go ahead and start bringing your bike toward a late apex.
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Dec 13, 2010 08:33
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threeskin posted:I'm healing pretty drat well so far. Most of my pain has passed. Now it's more dull aches in my joints. The morning I tried to trim my toenail and the whole thing sort of fell off. Christ. Moon (2009) spoiler: This is highly reminiscent of when Sam Bell discovers he only has a three year shelf life and starts literally falling apart.
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Dec 20, 2010 03:14
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That sucks but there's still hope that you can come out ahead or at least even. It's always the underinsured/uninsured assholes that screw you over. Back when I started riding I got rear-ended by an uninsured driver. There was no damage to my bike really but her headlight got totally hosed up, so I think that was karma in action.
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Feb 15, 2011 20:53
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I am the smuggest motherfucker in the world right now - here's why. So, it was nice today and I'm riding like a Total Dong (c) around a local town in Connecticut. There's mostly wet roads and the odd snow clump but it's mostly okay. One of my attempted stoppies turned into a lowside as my front tire hit a small snow clump in the road and the front tucked under very quickly. 15mph lowside, I hit the road with my knee and forearm, my right foot gets caught under the bike and twisted. Now, if I were riding a normal streetbike and wearing a helmet, jacket, jeans, and hiking boots, I would be looking at a broken ankle, broken turn signals, and a broken brake lever. Because I was riding a supermoto with handguards and rear axle sliders, and was wearing a one-piece suit with offroad boots, I walked away laughing with no injuries and no damage to the bike. The handguard was rotated a little upwards and the bike made an impressive backfire when I kicked it over because of the excess gas in the cylinder. Wear your gear, kids. People think what I'm wearing is overkill for the street, but I am so glad that I wear all my gear all the time. You can look cool when you get off the bike.
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Mar 6, 2011 01:26
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BlackMK4 posted:I think he is referring to the wide spread belief that being drunk during an accident makes you less likely to tense up, reducing injury as you're more likely to 'roll with the punches' than resist motion and increase stresses. I remember reading a paper disproving this theory so... Sounds iffy to me. The best way to avoid injury is to attempt to slide on your hips, rear end, back, whatever, and to not just flop around and possibly start tumbling. This is assuming, of course, that you're not a dumb-dumb and are wearing abrasion-resistant clothing that covers your entire body. Sliding is such a serene experience, relatively speaking, that racers often try to get back up before they've come to a halt, resulting in some pretty funny stumbles.
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Mar 19, 2011 05:01
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-Inu- posted:Yeah, "Killboy in California" is a pretty good description. If I recall correctly, they also catch a lot of crashes at that corner because it's decreasing radius (?) and looks like it ends sooner than it actually does, so people tend to get on the gas too early and crash. It's not really the radius of that corner that gets people, it's the camber. It switches from being fairly banked to going off-camber midway through, and while you can't see it in the videos, it really will gently caress you up if you're already pushing your traction limits.
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Mar 22, 2011 15:34
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sildargod posted:Well, 2 weeks ago (having not read this thread yet) I bought myself a baby 250cc motorbiek, hopped on in borrowed gear with precisely 0 hours of riding in my belt, figuring that I've ridden a bicycle before and how hard can it be right? Not that your friends are responsible for your well-being, but it sucks that whoever you borrowed the gear from didn't have the common sense to know that you don't belong on public roads with no experience or formal training.
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Nov 21, 2011 15:23
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himajinga posted:Winter riding is sketchy, I totally ride like a grandma between October and June. I average one lowside per winter because I can't bring myself to do this.
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Jan 7, 2012 16:07
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My opinion is that race tires will heat cycle to death before they wear down which makes them a questionable choice for street rubber. I don't think their cold grip is that different than that of a normal street tire, but street tires will not heat cycle to death. Why don't you just get Pilot Powers if you want inexpensive good street rubber? I guarantee you're not so pro at riding that you'll outride the performance that Pilot Powers give you - street or novice/intermediate trackdays. I normally wouldn't tell you what to run if you're happy, but you just posted a video of you lowsiding and then blaming your tires, so maybe you need to rethink your approach. You also mentioned that all your friends are also crashing, so maybe their advice isn't infallible. 
