My bad luck and worse skills

In my years of riding and mix of experiences, I think my confidence and good judgement has followed a sinusoidal path. Starting out as a newb on the street, I had no prior riding experience besides on a push bike. Nervous and cautious I made my way from a Kawasaki 305 cruiser to a tractoring BMW R100RS. I felt accomplished in making the jump to a "big" bike and was invincible. Then one day I had gave a car a love-tap through town because I was moving too fast to stop shorter and target fixated. My confidence sank and I was back to baby-ing bikes around for several years. Then the 990 superduke came...the first "sport" bike I've ridden up to then. The power and handling scared and thrilled me. I luckily scared myself from riding fast on the street to getting out on the race track. Several track crashes on the SD while "learning the hard way" later, my confidence was back. Then I decided small crashes were involving too much $$$ to fix the SD, so I got a race-prepped SV650. High-sided it the second day riding it on the track...tore a gaping hole in my knee through my leathers and was off riding for months till it closed up. Getting back to riding in general and then to the track, I was at zero confidence again, but kept trying to remind myself of what I could do before....didn't help much.

Last week, had a (probably) avoidable crash on my bicycle and just today high-sided my SD on a city street after getting a damage appraisal from last week where a truck knocked over my parked bike . It was a culmination of bad judgement and poor skills tonight. It was dark, I made a hasty left turn from an alley to beat traffic that had just gotten a green light on either side of me. Mid-turn, I saw it: a big, white painted turn arrow. The moment my rear tyre went over it, the bike was sideways and my bars locked to the right. I briefly thought about how to "ride it out" like so many drifting vids I've seen on YouTube but then almost laughed in my helmet that there was no way I knew how to recover this big a step-out. The way the bike was pointing into oncoming traffic, my reflex was to roll off the throttle and BAM, over I went....well, then BAM afterwards. Nice passersby helped me and my bike up and I limped over the side of the road to check the damage. Loose front brake, stuck throttle, snapped footpeg. Loosed the bar end slider and the throttle free'd up. Tightened the master cylinder back onto the bar and the front brake came back. The foot peg snapped in the middle, so I still had a stub to rest my foot. I made the 20 minute ride back home, riding like I did that Kawasaki 305, all nervy.

I have some small road rash along my right pelvis and can feel some deep bruises bubbling up right now, but otherwise none the worse for wear. For second time in 1 week, a helmet saved me from certain brain injury (at least the debilitating type...I can't vouch for the long term impact on my sanity). ATGATT etc etc. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the SD has got to be one of the best-crashing bikes. Not that they're crash-prone, just saying that mine's come out of 4 crashes now with only "minor" damage.

To the more skilled: WTH is the best way to ride out a rear-end slide? I already have the "wise" answer and that's to never get in that situation to begin with...plus I'm planning to take some dirt/motard courses this coming year to better myself as a rider.

Anyway, hope y'all are staying safe out there. Happy Thanksgiving.

Glad to hear that you are OK mate.

Refreshing to read an honest write up about self inflicted mistakes - we've all made them in the past but few are willing to admit to it.

The SD is such a good crasher isn't it? I've not had a road accident in ten years now but my SD has had quite a few track crashes and I've only once not been able to bend it back into shape to ride home - and that was only because the front disc was bent. Hope you can get the bike repaired and back on the road soon.

In a situation as you described I see no real skill set that would have saved your bacon. I have saved a few headed for disaster moments in the past and when parked on the side of the road, evaluating the incredible cat like prowess I just witnessed coming from me I can say that The words "I'm such a gifted athlete" never reached my tongue, but "Holyshit how did I escape from that one"
roll rather easily off. I actually never learn from these errors or situations and am damned to repeat them. That is what x-ray machines are for. You'll keep your tail between your legs for a bit but if you like the rest of us blokes your headed for a closer look at that tarmac in no time. The atgatt was the only place you shined this and I hope always.
Enjoy the long weekend.

Your choice is probably close the throttle and highside or jam it open and lowside.

Lowside is better / less painful in theory but a couple of things militate against this...

Firstly being a human being you WILL close the throttle. It's the instinctive reaction to an imminent smash especially one that comes out of the blue with no notice. I have twice highsided, once in a way that an Olympic gymnast would have been proud of and on both occasions I was in the air before I had any real comprehension of what was going on.

Second - even if you were fast thinking enough to sense the rear end coming round and remembered to open the throttle what if it then grips again? You are accelerating into the scenery or worse - oncoming traffic.

As for confidence in my experience you have to create an illusion of control to regain that. I did the CSS after my big one and that helped a lot.

Hope you and the bike are soon happily reunited.

Glad you are mostly ok and thinking the scene out in my head, hopefully I got it right. I'll throw out there what is probably a MSF answer, not criticism, just what I would think one of their instructors would say. If there is a certified instructor out there, please feel free to correct any inaccuracies. So, MSF stock answer, two part: 1) Why make a hasty left turn when you don't have to? 2) When you saw the obstacle, (left arrow), how could you have made room to avoid it?

Back to the original, by chopping the throttle your lowside will probably turn into a highside as mentioned by others. You pretty much have to fight your instinct and stay on the throttle, maybe a little clutch too. I am no means a great dirt rider, but lots and lots of (dirt) crashes and doing very small circle tracks on my dirt bikes have helped tons. The tiny, (like 30 ft in diameter), circle tracks are really great because you can feel the rear end starting to slip... then give it a little gas and the motorcycle stands right up. When you fall over you dust yourself off and try it again. A riding bud did American Supercamp, (short track dirt), had had a blast even though he spent most of the time on his butt. Have you done the MSF classes in any case? They have saved my hide more times I can count on the road.

