Ride a slide!

[Miles_Prower]

So today I filled my tires back up to the recommended pressure, but I ended up putting 1 psi more in the front and back. No issues riding around until...
I took a tight uphill 180 degree turn to get to Starbucks! I've taken this turn at least a hundred times in the last few months (coffee addiction I'd say..), and I didn't do anything different than I always do. Must be a combination of tire pressure and just general cold(er) streets/tires, but as I was going around this curve, my back tire slid out, and I thought I was going to go down/possibly highside. Instead, the bike gave a huge wobble and stood up straight and I managed to ride it out safely.

So my question is, what's the proper thing to do? Obviously chopping the throttle is bad, but when you get flipped around that bad, how the heck do you keep your throttle steady!? Do you just hold on and hope it doesn't go down? That's basically what I did..tried to just let the bike sort itself out.

[lgk]

how fast were you going?

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by lgk

how fast were you going?

10-15 mph?? something like that.

[Jiggles]

Didn't you crash there?

[Miles_Prower]

na i crashed on a mountain into a guard rail..this was heading into a shopping center

[csmith12]

Roll off smoothly, per my experience and TOTW2. It works, if your talking about a near highside.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Roll off smoothly, per my experience and TOTW2. It works, if your talking about a near highside.

will that prevent the bike from standing back up so fast, or is that effect a product of the slippage?

[csmith12]

The abrupt stand up is the tire regaining traction quickly. If you watch the video you can see the riders smoothing out the stand up during their rear tire slides.

This is one of those areas where you have to make a split second choice. Sometimes staying on the gas is the correct action. I don't want to be unclear or anything but small slides are no big deal but the BIG ones need some corrective action. Other times you just plainly get lucky.

[Miles_Prower]

i've seen some videos of them powersliding and it's so impressive. I guess you just have to get used to sliding lol which seems so scary

[csmith12]

10-15 is pretty slow, there will be not much roll off there for you. Did you hammer down on the throttle by any chance?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by csmith12

10-15 is pretty slow, there will be not much roll off there for you. Did you hammer down on the throttle by any chance?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

i dont recall twisting too much, i've taken that turn so many times and i always take it practically the same way. it might have been possible though! im pretty forgetful

[psych0hans]

I was watching the video again and s smooth roll off is what you need. I was in the same situation as you not too long ago. I think our relatively low speeds saved us from high sides... But the SR of chopping the throttle is something that needs a lot of work to get over. Good luck!!!

[cuong-nutz]

Really when stuff like that happens it's all muscle memory from riding. You just have to practice or ingrain it into your brain to roll off and keep her steady.

[Miles_Prower]

hmmm but how do you practice that, short of inducing a slide?
I try to make sure I roll off slowly in all other cases.

Hans, yes for sure, and even if we didn't save it, 10mph isn't too bad I think, though I guess if you come crashing down on your shoulder, thatll still ruin your day lol

[csmith12]

Originally Posted by Miles_Prower

hmmm but how do you practice that, short of inducing a slide?
I try to make sure I roll off slowly in all other cases.

Hans, yes for sure, and even if we didn't save it, 10mph isn't too bad I think, though I guess if you come crashing down on your shoulder, thatll still ruin your day lol

Indeed, feels like I get hurt worse in the lower speed get offs. Dunno, crappy luck I guess.

Rent a dirt bike + gear and go have fun in the mud and trails one weekend. Super fun and you can learn about other things too like; front wheel (or both) coming off the ground, rear spin ups as well as sliding around. Doing a track day in the wet is a good way too but at the possible risk and expense of dumping your bike.

Once you are able to controlling it while keeping your cool with good throttle control, the little slides and skids are kinda fun.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Indeed, feels like I get hurt worse in the lower speed get offs. Dunno, crappy luck I guess.

Rent a dirt bike + gear and go have fun in the mud and trails one weekend. Super fun and you can learn about other things too like; front wheel (or both) coming off the ground, rear spin ups as well as sliding around. Doing a track day in the wet is a good way too but at the possible risk and expense of dumping your bike.

