Crashing dos and don'ts?

[ranger l]

A lot of forums go on and on about safety, and how to avoid having a crash or a drop. Essentially they are saying "here is how to crash. To not crash, don't do this stuff".
All well and good. I am glad to be informed about things I would never have thought of, and to be reminded of things I should know, but might be taking for granted. Everyone needs this knowledge.

So, now I can say "I know 101 ways how to crash".
But what if the universe comes up with a 102nd way, or what if Murphy's Law raises its ugly head and I find the wheels going out from under me on, say, a sandy or oil slicked curve?
Are there good and bad ways to "ride" it out - or do you just close your eyes and hope the leather is thick enough and the helmet strong enough? I've often suspected that the stories people tell about the techniques they employed were just stuff they dreamed up in the recovery ward. Many likely are - but are some of them true? If so, what are the real techniques?

[jstark47]

My impression is if you lowside on a curve due to sand or oil, you'll be down before you know what happened.

[ranger l]

That's what I have always assumed - but I still hear people talk of how everything went in slow motion and they were able to climb on top and ride the slide.

[Wrider]

In my experience you have two kinds of get-offs. One is where you know you're going down, and the other is where you find yourself down and wondering what the heck just happened. My one crash I've had was a combination of the both because I knew I was going to hit the guardrail, but it happened so fast it was un-real. You know how things seem to slow down when the adrenaline is pumping and you seem to move and think super-fast? It happened when I was about to go down, and the crash still happened so fast I don't remember it.

[agraebner]

Every crash I ever had on dirt seemed slow motion. The catch was that the slow motion was activated at the moment the was no alternatives to what was about to happen. I have spent a good bit of time on dirt, outside the normal parameters of traction. Most of the time if your not tense, and don't try to force the bike back to where you wanted it in the first place, then it corrects it self. Once you are off course your not likely to get back to that line, go with the flow and pick the next best place to go. ( watch some mx racing and you will see that normally the most fluid looking rider is faster.) Most of the surprises I have had on the road all corrected themselves by just allowing the bike to do its thing. (including gravel, snow, sand, ice, roadkill, holes in the road ect....) I believe a lot of crashes can be attributed to over-correction, whether reflex or executed plans.