| Author | Message | ||
     Fast1075 |
Yesterday I was out scuffing in a new set of tires. I came around a corner and found two guys down in the middle of the road. No car, deer, cow, sand, gravel, oil, water or any other obvious thing that could have caused the crash. Of course, I stopped and immediately called 911 for help. One guy was sitting up and alert, with a lot of road rash and an obviously compound fractured leg. The other guy was on his side and knocked out cold. Bleeding from a contusion in his scalp and also covered with road rash. His face looked like hamburger. Being on my Lightning, I had no first aid equipment. So all I could do was talk to the concious guy (who was in shock and not in pain yet). And direct traffic until the emergency people got there. There was a fire station about 3 miles away, so the first responders were there in less than 5 minutes. The guys were both in their late 50's to early 60's. One bike was (before the crash) a really nice Victory something or other. The other bike was a Honda 1300. Gouge marks in the road showed they went down in a straight line. There was one long tire skid mark on the road. Neither guy was wearing any sort of gear other than boots and those thin sleeveless vests so popular with the cruiser crowd. The crash was at a point where a side road came into the highway. What happened was the guy riding the inside of the lane decided to turn right onto the side road (which goes to a local popular watering hole). The guy following him freaked and locked up the rear brake and slid into the other guy. The moral of the story is wear your gear. Be aware of what is going on. Think ahead. And if you are riding with someone, leave plenty of room. | ||
| Whatever |
They are lucky you were there. ATGATT works. Still dread the day where I actually crash. Try to be aware of where the heck I am, just in case. Bike handles completely differently in the cold weather too. (Message edited by Whatever on December 18, 2011) | ||
| Preybird1 |
That is why i ride alone almost all the time. I was riding with my brother and we were both riding those little 250 ninjas down the canyon. And there was construction and they had those portable street lights for stopping traffic. Well they were pulled off the road to the side because it was a weekend and not operating. My brother thought they were on and slammed on his brakes.......I looked up just in time lock the rear wheel and skidded right past him almost rear-ending the crap outta him. Lucky i had the time to save both our asses. After i bitched him out saying what the hell are you doing?? He said he thought they were on. I said its Sunday there is no-one here. +1 to being careful out there!! 1 one of my friends is a quadriplegic because he was late for work and speeding in the rain on his bike and left the road and hit a palm tree. My other friend locked the rear wheel up and then high sided onto his head and got brain damage. They did surgery on his brain and he is back to normal thank god. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
Crashing sucks! I hate hearing these stories. I actually witnessed a guy high side. At first I thought he got run over by a pick up truck. Then realized he locked the rear brake trying to avoid the stopped truck cause he wasn't paying attention. Rear brakes are the Debil! | ||
| Strokizator |
ABS is your friend. Wish my Uly would have had it. I think all the guys in the above scenarios would have fared much better, too. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Or not. At above 35mph you are better off swerving to avoid than to attempt to get stopped. ABS is not going to help if there physically isn't enough space to get stopped. Couple that with the rear tire not doing much of anything when at or very near full force of braking with the front. I could imagine that simply using the front brake properly and not relying on the rear brake (that many cruiser riders are known for) would have assisted more than ABS. | ||
| Whatever |
I rode to WV and back to NC with no rear brake pad. Didn't even notice it. Oooops...  | ||
| Sifo |
At above 35mph you are better off swerving to avoid than to attempt to get stopped. Blanket statements like that seldom hold water. Sometimes you just have to stop, or at least get slowed down in a hurry. As a survivor of a front wheel lock up at 65 mph many years ago, ABS would have been a pretty cool thing to have. I managed not to crash, but left skid marks places other than the pavement. Now that my latest purchase has ABS I feel less timid about getting hard on the brakes if I have to. Haven't tested the front yet (hope not to), but have tested the back on purpose in the wet and it works great. It's a very fine line between using the brakes properly in a panic situation and crashing and you can never be sure of the traction you will get on any given pavement. ABS is just your wing man watching your back when things start to get harry. | ||
