1st truly close call

[Grey Thumper]

I was riding along a country road last weekend, and came across a fairly tight, undulating leftward curve. Somewhere in the middle of the curve was a patch of mud, and I lost traction in my front tire while leaned inward. I have no idea how I made it, but somehow I did something right (or I was too dumb to do anything at all and ended up letting physics correct the bike). I didn't brake or chopped the throttle. Somehow I stood the bike up (thus running wide, and off the road slightly, onto gravel) and then braked and pulled in the clutch once the bike was upright.

I felt stupid and annoyed though. I'm not experienced enough to instinctively know the correct thing to do in that situation. I made it through pure luck. What if there was a cliff, a wall, or a tree, instead of gravel? What if I was on a right curve and therefore would've run into oncoming traffic. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Ideally, I would've been riding at a pace that would've a.) let me see the patch of mud and b.) left me with more choices; a tighter or wider line to avoid the mud, for instance. Ahh well, live and learn, literally.

[Ryethil]

I was riding along a country road last weekend, and came across a fairly tight, undulating leftward curve. Somewhere in the middle of the curve was a patch of mud, and I lost traction in my front tire while leaned inward. I have no idea how I made it, but somehow I did something right (or I was too dumb to do anything at all and ended up letting physics correct the bike). I didn't brake or chopped the throttle. Somehow I stood the bike up (thus running wide, and off the road slightly, onto gravel) and then braked and pulled in the clutch once the bike was upright.

I felt stupid and annoyed though. I'm not experienced enough to instinctively know the correct thing to do in that situation. I made it through pure luck. What if there was a cliff, a wall, or a tree, instead of gravel? What if I was on a right curve and therefore would've run into oncoming traffic. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Ideally, I would've been riding at a pace that would've a.) let me see the patch of mud and b.) left me with more choices; a tighter or wider line to avoid the mud, for instance. Ahh well, live and learn, literally.

Hey, it happens. So pick yourself up and go on. Yes, you should have been going at a pace you could of (should of) reacted better. I don't know how much experience you have at canyon carving, but you always need or could use more. So next time go at a more more comfortable pace. But let it go and just go on. Motorcycling is a lifetime experience. You'll learn a lot more "lessons". Don't beat up on yourself. Just learn what you can from this incident and try not to do it again.

But cr*p in the apex of a corner is always going to be a problem, so go at a pace that gives you a thrill but never allows you to get to a point that you get trapped into doing something you'll regret. The locals for years would put oil in the apex of corners to crash motorcycles and cars that they thought were upsetting their neighborhoods. It took a DPS trooper accident as he was responding to a call to get any action on it.

We have an excellent sportbike club in the area. If you want to get better in the twisties esp. if you own a sportbike, find a club in your area. However, I know most of them personally because I have been at the sights were they fell down. But whether they accept there own teachiings or not is kind of academic. What they do is give riders a greater perspective of what they can do in emmergencies. In racing they teach you to wring a bike out to learn its or your limitations. I've done the same thing to my Honda sport tourer. Now I can react quickly and confidently to emergencies that owuld simply cause most riders to just drop their bikes.

Anyway, you survived it. Good! Now go on with the experiences that you have now and get better and be safer.

[RhadamYgg]

One of the guys at my job, his wife's cousin died in a similar scenario. Don't know anything about stuff in the road, but he was in a group of three bikes in a turn, lost control and he hit a fixed object off the side of the road. He died of internal injuries.

RhadamYgg