Going down for the first time.

[Dark Angel]

I low sided my bike this last Saturday, and I was pretty upset. I was doing about 30 MPH and I shifted my weight into the turn and I looked into the turn. Then I thought, what if I take the turn to fast:confused:. I then looked towards the outside of the turn and then (of course) I proceeded to that direction:eek:. Needless to say, I went off the road at that point. Didn’t brake really, but I started to come off the throttle(engine braking!) and rode into the ground the whole way:p. Luckily, I went down in the dirt, with all my gear on, so no real damage. My bike just got a couple of scratches. Mostly I was just urked that I wrecked, but afterwards I was kind of nervous to get back on my motorcycle. So yesterday, I took him for a ride on 285 . I felt better after that:D.

[Dodsfall]

I'm sorry to hear about your mishap, but I'm glad you are ok. That's the important part.

Just keep practicing and it will get a lot easier!

[PassioneDucati]

Yikes! That must have been scary.

My dad told me a similar story:

He was out on his cruiser (during his college days) as a relatively new rider. He misjudged and overshot a tight corner and had to run the bike into the bushes in someone´s front yard to stop!

I guess the best you can do is consider yourself lucky because you weren´t going very fast.

Good luck!

[pintslayer]

Wow, what a misleading thread title...this is about crashing????

[RebelWithACause]

Wow, what a misleading thread title...this is about crashing????

Perv.... :eek:

Glad to hear you're ok, Dark Angel. Sounds like you started over-thinking things. Like Dods said, keep practicing and it'll become second nature before you know it :)

[Custom85VT]

Why do I hear 70's porn music playing in the back-ground? :p

[Dark Angel]

Perv.... :eek:

Glad to hear you're ok, Dark Angel. Sounds like you started over-thinking things. Like Dods said, keep practicing and it'll become second nature before you know it :)

Hummm. I din't want the heading to be I crashed, so that's what i came up with. Sorry to disapoint anyone...:p Anyway thanks RebelWithACause the only real damage was my front turn singnal on the right side. i took right off. :eek:easy fix though.:D

[pintslayer]

Good deal.

Low sides often snap the collarbone like a breadstick.

Glad you're up and running.

[Maico Shark]

good argument for roll bars. Glad you got off without injury.

[iptg]

Going down is never fun.

[elwood9270]

Angel, my first time on a bike many, and I mean many years ago, I forgot to lean into many curbs. Luckily, I was young and stupid at the time or I would have called it quits a couple of times.

The dumbest thing I did was to take my brother on the back of my old Honda 125 dirt bike jumping hills as a passenger. Believe me, it hurts when things don't go right!!!

[NewbieBiker]

very true, the fear will go away once you start riding again. I am very very new to riding but it happened to my car. My first ever accident, a guy rear ended me on a freeway and i was scared to death, but i continued to drive and guess what, another guy rear ended me again after around 8 months, but i still drive and now.. i don't have any fear of any kinda accidents :). not that i love accidents :eek:

In both the cases my car was totalled and i was paid by the other guy's insurance company.. but yeah had to go thru that hassle of finding a used car everytime.

[RoadWarriorService]

The most prevalent cause of motorcycle accidents is the failure to negotiate a turn. Though environmental factors may exceed the design of the motorcycle, this type of crash is far more often due to rider inexperience.

The best thing to do is take a rider training course. You'll be better at taking turns as well as judging them. And whether you take the course or not, keep your skills sharp. Practice dragging your pegs in a large empty parking lot.

If you can drag your pegs "on command" at a given speed, then you are fully capable of fully maneuvering at that speed. I can do it from 5mph all the way up to over 60mph, so my main concern is judging the turn and not my skill level.

(No, I don't do 60 in parking lots. I've graduated to interstate exit ramps.)