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Jan 12, 2012 14:01
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I agree with what Z3n is saying about crash analysis. Also, he's pushing the "technique and mindset" agenda because, as he stated, there is human tendency to blame the equipment and not the rider. Nobody is saying that better tires will not improve anything at all, but in the scope of this accident, I agree that, by far, the greatest risk was what was being asked of the bike, and not the shoes it was wearing. WildWanderer posted:I am a very experienced rider, and even though there were some risks that contributed to my accident, I was aware of all of them and know how to manage them. It also doesn't help that while WildWanderer on one hand says it's his fault (and, to his benefit, does state he gave too much throttle and lean), he then says stuff I listed above which appears to put him more in the camp of "Welp, it was just some bad luck!" which won't really help in preventing future accidents if riding habits are not changed. In my view, it IS an example of a rider loving up because, short of some condition that is completely unforeseen and unavoidable (ball bearing in blind corner example as stated earlier), this was something that shouldn't have happened in the first place. He also mentions in his original post how another rider lowsided and points out his race tires as if that was some kind of cause of the accident rather than rider error. Later, he hints at his ability to remove chicken strips and scorch his knee sliders as signs of riding skill. Maybe I just assume the worst due to the people I meet, and how I thought I rode, but the motorcycle world seems so full of people who think they are better than they really are. I certainly was before my first trackday, where I encountered people who really knew what they were doing and made me realize how much farther I have to go. I've used a motorcycle as main transportation (don't own a car), ridden in all sorts of weather, and owned all sorts of bikes, and only consider myself an intermediate rider, despite having comparable experience to WW. Sure, you could accuse me of never giving people the benefit of the doubt when attributing blame for a crash, but I've seen modern motorcycle tires and chassis perform amazing things that I cannot come close to replicating with my own riding. Every motorcycle I've owned (or will likely ever own) is more capable than I am in using it. That's not say that I don't like using the best tires I can, but I have crashed several times and my initial reaction is always figuring out what I did wrong rather than what is wrong with the bike. Finally, and not to be too hard on WildWanderer, we've all been there, and I certainly would have some dumb crashes to show off if I had a camera on me all the time. It is a good thing that he wore gear and is in the right mindset to share his accident and invite criticism and comments. I also think Z3n's heart is in the right place by pushing the judgment and skills agenda, as I'd rather have a forum of people jumping over riding error and be proactive about that than just recommending better equipment, even if it is inherently biased against the offending riders. FuzzyWuzzyBear fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jan 13, 2012 |
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Jan 13, 2012 14:56
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Intense philosophical discussions regarding the nature of motorcycle safety ITT.
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Jan 14, 2012 02:41
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I just ride a magical 60mph wherever I go, highway, boring interstate road, tight twisties, it's all 60mph. That's kind of an exaggeration but in reality I just ride the speed limit everywhere (I'm one of the slower vehicles on the highway, I'm never in a rush) and I only really gun it in fun turns. Then when the road straightens out after the turn, I mellow out again. Think the exact opposite of what a Harley does.
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Feb 10, 2012 19:19
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Backov posted:Agreed. It's quite hard to do here in England though, and maintain sane speeds. To be fair, I see this behavior in every country I've been in - I think it's human nature. People sort of just turn their brains off and follow whoever they happen to come up to next, and if nobody is there, they'll just kind of accelerate (within reason) until they attach themselves to a new person to follow. If you spend any long periods of the time on a highway that is not packed you'll see "car packs" traveling with cars all following each other. Rarely do you have lone drivers intentionally maintaining a constant speed regardless of the speed of others. Good thing us motorcyclists have the special moves *stand up on pegs* and *swerve mildly in lane* to discourage tailgating.
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Feb 13, 2012 02:37
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An older woman hit me at a stoplight when I was on my crappy old Honda CM250 years ago. It bent my license plate a little and totally hosed up her headlight and housing. She also came out of the car lighting a cigarette nervously and saying that she didn't have insurance. If my experience was any indication you really don't have a lot of time to react to this type of incident.
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May 9, 2012 04:17
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I constantly get road rash (not from motorcycles) and I heal best by letting it scab up. I've tried most methods including regular bandaging and tegaderm "second skin" patches. I'm also not too terribly OCD about scrubbing the wounds - I just give them a basic clean and ensure nothing looks out of sorts and call it a day. The first few showers always suck.
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Oct 25, 2013 04:43
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