This is an oversimplified assessment of these crashes. You can overload the front just by pushing on the bars too hard. You can unload the rear and high side by letting off the throttle. You can do either or both by shifting your weight while holding maintenance throttle (no throttle or bar input.)<p>Tires in general, but especially motorcycle tires pushed to the limit of traction behave differently depending on how they are loaded, it’s a very non-linear system. If you suddenly put 85 units of force into the tire (ignoring what these units are, doesn’t matter for this discussion) you can overload the tire and break traction. If you load the tire progressively, you may be able to put 105,106 units of force in and have the tire hold. You may be able to push the tire to 107 and get a little drift but maintain traction.<p>Different parts of the tire heat and cool differently, you may have been through 4 rights and 1 left, and the second left can only handle 95% of the force the last right can take. A cold tire can just slide out with no warning, no feel. Even the best riders in the world get nailed by cold tires on a regular basis.<p>The other component of these crashes in the video is stiff suspension and poor body position. These videos are almost exclusively knobs that bought more bike than they know how to ride. If you want to see what a bike can do, check out motard riding, they aren’t using magical tires… they have squishy suspension and they push the bike down lower than their body and use their legs as part of the suspension. You do that and you can drift a motorcycle at angles that would be impossible on a street bike. Same tires. Nothing magic.<p>Every crash on that site could have been recovered with better body positioning and some pre-planning. If you’d like to learn how, come join me at AFM racing and Pacific Track Time. I’ll happily run a couple laps with anyone from hacker news. I’m #413. See you out there
I used to ride a motorcycle. Once in Palomar mountain i was riding with a group and saw this guy who brought race tires. He was at the bottom of the mountain and I saw him getting ready with his group at the bottom of the mountain.<p>We turn around, head back up and head back down the mountain again... A group of bikes raced past us going way too fast. I had just exited a corner (they were about to enter). All of a sudden after they passed, I hear all hell on earth break lose of a crash.<p>We turn around and one of the guys was pinned in between the guardrail and his bike, sandwiched and totally stuck in the middle. On the other side was a typical Palomar dropoff... I don't know how big but you ain't surviving if you go over the edge. You're going to turn in a slinky.<p>We eventually pull the guy out and he's totally concussed with broken shoulder/arm. Otherwise he was fine.<p>Turns out, he didn't warm up his tires enough (race tires need to be warm) and had a low slide crash as soon as he hit his brakes.<p>The other crazy part what was when we got his helmet off, he was one of the mechanics that I brought my bike to! And I had just brought my bike in a few weeks before so I immediately recognized him.<p>fun times.<p>I almost had a high side accident after i locked both my brakes at midnight coming home from my girlfriends place. There was a notorious intersection with cameras in it that you came downhill to. And it was one of the intersections that has a shorter yellow lights than any other light, you know, just so they can get more tickets.<p>It was cold af outside and my visor was fogging, so I will not forget that moment speeding down at 60mph, hitting the yellow and realizing I wasn't going to make it, hitting the brakes, and seemingly locked up so bad I was doing 45 degree turns in both directions for a second or two before gaining control.
I was sitting on the couch yesterday, trying to figure out what happened the day before, when I found this article explaining it clearly.<p>It was a fast descent on my road bike, followed by a tight corner. There was gravel and dust on the road, as the article mentions. I hit the brakes at the wrong time, right in the corner, at high speed, over the gravel. I've lost control in a fraction of a second. The front wheel slipped and I was on my feet in what seemed to me no more than a second.<p>My first bicycle crash and my knee damaged. I haven't seen these things explained until now. It might be that crashes are a rite of passage for bikers and cyclists. Incidentally, I'm not sure why road cyclists don't wear knee pads. At least they are not promoted.<p>Wear your helmet (I got that damaged, too), wear something underneath your jersey to avoid road rash, protect your knees and wear gloves. It all happens in a fraction of second, you don't have time to think about anything. You don't need protective gear and an understanding of the road and bike physics (this article) until you do!
I got my motorcycle license in CA back in 2007... assume this is still true, but the driving test was nearly impossible with anything but a small cruiser bike (which no one owns) due to the required turning radius on the cones section. In lieue of that you could take a day long motorcycle safety course where they hammer into you the dangers of high/lowsides and how to prevent them. It's generally held belief amongst riders that this is on purpose.<p>While I had a lowside (low speed loose gravel coming out of a turn by a construction zone), never had a highside. That said, I would occasionally have nightmares about them when I was an active rider. I feared them as much as getting clipped by a car running a red light.
Low slides are the best and kind of fun… when wearing a race suit on a race track.
It was most often the case that my racing motorcycle and my protective gear was still in one piece after a low slide. Race tracks typically have a mixture of grass, sand, and rocks that you slide into.<p>Fortunately I’ve never experienced a high side. Those can be dangerous for a person, as the head or shoulders are the common impact points.
The higher end sport and sport naked motorcycles make high sides almost next to impossible. They have lean angle sensitive traction control which allows you to literally be full throttle out of a corner, with the actual power to the rear tire will be modulated based on the setting (which can have an intermediate value and allow you to pretty much hold a drift without it getting away from you.<p>The top of the line models from Ducati and BMW also make braking lowsides (where you slide the front from too much brake and tuck it) very rare, because they also have lean sensitive ABS where the solenoids distribute the braking force between front and rear brakes depending on how much you are leaned over.
I've done both of these (on dirt and ice). "A lowside crash is usually less damaging than a highside crash" is one hell of an understatement. With a lowside and wearing the right gear you might end up a bit dizzy from tumbling, with a highside you are launched into the air and as soon as you land you have your entire 200 kilogram bike tumbling towards you. I've been lucky and been uninjured every time but you can really picture a lot of damage being done by having the thing land on top of you, even if you dont hurt yourself when you hit the ground
Can't help but think of Wayne Rainey.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDDaymJHYA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDDaymJHYA</a>
In the highside crash video the motorcycle wobbles shortly before the crash. This reminds me of the death wobble in which the steering goes out of control.
i was once doing a racecar event at a venue with two racetracks. the other track had a motorcycle event and i think they airlifted three people out over the course of two days. i do not think i will ever be comfortable with riding a motorcycle.