[PerrySB]

Your honesty is impressive and I’m sure you have learned from that mishap and it could have been much worse. Hi 49 in California claims several bikers the same exact way every year, problem is on many of these corners the riders end up dripping several hundred feet as they leave the roadway, very few live to recount their stories. Glad you are ok.

[schlyme]

my first time down was on a really tight hairpin turn on a mountain side going up hill so i was really slow, saw some rocks on the outside of the turn and thought i didn't want to hit them, yet i never took my eye's of them so guess where i ended up. with a small ditch before the side of the hill, i hit my breaks hard and was almost stopped when i hit the ditch so i kinda just tipped over alittle. but it still cost me $150 for a new front fender when i got home. the second time i just forgot my side stand and ended up with the bike on my leg when i got off and it fell over on me.

[Hawkeye]

the second time i just forgot my side stand and ended up with the bike on my leg when i got off and it fell over on me.

I have had a time or two when the stand is not all the way down, but it looks like it so the bike falls. Luckily I ride SS so they are not too heavy!

I did this same thing (without the crash) and came about 2 inches from the curb. I just kept looking at it and thinking to myself... I don't want to hit that, why aren't I turning faster! Haha! I beat my head against the wall a few times after I sat down and thought about it for a second.

[CBR600]

Sorry to that, but glad to know you are alright and still riding.

[89 kawi zx7]

wow thats crazy

[solitude]

Lots of practice. Good advice from warrior. Check out courses like brc, erc, total control, in That order. Never stop learning or practicing and don't ignore slow speed manuevers. It transfers into better understanding of the machines limitations. Glad your ok as it could have been worse.

[jwjw777]

Sorry to hear you fell.

My friend just fell of his r6 b/c he slipped on gravel.

End result was half his face was bloody and bruised due to no helmet...

Hes selling the bike to cover medical expenses now.

[jwjw777]

Oh forgot to mention he never took msf course and he didnt have his liscence.

[Frank_W]

He's lucky that he didn't get hurt much worse than he did.

[barkerdrmmr182]

I remember my first time I went down. I am a volunteer fire fighter for my town and the tones hit. STRUCTURE FIRE. and down the road I went. We have a Y that comes off our highway in town and I sped up to beat a truck commin over the railroad tracks. I was doin approx. 30MPH and as I made the turn (sharply) I heard a siren...looked over the little hill to see a light bar. I attempted to make the turn not so sharp hit a bit of loose gravel and thats all she wrote. I just lifted my leg up so I wouldnt get drug by it and let go. I slide through the intersection the Brush truck came over the hill saw me I waved them on pick up my bike and continued the rest of the way to the station. There I put on my bunker gear jumped in a truck and fought the structure fire. once the adrinelin wore off my knee hurt alot and couldnt bend it for like 3 days but only had a small amount of road rash. One of my buddies had saw the whole thing and I asked him "did I look stupid or did I look like a bad ass" his reply was "dude you looked like a bad ass" so I felt better about it j/p

[gkim4107]

haha, atleast it looked good. Glad everyone's okay

[surfales]

I low sided my bike this last Saturday, and I was pretty upset. I was doing about 30 MPH and I shifted my weight into the turn and I looked into the turn. Then I thought, what if I take the turn to fast:confused:. I then looked towards the outside of the turn and then (of course) I proceeded to that direction:eek:. Needless to say, I went off the road at that point. Didn’t brake really, but I started to come off the throttle(engine braking!) and rode into the ground the whole way:p. Luckily, I went down in the dirt, with all my gear on, so no real damage. My bike just got a couple of scratches. Mostly I was just urked that I wrecked, but afterwards I was kind of nervous to get back on my motorcycle. So yesterday, I took him for a ride on 285 . I felt better after that:D.


This is why I disgree when people say counter-steering is instinctive. If a rider is losiing it in a corner (feels like he won't make the turn) it's unnatural to push the handle bars in the opposite direction of the turn. But if you understand the principle of counter steering you keep on pushing to save your ass and lean that baby over even if your knees scrape.

