Low-siding: how to get out from under?

**Transalper** · 26th July 2007, 16:58

This thread needs a video, a real life ordinary NZ road lowside video from a camera mounted on the tank bag. Its a 65km signposted bend/intersection which turned out had a reducing radius. Gone in about 100km/hr at a guess, don't really remember, line is all wrong then the reducing radius became apparent, woops, there's an off camber bit too where the other road intersects in the bend and add a little road flushing I think they call it when the tar has come above the chip and she's all over rover.
Walked away with a minor grase on the left elbow and a slightly bigger grase on left knee. Started the slide on the left side, bike raced away in a spin, no chance of hanging on to it luckily as that would have been very bad this time, pushed down with left elbow to finish the ride on the back protector and camelpack, tucked arms in and lifted feet so not to flip. Ran out of road bounced across ditch and kind of cart
wheeled along the fence line, lucky not to get tangled in fence. Came to rest after an uncomfortable head stand, lying face down arms at side if memory serves. Bike had gone ahead, bounced over the ditch, smashed a concrete fence post at some point and gone end over end for a bit, ended way down the road half on the road half in the ditch when it stopped, oil pissing out the side.
Insurance paid, got that F650 I had been dreaming about for a while. Of course that was a couple of bikes ago.
I hope that answers the questions that might go with the video, now watch and have a chuckle at it...
[GVIDEO]-6858924780174978707[/GVIDEO]

**sinned** · 26th July 2007, 19:30

Excellent video of the occasion.

**FROSTY:Me** · 26th July 2007, 23:50

Dude Im really hoping that someof this advice is the big ol Piss take.
Short version--If You HAVE lowsided get as far away from your bike as you can untill both of you are at a full stop.
To avoid a lowside--Heck thats a big ol book load of advice

**bert_is_evil** · 27th July 2007, 09:29

Originally Posted by Crisis management

Let me introduce a new concept........personal responsibility!

If you really want to try out crashing, a low cost method involves a hill, a straight road and a wheelie bin.
Lay the bin down so wheels and the back are on the ground, sit on it and head off down the hill. At whatever speed you want to experiment with, roll off the bin. This way you get the sound effects, plastic scraping on the road, the physical benefits, bruises etc and a controllable crash with no damage to your bike.

Videos would be appreciated.

If you want to do this properly, make sure you have a couple of friends in the bin with you, and you are in an appropriately steep location like, oh I don't know, in Dunedin perhaps.

**roado** · 8th September 2007, 20:03

youd have to be pretty on to it to get on top while shes grinding when i fall off i just try to get as far away as possilbe its metal and its heavy

**Ralph** · 8th September 2007, 20:35

Originally Posted by dennisr

Theory is great if it can be applied. My only lowside to date was on a tight corner at about 60ks. Didn't feel the tyres let go - there were microseconds between being on the bike and sliding along the road. It hurt to - I remember that.

I had almost the same experience speed and all, apart from the hurt, just dusted
myself off picked up the bike and continued on my merry way a little slower I might add.

Like a few others have mentioned if you low side....let go of the bike.

**roogazza** · 9th September 2007, 09:14

Originally Posted by Drum

First step is to tighten your sphincter as tight as possible. The rest should come naturally.

That just about somes it up ! Sometimes if you are close to the bike you may try to kick or push it off , but usually its just a case of "O FUCK" !!!! Gaz.

**ZeroIndex** · 9th September 2007, 12:03

Originally Posted by roado

youd have to be pretty on to it to get on top while shes grinding when i fall off i just try to get as far away as possilbe its metal and its heavy

Originally Posted by Ralph

I had almost the same experience speed and all, apart from the hurt, just dusted
myself off picked up the bike and continued on my merry way a little slower I might add.

Like a few others have mentioned if you low side....let go of the bike.

Originally Posted by roogazza

That just about somes it up ! Sometimes if you are close to the bike you may try to kick or push it off , but usually its just a case of "O FUCK" !!!! Gaz.

With this topic bringing up the same kinda question/answer type posts, I thought (since this thread started because of one of my crashes (in another thread), I'd show a video of similarity to my crash...

My crash involved me travelling approx 100kph when it 12 o'clocked, unlike in this video when it was 12 o'clock from almost standstill... I was still on the bike when it went off to the right, and then it "fell over" onto it's left (similar to the video), and since I was still on the bike, i pulled myself to the "up" part of the bike, which happened to be the part 'not' sliding down the road...

Hope this answers all those posts

**cowboyz** · 9th September 2007, 13:53

Originally Posted by ZeroIndex

With this topic bringing up the same kinda question/answer type posts, I thought (since this thread started because of one of my crashes (in another thread), I'd show a video of similarity to my crash...