| Strokizator |
A lot of people here have loads of track time or are even motorcycle safety instructors but in each of the 3 incidents listed above the back tire was skidding and the rider lost the ability to steer. ABS was invented for numbskulls like me and the vast majority of riders. I admire those with the skills and cool head who react properly in panic situation and even admit that proper control of a motorcycle means there is never any reason to panic. | ||
| Sifo |
I've seen pro racers panic on the track and get deeper into trouble than they could have been. It's even worse on the street and as you correctly point out, most of us mortals just don't have the skills of the pros. | ||
| Slaughter |
All too often people haven't trained themselves on proper brake usage and will revert to instinct. MANY folks still believe in the rear brake and as a result might use it too much in a panic. Easy to be critical from a comfy chair but I still can't believe the number of folks who will lock the rear in an attempt to stop or slow rapidly. (opening up a can-o-worms again) | ||
| Sifo |
Easy to be critical from a comfy chair but I still can't believe the number of folks who will lock the rear in an attempt to stop or slow rapidly. Very true. It's not just an affliction of cruisers either. This fall I got invited to ride with some new folks. Happily for all of us, they let me take up a position in the rear of the group. At one point the leader pulled out to pass a car and a truck (despite the fact that the truck was slowing down on a country road coming up to a driveway on the left). The truck started the turn and the rider hit the brakes in a panic. You could see the puff of smoke from the rear then he let off, but the bike started snapping back and forth. He got damn lucky and got it collected again and stopped just in time. BTW, this was from a guy who has several track days under his belt. I haven't ridden with them again. Doubt I will. I saw quite a few squid moves that day.  | ||
| Fast1075 |
If everybody that rode knew proper braking technique (and practiced often), and had good situational awareness and learned to look through corners, a LOT less people would crash on the street. If you watch riders stop at an intersection, it is amazing how many never grip the front brake lever. A coach once pointed out to me that the skid mark from the rear tire does noting but mark the point of panic to to point of impact. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I practiced emergency stopping procedures (shamelessly ripped off MSF drills) in parking lots. Practiced and practiced until I would do nice little panic stops with the back wheel about 3 inches off the ground (which involved tuning both man and machine). It had to go to muscle memory. Then I put the M2 in a ditch. (Hard downhill, crappy surface, too much speed and I chickened out on the brakes and target fixated). So I practiced emergency stopping, transitioning to a swerve, transitioning to another emergency stop, all in a continuous flow. Practiced practiced practiced. Then I put the Uly into the side of a Corolla. No escaping that one... it was car to my left, curb to my right, Corolla directly ahead. I still hit it, but the muscle memory worked, and I arced an absolutely perfect stoppie... the first point of contact were the Uly's mirrors. The gauge cluster never even touched it. (Which turns out to be a fairly economical way to wreck a Uly, if you are wondering  ). I have no idea how much speed a 90 degree stoppie bleeds off... but it's probably substantial. If the ABS controls would have stopped the stoppie (I think some do, not sure if all do), I would probably have been worse off with them in that situation (dry pavement). But I'm sure that in any kind of wet condtions, ABS would outperform anything I do 6 ways to sunday... | ||
| Preybird1 |
I try not to use my rear brake. My zx10r ninja has a gp style slipper clutch so i don't need the rear brake much and if you let the clutch out to fast while using the rear brake it can lock up easier than you think. Rear brakes are only good if you use it properly. I love the rear brake on my X1. you can stomp on it all day without locking it up. (Message edited by preybird1 on December 21, 2011) | ||
| Moxnix |
What's a rear brake? | ||
| Pwnzor |
hmm... I haven't ever had a problem using my rear brake, but I generally only use it to come to a very gradual stop. Seen plenty of people pile it up locking the rear though... puzzling. | ||
| Reepicheep |
You can use the front brake better and faster if you use the rear brake correctly... the purpose of the rear brake on a sportbike is to to get weight on the front tire sooner, so you can really get serious about stopping. On the dirt bike it's a different story... the rear brake is the tiller for downhill crawls. |