I had a near low side on my SMT back along. It was a small, slow roundabout, dry and clean, correct speed but the back end just flew out for no obvious reason. It went down onto the pegs and I felt my heel touch the deck and I just instinctively threw myself to the left and hauled on the bars and somehow pulled it back upright. No skill on my part, just gut reaction and I got away with it.

Turned out the cause was a rippled surface. There's a haulage and heavy plant company just up the road and I reckon their heavy trucks have rumpled the road surface on the roundabout. You don't feel anything riding over it but looking at the surface on foot there are big slow waves in the tarmac and if you catch one wrong its like riding on the worst reverse camber in the world. If you're riding the off-side of one of these ripples when you're at your furthest point of lean, you run straight off the edge of the tyre and down you go.

Maybe it wasn't me that saved it at all. Maybe my back tyre slid down the off-side of one ripple and onto the inside of the next one and that threw me back upright. In which case I was actually saved from a low-side crash by a corrective high-side.

Either way, I always clock the surface of roundabouts now as I enter them and go round the one in question like an old woman. And I changed the tyres soon after and rightly or wrongly I've never be able to trust those particular ones since.

I honestly won't dwell on it too much more, it's just one of those things that can happen but will likely never happen to you again as you'll be looking for it now.
The next one will be totally different, or maybe there won't be a next one (fingers crossed).

More training can never be a bad thing but I personally wouldn't initiate it solely as a response to this accident, things like this happen, especially if you ride in bad weather or at night.
I try to avoid both of these as I'm strictly a recreational rider nowadays, which is easy to do when riding locally but not so easy when touring.

Yea I know. I was planning on enrolling in some classes anyway, regardless of this latest development. Classes are just so fun because, usually, I can find myself able to consistently do something on the bike that wouldn't have been just hours prior! Case(s) in point, a few track days a year had me develop a feel for bike suspension and traction that I had no inkling about after 11 years of street riding. Even doing a wheelie class this year was stupid fun that I wouldn't have dared try on my own.

Funny, too, in rereading my own thoughts on the matter as my tone has shifted from self-loathing to "I blame the environment!" . Human psyche at its finest and poorest...

PBRnr, I'm at the moment recovering from a highish speed off on my 1290GT, broken wrist, baddy sprained ankle, and about 2 sq feet of bruising area, pretty much healed up now, and am now back riding. I've been knocked about this time quite abit, and I'm getting back to riding more cautiously. But I'm not hard on myself, or i didn't get dirty on myself. The crash was totally my doing, pushed the bike and tyres past there limit. Shit happens, learn, and get back on the horse, I remind myself how much enjoyment I've gotten over the years from motorcycling, and use this to motivate myself to get past the fear of crashing again, and get back to my old super confident self, but just a little wiser. Milage and road time are a great teacher. PS i enjoyed your write up, crashing isn't fun, its a hard lesson, and the fastest lesson you learn from, Take care out there, but enjoy your self.

There are two elements at play here:
1. The unfortunate circumstances (that CANNOT be changed).
2. Your training and reactions (that can always be improved).

I'm very sorry to hear about your accident. I won't comment on element number one.

As far as element number 2. is concerned, I have two solutions to offer. Neither is genius, just what I've observed in living in Spain for the past 7 years and seeing what the best riders do.

- People go off roading - enduro, MX, or even beginner flat track dirt riding (not racing). I'm talking even Marc Marquez also trains on 125cc dirt bikes on a flat dirt track just outside of Barcelona. Why? Because as was said earlier, our knee-jerk reaction is to see any slide as uncontrolled and we answer with panic. Panic makes us react by wanting to slow everything down, hence the gas gets shut off.
By practicing on dirt, we turn the uncontrolled event into an intended action, thereby making our brain associate it with a controlled event. We don't panic right away, and give ourselves the needed split-seconds to react with less haste and to allow the bike the extra time to settle into the slide.

- The second option seems less intuitive, yet works well also. Instead of mounting very soft tyres, mount some harder sport touring tyres (Michelin Pilot Road 4 or the equivalent). With the traction control ON, in totally safe environments, try to spin up the rear a little AFTER hitting the apex of a corner. It doesn't have to be much, but the constant intention to do so will slowly train your subconscious to see it as an intended act.


I'm not saying that you could have saved the crash, but more training always helps.


Just the other day, I had my front slide out a foot. I wasn't on the brakes and my technique was (on that particular corner) as close to perfect as I can get it. There was an unexpected patch of greyish mud with wet and rotten leaves. It was only by the grace of god that I didn't end up on the ground. In some situations, no technique in the world will save you.

i agree. i put TKCs on my 990 SD for a season and did a lot of off roading with it, nothing helps like getting a bike loose and relaxing. i hit one of my favorite corners years ago on my 640 LC4 and this particular day slid both wheels. it was so odd because i wasnt riding like crazy, i turned around and went back, got off my bike, and there was diesel fuel right in the middle of the turn. im no Rossi by any stretch of the imagination, but being relaxed and familiar with your bike goes a long way. that said that was lucky for me that i didnt go down that day!