How to Handle Gravel on a Curve

[jeff_connors]

My 19 year old son and I have been riding a year. He has an 05 SV650S. He was on a dry 55 mph curvy road this past sunday. He came upon a 20 mph curve. He said there was gravel on the curve, he felt the rear tire slip, he then locked the rear wheel and went off the road and hit a built up dirt bank. He is okay but the bike has a broken front fairing and scratched it up some. The bike and he are extremely lucky.

Now I rode the road the day after and he showed me the spot where it happened about three days after the accident. There was NO gravel on the road. He said he took the curve at about 35-40 mph. If he was taking an outside curve too fast and locked up the rear wheel to slow down and then released it, would that have propelled him off the road?

[niterider]

He may have been going so fast that he was unable to stay on the road and caught gravel at the edge of the road. And also using the brakes in a turn is always a critical procedure.

Years back I came into a turn with loose gravel, the way I handle it was by going straight into the ditch and getting on my brakes once I was going on a straight line. My rider and I were both okay.

[thebighop]

I concur...If a curve is posted 20mph, it's pretty likely a tight one, and 35 or 40 mph might be a little fast regardless of experience. If he got too high in the curve and caught a rock with the rear, that can be just enuff to bring the bike back up a little and change the direction the bike is heading. When you're riding on your sidewall it's easy to slide, when something breaks the traction, like gravel or sand.

[MontyCarlo]

My 19 year old son and I have been riding a year. He has an 05 SV650S. He was on a dry 55 mph curvy road this past sunday. He came upon a 20 mph curve. He said there was gravel on the curve, he felt the rear tire slip, he then locked the rear wheel and went off the road and hit a built up dirt bank. He is okay but the bike has a broken front fairing and scratched it up some. The bike and he are extremely lucky.

Now I rode the road the day after and he showed me the spot where it happened about three days after the accident. There was NO gravel on the road. He said he took the curve at about 35-40 mph. If he was taking an outside curve too fast and locked up the rear wheel to slow down and then released it, would that have propelled him off the road?

If you'll recall from the MSF course, the best course of action when you feel your rear tire losing traction in a curve is to do nothing. The natural panic response is to back off the throttle and go for a handful of brake, but that always just makes matters worse.

If he locked up the rear brake and then released it, he probably would have high-sided the bike, and this sounds like it was a low-side.

I've hit gravel, wet leaves, and even wet manhole covers going...well..let's say a "spirited" pace in corners, and I've learned that the best thing after the initial "OH SH!TE" in your head is to just keep it steady. If anything I'll ease up on the inside bar a *tiny* bit if I have room to straighten up, but the throttle, brakes remain untouched. The hard part is training your brain to not touch anything, as your instincts want to hit that brake.

[flynrider]

As a general rule, if you lock up the rear wheel on a tight turn (for whatever reason), you're going down. A slide on gravel might or might not be recoverable, but if you lock the rear wheel, you're done for the day. Hard braking is about the last thing you want to do if the rear wheel starts sliding.

[Gadjet]

I had a similar experience on my way to Hyder Alaska last spring on the Suzuki. Going around a tight hairpin curve at 70kph (posted speed of 60kph), I hit a series of frost heaves that were spaced just enough to cause the rear suspension to get really light (shocks decompressing just as the bike went down into the next dip). I felt the back end start to slide out on me, so I made sure that there was no oncoming traffic and just let the bike drift a little wide and go over the centreline. Kept the throttle and my lean angle steady and stayed off the brakes.

Took it a little easier on the curves after that, especially the downhill ones.

[jetmech727]

This is my second year riding. So far so good, and God be willing it stays that way. I was told that if you manage to lock the rear wheel and get into a skid, the best course of action is to just keep it locked or let off the rear a little bit depending on speed. The Safety course basically said that when your decision has been made the stick with it or you'll end up in a High Side. Is there any truth to this? Is it actually better to keep it locked and ride out a possible slide then get tossed? I like to think that I'm a deffensive rider. I'm still scared of riding to a certain degree, I like to think I'm scared enough not be stupid. My starter bike is a 1984 Nighthawk CB750 S. And I find it to be more than enough bike me.

[bok]

i locked my rear wheel the other day during the morning commute. doing 60-70kmph. managed to ride it out and just kept my inputs the same. not sure if it was because i was trained well or if i just panicked so much that i didn't do anything, but it worked.

in your son's case, it could have been gravel, the slick line or more likely just the high rate of entry speed.

i know if i went down i would probably blame gravel or solar flares before i blamed my riding ability, but deep inside i would know it was my riding. but gravel is a funny thing, rain can wash a bunch of it onto the road one day, and if there is heavy traffic, it could be gone the next.

[Geoffrey7b]

First, sorry to hear about the crash, hope he heals quickly and returns to full functioning ASAP.

Gravel can fall onto the road from a truck carrying, guess what...gravel! So even though a road appears perfect the day/hour before and no weather actions like a down pour washing gravel into the road have happened, you can find that perfectly clear road from yesterday/an hour ago all messed up by a man-made occurence. The action of further traffic tends to "sweep" the lane clear of such objects over a span of time afterward, depending on the volume/type of traffic. If this was a very busy road, you might not have found the gravel there just 30 minutes later.

The mistake causing your son's crash was not recognizing the hazard soon enough, and some training programs suggest a simple guideline for avoiding crashes that applies here: if you cannot see far enough ahead to be able to make a COMPLETE STOP in that distance, you are going too fast. It's a pretty harsh guideline, but without years of experience to apply to handling adverse moments, it's a good rule for relatively NEW riders who want to accumulate enough experience to transcend this guideline. I'm not sure I have enough experience after 35 years of motorcycling myself to do that, BTW...

