Crashed!

[The Everlasting]

Take it easy dude! Good to hear you weren't seriously injured,I myself am lucky not to have had any accidents.

[Mom]

Has kiwifruit already said this in here?

Slow down Rossi.

Like anything worthwhile, it takes time to learn and perfect the skills required to really get the best out of your bike, for you, on the day and not have mishaps and crashes. It takes time to learn the finer points to prevent you parting company from your ride. It seems to me you are running before you can walk, and at best you should be tottering around holding onto to furniture still.

Send a PM to

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/me...oadsafe-Nelson

Jen is the closest I can think of to you right now. She will hopefully be able to direct to to someone closer to you. In the mean time, take care, slow down and concentrate.

[p.dath]

Bummer man. It is a bit of a confidence knock.

Could I suggest perhaps trying to find a mentor in your area that you can ride with (there is a list somewhere on this site). Riding with more experienced riders did wonders for me.

[NordieBoy]

Ya moron.
You never look where you think you might crash.
Otherwise guess what happens?

(we all have done it before - rule of thumb, look where you want to go)

But the fence looked soooo good.

[Danny-Boy]

Wow, lots of reply's. Thanks for all the advice.

I know about countersteering, looking where you want to go, position on road, effects of cold, etc. I just hadnt practiced enough for reflex to over-ride the brake reaction.

I think your right "start slow untill it feels natural" the trip to nelson was natural and I enjoyed it. I just thought the yellow card meant I was good at 100 without needing more practice. Something changed in my thinking (leading to the second crash). I am a carefull and safe driver, and on learner continued that to rideing, then something changed...

When I can afford some more gear (don't think I'll try to patch it- I want it to be able to save me 100% "next time") I will definatly go do a road saftey course etc.

[davebullet]

You should be relaxed when you ride. Usually means riding no more than 7/10ths. The other 3/10ths are a buffer for when you misjudge things or other driver / road user error.

7/10ths is a good safe rule of thumb. It can go for speed, how close to the edges of the road.

Beyond 7/10ths and your brains ability to learn decreases rapidly - so it ends up in survival mode. then you react by doing the wrong thing.

When you think of riding as a learning journey spanning 40+ years, it soon puts into perspective how long it can take to develop your skills - and that is ok.

Main thing is to get any ego in check and know you don't have to prove yourself to anyone.

[Maki]

One strategy often recommended to beginners is to take a powerful sportsbike and in a safe place give it a quick blast to well above 200kph. After doing that anything below about 120 will feel like you are hardly moving and panic is not likely to set in.

[Jantar]

.....
1) You lean your body centreline far to the inside of the bike centre line (to "kiss" the inside mirror)
2) You move back on your seat, and open your inside hip to the corner
3) You find the vanishing point and adjust speed accordingly to be moving as fast as the vanishing point is moving
4) You make sure that your arms are relaxed all the way through the corner - tight grip means heavy movements of the bars and no fine adjustments
5) You point your inside knee through the corner to its exit (not critical - but it helps to remind you about focussing your eyes)
......

I agree with some of what R-Soul suggests, however, until you become a lot more experienced I would recommend that you ride the way I do:

1) You keep your body in-line with the bike. Neither lean in further, nor lean out. This way you are looking at the same horizon as the bike and will have a much better feel for what the bike is doing.
2) You keep your backside in the same part of the seat. Don't try and move around on the seat. You should be part of the bike, or more correctly, the bike should be an extension of yourself. This will help for smooth riding and reduces the reaction times should the corner be different to what you expect, or should there be an obstacle in the way (eg a cop car doing a U-turn in front of you.)
3) You find the vanishing point and adjust speed accordingly to be moving as fast as the vanishing point is moving
4) You make sure that your arms are relaxed all the way through the corner - tight grip means heavy movements of the bars and no fine adjustments.
5) You keep your knees lightly gripping the tank. Do not move either knee away from the tank for any reason. This keeps the bike as part of you, rather than as something seperate that must be controlled.

The whole point is that you are part of a bike/rider combination. The bike should react to your thoughts, not you reacting to the bike. You are still riding on roads with other road users, once you progress to the race track, then try other techniques to speed up your lap times. Just don't try using race techniques on the road.

