Crash course in drifting a motorcycle... yet ANOTHER reason to ride without an ego.

[DarkLord]

So, on Christmas Eve I rode from Taupo to my parents house in Tauranga. I have been horrendously sick earlier in the week (not due to my own doing, to those that know me, it was food poisoning or a vicious stomach bug or something) so I hadn't fired up the mighty SV for a while.

I slept really badly the night before the ride and was feeling quite irritable as I was about to head off, which is never a good headspace to be in before a reasonably long ride. The trip went well from Taupo to Rotorua, no real hitches or anything, road surface was pretty good most of the way and not that much traffic on the roads. I gassed up in Rotovegas and also treated myself to a bite to eat and a V which seemed to improve my mood.

Coming into Tauranga, things began to get interesting. The traffic started to slow right up as we seemed to all of a sudden hit an abundance of campervans and other sluggish vehicles. It was fine for a while but eventually me and other drivers started to get a bit fed up with waiting. It started in Te Puke and sort of continued on from there. There was this one cheeky prick in a nissan of some kind that seemed to be right up my arse as we were stuck behind another campervan and when we finally came to a passing lane, before I even had a second to think about pulling out, this bugger shot out from behind me and passed everyone.

Given that I was already in a somewhat cranky mood I felt that I had to one-up this guy, mainly due to being tired, short tempered and irrational. So I dropped a couple of gears and went belting along after him. I eventually passed him, but the passing lane ended and I wasn't quite able to get in front of the car in front of him, so I kinda got sandwiched between the nissan driver and the other car in front of me, so I ended up passing the car in front on the double yellow.

By this stage I was well aware of the fact that I had been driving like an arsehole for no real reason but to one up someone whom I felt was trying to one up me, and I wouldn't have been surprised if some pissed off drivers had been *555 ing me, so I decided to beat a hasty retreat. After the passing lane there was a lane that split off to the left and ends up in a corner that takes you out to Welcome Bay, so I decided to duck down there. I pulled into the lane, and this was where the fun began.

I realized that I had not adjusted my speed properly and that I was going much too fast to take the corner (it's a very tight one) and the corner was coming up quicker than I expected, so once again due to being tired and irrational I for some reason decided to slam on my rear brake. I slammed on it much too hard and the rear wheel locked up on me completely, so for whatever reason I still just kept the brake on, and found myself going down the road sideways, front wheel going one way, rear wheel going the other. This was no small skid - would have been about 4-5 metres long at least.

Still with the rear locked up the front started dipping into the left, so thinking quickly (and remembering all of the counter-steering practice that you are meant to use whilst in a skid which I picked up from many hours of Gran Turismo) I swung the bars over to the right, and then the same thing started happening, so I swung them back to the left again, just as I was starting to go into the corner.

About this time I finally came to my senses and engaged the clutch and let off the rear brake. The rear wheel regained traction and with my revs now nice and low I trundled around the corner and pootled off down the road, pulling into a friends place to catch my breath.

This must have been a mighty impressive sight to see for others on the road, albeit a scary one at the same time. It sure scared the living daylights out of me and left me wondering how I could be so stupid and so irrational, as well as patting myself on the back for not panicking, thinking clearly and acting correctly in a very intense situation and remaining rubber side down.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. For fuck's sake - DON'T RIDE WITH AN EGO. Trying to one-up cheeky car drivers is satisfying, and I think in a psychological sense it makes you feel like you've risen to the challenge rather than backed down from it, but in all fairness it is just not worth it. If I had let that car driver go I would never have been in that position. My ego damn nearly cost me everything and I was very lucky not to have been in an accident which would have been 100% my fault, and with nothing to defend myself with. It's a hard lesson to learn, and it has to come from within, from a change of heart, or you'll just end up letting your ego run wild again later on and possibly end up in the same situation.

2. A lot of discussion on this site is to do with counter steering in the sense of when you are pushing on the handle bars. I'm not really sure if enough goes into the type of counter steering used to manage a skid - you need to steer into the skid. If your rear wheel is locked up and going one way - you need to steer the other way, otherwise you'll just go over.

3. The road is no place for irrational behavior due to being hungry/tired/over emotional/all of the above. You tend to take more risks and are more susceptible to road rage and putting both yourself and others in danger. If you are feeling tired - stop. If you are hungry - eat. If you are over emotional - by all means think through it while you are riding as that is something I find very beneficial about riding, but do not let the negative emotions dictate how you ride your bike as you could find yourself in hot water as I almost did.

Anyway I thought I would share my little story with you all. This has been quite a sobering experience and I've hardly stopped thinking about it since. I shall be riding back to Taupo either tomorrow or the next day and I feel that I will be far more sensible this time around.