My crash involved me travelling approx 100kph when it 12 o'clocked, unlike in this video when it was 12 o'clock from almost standstill... I was still on the bike when it went off to the right, and then it "fell over" onto it's left (similar to the video), and since I was still on the bike, i pulled myself to the "up" part of the bike, which happened to be the part 'not' sliding down the road...

Hope this answers all those posts

oh stop it. my bullshit radar is working overtime.

**ZeroIndex** · 9th September 2007, 15:08

Originally Posted by cowboyz

oh stop it. my bullshit radar is working overtime.

WTF? I'm trying to help out here on why I stayed on my bike (while everyone else is talking about getting as far away as possible... My crash (that started this thread) wasn't a lowside... the bike 12'd, see pic #3 for number plate evidence, then veered off to the right (a tiny bit like in that video), and then it 'fell over', not jumped like in the video, but it still left a huge gouge in the road, followed by NOTHING for about 3-5 metres, then the scraping began again, giving the impression that the bike hit the ground, musta bounced a little, and then scraped along the ground again (while I was still on the bike), see pic #1 and #2

**cowboyz** · 9th September 2007, 17:59

yawn.........................

If (and that is a huge if) you did "pull yourself up (off) on the bike as it was sliding down the road at 100k/hr I would thing it was pure dumb luck rather than a decision.

Just for the newbies out there - get away from the bike if you have crashed. Do not stay with it. Much much safer on your own sliding down the road than surfing a bike hat could end up doing anything.

**ZeroIndex** · 9th September 2007, 18:33

Originally Posted by cowboyz

yawn.........................

If (and that is a huge if) you did "pull yourself up (off) on the bike as it was sliding down the road at 100k/hr I would thing it was pure dumb luck rather than a decision.

Just for the newbies out there - get away from the bike if you have crashed. Do not stay with it. Much much safer on your own sliding down the road than surfing a bike hat could end up doing anything.

Yeah, I agree with the whole "if the bike low-sides", the quicker you get away from it, the quicker you should stop (less damage etc to yourself)... It was pure luck that I managed to stay with my bike and that I got away with extremely minor injuries...

**beyond** · 9th September 2007, 20:18

IMHO there's bugger all you can do when you lowside.
Generally you do not intend to lowside nor expect it so when it does occur you are normally looking at your next corner entry point when all of a sudden you are sliding down the road.

You have no time to do a darn thing as it happens so fast all is sweet and in the next split second you are down and out.

Depending on how fast you are going will depend on how far you are going to slide provided you hit nothing solid. You will slide a lot longer with your bike which of course increases the chances of hitting something solid.

You might have gathered from these statements that hitting something solid at this point is not desirable and will end in pain

Any injuries you may or may not sustain come down to pure luck and only luck or divine providence. If you escape unharmed you were lucky.

Skill, knowledge, practice really doesn't come into it. It happens so fast you have no time to react at all.

**skidMark** · 9th September 2007, 20:54

Originally Posted by R6_kid

Sounds like BS to me... you'd need to be moving at a fair pace and have held on to the bike initially. Then you have to fight the friction of the ground rushing past and then get 'behind' the bike.

The two times i have low sided I barely had time to realise it was happening, let alone decide how i was going to ride out the incident.

yeah agreed.

i wouldnt want to be near the bike...last thing you want is to get thrown off it and have it land on you/ come at you....

i try to get that bike as far away from me as i possibly can.

**GaZBur** · 9th September 2007, 21:37

Originally Posted by beyond

IMHO there's bugger all you can do when you lowside.
Skill, knowledge, practice really doesn't come into it. It happens so fast you have no time to react at all.

I agree - usually its over before you know. I don’t know the official safety line but my general rule of thumb is if you lowside and while the bike is between you and what you are going to possibly hit stay with it, otherwise get away from it. Over the years I managed to ride on top of a lowsided bikes twice. Once it was actually intentional – Teretonga on a Kawasaki triple put all my weight on the right peg as it went down (lowsided on the left) pulled on the bars and flicked my leg over with ankle resting on the tank. The bike ground to a halt with me still on top and a clutch lever 2 inchs shorter, picked it up and finished the race. That impressed my mates but actually didn’t impress the scruitineers overly. Second time was a Suzuki 750 which I sat on the side of as it scraped along the road (no idea how I got up there) - and thanks to the steep camber of the road was still sitting on it when it slid over to the edge of the road and into the Parramatta harbour! Last lowside was last month when the first reason I even knew I had lowsided was the intense pain in my ankle and no amount of kicking with the other leg would get the bike off me as we slid along. Many thanks to the OMCC first-aiders who took care of my foot and the nice guys who trailered my bike home while I waited forever in Casualty.