[p.dath]

One strategy often recommended to beginners is to take a powerful sportsbike and in a safe place give it a quick blast to well above 200kph. After doing that anything below about 120 will feel like you are hardly moving and panic is not likely to set in.

Haha. Really? Often recommended strategy?

Panic for beginners often sets in on corners on the road, and the panic is to do with making it around the corner. Having experience at riding at 200km/h in a straight line wont change anything. Learning how to plan the corner will.

[Expert]

Mentoring is a good idea but..... I've been out riding with some people that say they have been riding for eons and been here and there and blah blah and they're crap. Terrible positioning, terrible cornering attidude, just terrible. Just because someone has been riding for years doesn't mean they're any good, they've been doing it wrong for years.
They shouldn't be allowed to pass on their bad riding skills and crap advice.
Learning to corner is not easy, all corners are different, some spiral up on you(get tighter) sometimes there's crap, animals, old people and holes etc. on the line you want.
If you're crashing out so much, slow down and stop trying to carry so much speed through the corner, you'll have nothing in reserve. Slow in, fast out.

[Expert]

Panic for beginners often sets in on corners on the road, and the panic is to do with making it around the corner. Having experience at riding at 200km/h in a straight line wont change anything. Learning how to plan the corner will.

What he says.

Slow in, plan your route and accelerate through the corner and out.
Carrying corner speed will come with experience.
Acceleration makes your bike stable, braking doesn't.
you should have the majority of your braking done before the corner, if you're still trying to scrub off speed whilst cornering you're doing it wrong. go back to the start and try again.

[Gibbo89]

One strategy often recommended to beginners is to take a powerful sportsbike and in a safe place give it a quick blast to well above 200kph. After doing that anything below about 120 will feel like you are hardly moving and panic is not likely to set in.

Ok, so where can we meet so I can get my grubby wee hands on your R6?

I promise I won't take it over 210...

[Maki]

The 200+ advice was a bit tongue in cheek, don't take it too literally.

What I can do is give you some advice. I took and excellent course with Roadsafe in Wellington before I took my basic handling test. We were given a lot of good advice. One of the tips was that if we feel we are going too fast in a corner the solution is to look where you want to go, lean the bike more and stay off the brakes.

The thing that was missing though was advice regarding exactly how you make your bike lean more. The way to do it is to push harder on the inside handlebar (counter-steer harder). I suppose this was not discussed because counter-steering is complicated and just getting that concept across to beginners might take at least a whole day. Remember it and try it in a non threatening situation. Get used to how your bike tightens it's line and leans over more when you counter-steer harder.

[Gorgeousplak]

Greetings, I have just joined tonight on the site so a newbie on the message boards but a "nana" rider on and off over 29 years. However I consider each trip as new and reflect on each ride as a learning experience.
I try to approach each, whether its to the shop or a longer trip on full alert..
Good luck and hope you recover well!

[R-Soul]

The 200+ advice was a bit tongue in cheek, don't take it too literally.

What I can do is give you some advice. I took and excellent course with Roadsafe in Wellington before I took my basic handling test. We were given a lot of good advice. One of the tips was that if we feel we are going too fast in a corner the solution is to look where you want to go, lean the bike more and stay off the brakes.

The thing that was missing though was advice regarding exactly how you make your bike lean more. The way to do it is to push harder on the inside handlebar (counter-steer harder). I suppose this was not discussed because counter-steering is complicated and just getting that concept across to beginners might take at least a whole day. Remember it and try it in a non threatening situation. Get used to how your bike tightens it's line and leans over more when you counter-steer harder.

Interestingly enough, the tighter the turn that youmake with the bike, the more the energy of the bike is used up by deformations in the tyre. This slows the bike down. The instructr at the ART days described this as "treadwalking".
I went into the corner after the front straight (Jennian corner) at Pukekohe too hot, and decided that instead of grabbing a handful of brakes, I would give treadwalking a go (there is not much runoff area there, and my bike is a commuter - os I needed it in one piece). And it WORKS - its scrubs off a LOT of speed quite quickly.