Hope something in here was of some help to someone.

Christmas cheers and beers

DarkLord.

[Tone165]

Thanks for sharing...we have all had bad hair days, I threw a perfectly good Katana away on black Ice once when riding after a marital tiff.

Wait till you have teenage kids to see how much self control you need to ride safely....those bastards send you nuts!

I was half expecting that you would release the rear too early and end up hi-sided...so good work to keep it all together!

[CookMySock]

Blardy hell bro..

Thanks for sharing though.. stories like yours get printed out and handed to my learner kids.

Steve

[howdamnhard]

Well done for learning from your experience. If I have a car up my tail I just wave them past when safe to do so. I hate having to split my attention between what is behind me and what is in front and on the twisties I like riding at my own pace.

[mattian]

It is very bloody good of you to share your story so that others can learn from or relate to your experience. Alot of people would like to keep their imperfections to themsleves. You realised what went wrong and are ready for the next time.
The instinct to hit the rear brake when you start to panic can be quite hard to resist. Its hard to stay calm and roll off the throttle to slow yourself down with a some engine braking if you find yourself going to quick. I know its easy for me to say that here.... it didn't happen to me. I may have even done exactly the same as you.
Good on you for sharing it mate. These kinds of posts are very helpful.

[MotoKuzzi]

At the end of the day every ride's a learning experience

[boomer]

Your first mistake was trying to overtake using a girls bike.

lesson learned I hope

[DarkLord]

I'd rather have a "girls" bike than no bike at all, as I very nearly could have after this little incident.

I still haven't fully mastered the psychology behind just letting people go rather than trying to one-up them, but I'm getting there.

[p.dath]

Nothing like getting the adrenalin flowing.

Thanks for sharing the story. I few lucky escapes are much better to read about than rider down threads.

[paddy]

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you know exactly why it happen which is (a) good, and (b) negates the need for any discussion/advice stating the obvious "an ounce of prevention" etcetera.

I did want to mention one thing though and I am hoping others of more experience can jump in and either correct me or agree with me as I definitely don't have the experience to back-up what I am about to say. I'm just parroting what I have read elsewhere:

When you de-clutched and steered into the skid, you put yourself at a very high risk of a highside if the rear wheel regained traction (which it is likely to as you have de-clutched). My understanding is that you should maintain a moderate throttle setting and regain control of the rear. I guess I wanted to throw that out there for discussion.

It's good that you are okay though.

P.

[DarkLord]

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you know exactly why it happen which is (a) good, and (b) negates the need for any discussion/advice stating the obvious "an ounce of prevention" etcetera.

I did want to mention one thing though and I am hoping others of more experience can jump in and either correct me or agree with me as I definitely don't have the experience to back-up what I am about to say. I'm just parroting what I have read elsewhere:

When you de-clutched and steered into the skid, you put yourself at a very high risk of a highside if the rear wheel regained traction (which it is likely to as you have de-clutched). My understanding is that you should maintain a moderate throttle setting and regain control of the rear. I guess I wanted to throw that out there for discussion.

It's good that you are okay though.

P.

Cheers mate.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I at least minimized the risk of a high side because I kept the rear locked up without the clutch engaged while the revs were dropping. I believe if I had engaged the clutch while the revs were still high then I would be at risk of a high side as the high revs combined with the sudden regain of traction would have resulted in me going for a little fly. Tone165 mentioned something to this effect earlier in the thread.

[paddy]

Cheers mate.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I at least minimized the risk of a high side because I kept the rear locked up without the clutch engaged while the revs were dropping. I believe if I had engaged the clutch while the revs were still high then I would be at risk of a high side as the high revs combined with the sudden regain of traction would have resulted in me going for a little fly. Tone165 mentioned something to this effect earlier in the thread.

Not really sure to be honest. I suspect I would have ridden in a nice straight line through the corner and broken some things. :-) I'm hoping some others with more knowledge will jump in.

[The Pastor]

So, on Christmas Eve I rode from Taupo to my parents house in Tauranga. I have been horrendously sick earlier in the week (not due to my own doing, to those that know me, it was food poisoning or a vicious stomach bug or something) so I hadn't fired up the mighty SV for a while.

I slept really badly the night before the ride and was feeling quite irritable as I was about to head off, which is never a good headspace to be in before a reasonably long ride. The trip went well from Taupo to Rotorua, no real hitches or anything, road surface was pretty good most of the way and not that much traffic on the roads. I gassed up in Rotovegas and also treated myself to a bite to eat and a V which seemed to improve my mood.