If something becomes visible to you that threatens your traction, REDUCE SPEED and with that, LEAN ANGLE. This is what MSF puts forward regarding traction related hazards.

Regarding locking the rear wheel, this forces a rider into a straight line path, or risking the high side if they let up on the rear brake in MOST SITUATIONS (but not ALL). In this situation, skidding seems to be a clear factor in the crash, and not skidding MAY have prevented it.

So all this begs the questions, has your son taken the MSF class, and if he did, did he forget/overlook what he learned? And if he didn't, does he feel there might be some value in taking it?

[Sev]

I've come up on a bunch of gravel in a turn before, the only thing you can really do is try to straighten out before you hit it, then hope there's enough room to turn afterwards.

The key is to riding in a manner that'll at least let you identify a hazard before you roll over it.

[ArcticHarleyMan]

If you find the back end sliding out, just ride it out, keep loose, turn into the slide, but not near as much as you would as if in a cage. A slow speed slide could very easily turn into a low-side, but a higher speed slide could turn into the dreaded high-side. If you start to slide because you have locked the rear brake, KEEP on the brake until the bike is straight. Only when the bike is straight should you release the brake, otherwise you may end up in one of the two situations described above. Also stay off the front brake when in a slide, again until you have straightened out.

But practice slides and recoveries in a safe place.

[accoutred]

The signs for 20 mph turns are posted for *lame* cars. (I don't like cars)
Taking the turn at 35-40 is probably no big deal. If you guys have been riding a year so he probably knew the turn pretty well from riding it before. If he knows the turn from experience he probably wouldn't gas it and go faster than the turn would permit.

The traction on a bike when it's turning is alot less when going in a steep turn at 35-40 on a 20mph turn. (Hell I do 60mph on a 25 with skinny '70 cb350 tires) Aside from the loss of traction on the bike, the center of gravity on a bike is way different then when upright. So he's going with less traction and a bent center of gravity on gravel and then slips up. Makes sense. I've never had trouble at all with gravel and I ride on/around rail road tracks if I'm in a hurry. But I'm usually upright.

But then if it was my son and it was his first time riding that road through, without a doubt I would just accuse him for taking a turn to fast. It's a common mistake amoung all riders of all experience.

[CycleNewb]

The signs for 20 mph turns are posted for *lame* cars. (I don't like cars)
Taking the turn at 35-40 is probably no big deal.....

Um, Maybe I'm new to all of this, but I'd think that doubling the speed limit on a turn, regardless as to 2 wheels or 4 is asking for an accident.

[Flting Duck]

This is a good reason why you should, as I put it, "leave 20% on the table" - in other words, ride well within your limits. That way, when something unexpected happens, you have some ability to compensate.

I've ridden on the order of 60-70k miles and have never been taken down by gravel. And it's not because I"m not an aggressive rider as I am a fairly agreessive rider. However, I am always looking at the pavement through the turn long before I get there so I can see gravel and other stuff. I find that if I'm looking ahead and see some gravel (ruts, ripples, leaves, whatever) that I can apply some extra brake before entering the turn and take the turn at a slower speed than if the pavement were "perfect."

There's really no cause for a rider being taken down by gravel other than rider error as fas as I'm concerned. (I've gone down a couple of times for other reasons though - and both of those were rider(my) error so please don't take my post as a holier than thou post.)

[Sicko]

I was riding last weekend when I came upon a load of rocks that a dump truck must have dumped in the middle of the road. From a distance it looked like a discolored patch in the road and I was going about 60mph. Fortunately, I was able to recognize it for what it was in time to take evasive action. I hope no other biker who was less fortunate than me came along later. I did report it to the police but they acted like that couldn't care less. Be always on the look out for road hazards of all kinds, people.

[ofblong]

well I must be lucky cause whenever my rear tire has gone out I have yet to want to even attempt to hit the brake. I have yet to go down and the only time ive had the rear tire start to slip was on ice and I didnt go down. I did what was mentioned above and just kept on the throttle and let the bike go where it wanted to go. I came out just fine.

[andrwhock]

First of all, I'm glad everyone is ok.

In a tight corner, any change of power to the rear tire could potentially cause a loss of control. Think if it as if the bike's rear tire can only use 100% traction. With no change to the power, all of that 100% can be applied to steering. Using a bit of that 100% for speeding up/slowing down while still trying to apply 100% of the traction for turning would result in a sliding or locked rear tire regardless of gravel. This is an over simplified way of talking about it bit it gives a decent idea, and also can show how to roll on the throttle as you're straightening out.

[davefarry]

Hi guys.

Yeah its an adrenaline shot when you overcook a corner. Or as in this case the back end kicks out.

I had a few instances that could have been nasty had oncoming traffic been an issue.

When you realize your too fast there is precious time to hit the front brake hard. To do this the bike stands up and your going staight at the ditch.

Cant get the bike over to make the turn! Practiced counter steering allows for the bike to start the turn safely as you control the hard braking!

When the back end slips out, its either the engine or the brakes causing resitance to break free otherwise the front wheel would have skipped put too! Clutch in brakes off and countersteer into the slide. Practice this on a pedal bike down a wet grassy hill to get the feel for it.

Countersteering is a life saver. It needs to be a reflex so practice it! Try and counter steer for all your turns.

Hope this helps.