[gkim4107]

My instructor in the MSF

[gkim4107]

wow... okay let me start again


My instructor in the MSF course, before handing out the completion cards sat us all down in the classroom, and asked us a question. He said " say your in a turn, and you realize your going too fast, what are you going to do?" everyone in the class knew we had just been taught not to brake with either brake, or use engine breaking, so we sat quiet waiting for him to answer.
his answer was this.

"When you are going too fast into a turn, and the moment you realize it you say OH SHIT.... thats when your mind will come back to right now." he went on to say. " YOU may not be able to make if through that turn, but that bike will. If you touch a brake, your probably going to go down, but the bike is made to be ridden in an extreme lean, so grit your teeth, squeeze the quarter, and keep the throttle right where its at, and your ass will 99 percent of the time come through it. the moment you let off the throttle or touch the brake, you have taken away the motorcycles ability to make it through the turn, now you just screwed yourself, and the motorcycle."

If there is one thing I learned in the class, that statement has stuck with me

[Archangel]

Glad you are ok and the damage is very slight.
Those turns can sneak up on you so be careful out there.

[rwhitesr]

my first time down was 2 minutes off the trailer with a brand new bike. i stopped counting after that. either it was down to miss a car that cut me off or miss another rider due to miscommunication and i am sure i will go down again. the one thing i have learned is how to put her down soft and slow

[Jay550]

gkim4107's instructor knows what he is talking about. Last week I came into a situation just like that. I clentched my teeth and road the turn all the way through. It felt like I was going down, my left elbow couldn't have been more than 2' from the ground, jut keep your eyes on the target, keep off the brake, and pray. And it happens exactly like that, soon as I realized I was going to fast, oh shit was the first, second, and probably third thing that came to my mind. It happened because it was cold, the bike was cold, and I was still riding full choke, so at idle in 2nd gear I was moving pretty well.

[Archangel]

Glad you are ok I know first hand going down is not fun.
I went down last week for the 2nd time.
My throttle stuck coming out of the drive way making the turn.
My bike all most died so I bliped the throttle to keep it from dying and the throttle stuck allmost full open.
Pulled a wheelie and hit the clutch and brakes and all most layed it on the van across the street so I pulled hard away from the van and as the bike was coming back up my glove slipped off the clutch and the rear wheel grabbed and spun around and hit the step board on the van and bent it, lucky my neighbor was cool about it he said it is to old to worry about it.

Broke the right mirror off scrapped the tack plate and the back scraped the new brake master cylinder cap & side back end of the pipes, man that sucks bruised and scraped my knee it still hurts like crap o well guess that is life.
Ya and my new armored textile pants came in the next day.

yep that's my luck.

[GSXR600K2_925]

I lowed sided once avoiding a car... Made a super newb mistake (molested my front brake) and my bike just went down I landed on it then fell on the ground and was asking myself "Why am I look at my head light?" O_o? Then slide on my butt for a little bit jumped up and picked up my baby... Broke my shifter lever... But still managed to ride it home!

[Archangel]

It all ways sucks to crash, even when you can ride away,
but if I have the choice, I want to be able to ride away no doubt.

[GSXR600K2_925]

Yeah I was mad... But I did live with minor minor bruise and sratches on my bike... They are a reminder... No molesting front brake!

[Archangel]

So far I have not went down from using to much front brake, but I have over used it a few times, just managed to keep it on the rubber side.
I sure hope my luck gets better I had not healed from my missing a turn and laying the bike down. ( my fault) Then the throttle stuck pulling out of the drive way, ( from a small pc of wood wedging under it from my wife's wood project) If my wife's wood working is don't kill me some day my driving might if I am not more carefull. :D

[GSXR600K2_925]

haha thats funny... what did your wife say?

[Archangel]

What could she say. She said Sorry...! :o I guess It must have blew under there when I was blowing off the wood chips and scraps the saw table blew every were.