| Author | Message | ||
     Jaimec |
Had a bit of an eye-opening experience this past weekend. I was on my XB12Ss on my way to get my hair cut. I gave myself plenty of time to ride my favorite twisties on the way. One of my favorite roads winds along the harbor up in Huntington, NY. As alway, this road can get sand blown onto it from the nearby beach (and Long Island is mostly sand anyway) so I was scanning the road for tell tale signs of sand. Unfortunately, I missed the patch of dark colored gravel, which I overlooked when I avoided the more obvious, lighter patch of sand. My bike slid sideways several feet over the double yellow line into the oncoming traffic lane. Thank GOD there was no oncoming traffic!! Once off the gravel patch, the tires hooked up again and I immediately dove back across the double yellow onto MY side of the road. The obvious question, of course, is "How come I didn't crash??" Well, I attribute that to 80% luck (that there was no oncoming traffic), and 20% skill. One thing both Reg Pridmore (C.L.A.S.S.) and Keith Code (California Superbike School) drive home in their courses is staying loose on the bike. Keith Code goes into further detail with "Survival Instincts," those reflexes ingrained in us that WILL get us into trouble on a motorcycle when things go south. Instinctively, we all do three things when things go bad on a bike: 1) We tighten up, 2) We look down, 3) We roll off the throttle. All three things are practically the exact opposite of what we have to do to remain in control of the motorcycle. In my case, I was pretty much gripping the motorcycle tightly with my legs so my arms and upper body were loose on the bars. This allowed the bars to flap around a bit without any further input from me to screw things up worse. Second, instead of looking down at the road, I immediately stared back to my side of the road (look where you want to go, because you're going to go where you look). Third, because I didn't have a death grip on the throttle, I didn't immediately chop it (which might've resulted in a high side) but held it steady till the tires gently hooked up again. Naturally, after this was all over, I had to make a brief detour before going to the hair cutters. I needed a change of underwear...  | ||
| Diablobrian |
Good job. Luck and skill are both legal tender in these situations. Glad you had enough of each to "pay the toll" | ||
| Pwnzor |
Glad you made it through. | ||
| Glitch |
Panic is a bad thing. Glad to hear you kept your head, and just rode it out. | ||
| Jaimec |
My friend told me, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good... |