Coming into Tauranga, things began to get interesting. The traffic started to slow right up as we seemed to all of a sudden hit an abundance of campervans and other sluggish vehicles. It was fine for a while but eventually me and other drivers started to get a bit fed up with waiting. It started in Te Puke and sort of continued on from there. There was this one cheeky prick in a nissan of some kind that seemed to be right up my arse as we were stuck behind another campervan and when we finally came to a passing lane, before I even had a second to think about pulling out, this bugger shot out from behind me and passed everyone.

Given that I was already in a somewhat cranky mood I felt that I had to one-up this guy, mainly due to being tired, short tempered and irrational. So I dropped a couple of gears and went belting along after him. I eventually passed him, but the passing lane ended and I wasn't quite able to get in front of the car in front of him, so I kinda got sandwiched between the nissan driver and the other car in front of me, so I ended up passing the car in front on the double yellow.

By this stage I was well aware of the fact that I had been driving like an arsehole for no real reason but to one up someone whom I felt was trying to one up me, and I wouldn't have been surprised if some pissed off drivers had been *555 ing me, so I decided to beat a hasty retreat. After the passing lane there was a lane that split off to the left and ends up in a corner that takes you out to Welcome Bay, so I decided to duck down there. I pulled into the lane, and this was where the fun began.

I realized that I had not adjusted my speed properly and that I was going much too fast to take the corner (it's a very tight one) and the corner was coming up quicker than I expected, so once again due to being tired and irrational I for some reason decided to slam on my rear brake. I slammed on it much too hard and the rear wheel locked up on me completely, so for whatever reason I still just kept the brake on, and found myself going down the road sideways, front wheel going one way, rear wheel going the other. This was no small skid - would have been about 4-5 metres long at least.

Still with the rear locked up the front started dipping into the left, so thinking quickly (and remembering all of the counter-steering practice that you are meant to use whilst in a skid which I picked up from many hours of Gran Turismo) I swung the bars over to the right, and then the same thing started happening, so I swung them back to the left again, just as I was starting to go into the corner.

About this time I finally came to my senses and engaged the clutch and let off the rear brake. The rear wheel regained traction and with my revs now nice and low I trundled around the corner and pootled off down the road, pulling into a friends place to catch my breath.

This must have been a mighty impressive sight to see for others on the road, albeit a scary one at the same time. It sure scared the living daylights out of me and left me wondering how I could be so stupid and so irrational, as well as patting myself on the back for not panicking, thinking clearly and acting correctly in a very intense situation and remaining rubber side down.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. For fuck's sake - DON'T RIDE WITH AN EGO. Trying to one-up cheeky car drivers is satisfying, and I think in a psychological sense it makes you feel like you've risen to the challenge rather than backed down from it, but in all fairness it is just not worth it. If I had let that car driver go I would never have been in that position. My ego damn nearly cost me everything and I was very lucky not to have been in an accident which would have been 100% my fault, and with nothing to defend myself with. It's a hard lesson to learn, and it has to come from within, from a change of heart, or you'll just end up letting your ego run wild again later on and possibly end up in the same situation.

2. A lot of discussion on this site is to do with counter steering in the sense of when you are pushing on the handle bars. I'm not really sure if enough goes into the type of counter steering used to manage a skid - you need to steer into the skid. If your rear wheel is locked up and going one way - you need to steer the other way, otherwise you'll just go over.

3. The road is no place for irrational behavior due to being hungry/tired/over emotional/all of the above. You tend to take more risks and are more susceptible to road rage and putting both yourself and others in danger. If you are feeling tired - stop. If you are hungry - eat. If you are over emotional - by all means think through it while you are riding as that is something I find very beneficial about riding, but do not let the negative emotions dictate how you ride your bike as you could find yourself in hot water as I almost did.

Anyway I thought I would share my little story with you all. This has been quite a sobering experience and I've hardly stopped thinking about it since. I shall be riding back to Taupo either tomorrow or the next day and I feel that I will be far more sensible this time around.

Hope something in here was of some help to someone.

Christmas cheers and beers

DarkLord.

Cool story bro.

[PrincessBandit]

Your first mistake was trying to overtake using a girls bike.

lesson learned I hope

Awww ya weasel!

Cool story bro.

Shit rm, do you really have to quote the whole post just to say "cool story bro"? I'm sure we'd have figured out who you were saying it to.

Good to hear you made it out with just extra adrenalin pumping through your system DarkLord. Any number of little factors could have made it into a different outcome, so it's always a relief to know it doesn't always end badly! Lessons learnt almost the hard way - hopefully others who read it will learn from it too.

[Roadsafe Nelson]

Awesome writeup DL!!!! I really admire you for sitting back & thinking through it all, & coming up with some excellent lessons learned!! well done your courage to share your experience & learning might just save someone elses life!