Once you are able to controlling it while keeping your cool with good throttle control, the little slides and skids are kinda fun.

that does sound really fun! i saw some video on youtube of this one guy constantly sliding around corners, it looked soooo cool!
my coworker has a couple dirt bikes, maybe ill see if i can go ride with them

[cuong-nutz]

Originally Posted by miles_prower

that does sound really fun! I saw some video on youtube of this one guy constantly sliding around corners, it looked soooo cool!
my coworker has a couple dirt bikes, maybe ill see if i can go ride with them

doooo eeeeeeeeetttt!!!

[csmith12]

Once again, bikes bring 2 people together. And take a family member on that trip to. Son, brother or daughter and/or wife because someone gotta stay at the camp and make the sammiches. hahahahahah

[cuong-nutz]

Here in Texas, we are fortunate to have Texas Tornado Boot Camp by Colin Edwards. Haven't made it out there yet but friends say it's a blast!

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Rent a dirt bike + gear and go have fun in the mud and trails one weekend. ...........Once you are able to controlling it while keeping your cool with good throttle control, the little slides and skids are kinda fun.

Very good advice !!

Riding on mud doesn't produce high-side falls, but street riding can.

There is no decision to make during a rear tire skid while riding on the street.

You have to practice much, even without having a skid, so your instant reaction would be gas it up and steer in the direction of the skid (the handlebar will try doing it on its own, you just need not to interfere much).

By doing that, you allow the bike to correct itself or you induce a low-side (that depends on the specific conditions); but what is more important, you eliminate the possibility of a high side.

[thomason2wheels]

Originally Posted by Miles_Prower

hmmm but how do you practice that, short of inducing a slide?
I try to make sure I roll off slowly in all other cases.

Hans, yes for sure, and even if we didn't save it, 10mph isn't too bad I think, though I guess if you come crashing down on your shoulder, thatll still ruin your day lol

What he said.... shoulders are fragile.. ask me how i know.

[cuz]

Originally Posted by cuong-nutz

Here in Texas, we are fortunate to have Texas Tornado Boot Camp by Colin Edwards. Haven't made it out there yet but friends say it's a blast!

Don't make them jelly.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by thomason2wheels

what he said.... Shoulders are fragile.. Ask me how i know.

...


How?!!

[csmith12]

If you ever have lost the front (rear tire keeps traction and front slips out). The bike can throw you face and shoulder first into the pavement. Your lid normally keeps your face protected but there normally isn't a lot of protection in the shoulder/clavicle area. My last one had me in surgery for a 4th degree separation of clavicle and shoulder tendons. And those bones are so easily broken too... I got lucky and healed in 6 months but it still bothers me every now and then.

I was gunna link some images but nah... google up "broken shoulder" & "separated shoulder". It's not pretty.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by csmith12

If you ever have lost the front (rear tire keeps traction and front slips out). The bike can throw you face and shoulder first into the pavement. Your lid normally keeps your face protected but there normally isn't a lot of protection in the shoulder/clavicle area. My last one had me in surgery for a 4th degree separation of clavicle and shoulder tendons. And those bones are so easily broken too... I got lucky and healed in 6 months but it still bothers me every now and then.

I was gunna link some images but nah... google up "broken shoulder" & "separated shoulder". It's not pretty.

geww thats terrible! i got thrown down on my side, but it wasn't very quick so while it ached a bit, nothing broke.

so it's never really 100% again? ive never broken a bone, and i'm hoping I never do lol

[csmith12]

Dunno yo, each person is different. The young guys/gals seem to heal back to 100% pretty easily. At 38yrs old and 3 years later, I am still not 100%, close it it though, maybe 96%. Let's just say I am no role model of how to heal up.

[Miles_Prower]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Dunno yo, each person is different. The young guys/gals seem to heal back to 100% pretty easily. At 38yrs old and 3 years later, I am still not 100%, close it it though, maybe 96%. Let's just say I am no role model of how to heal up.

meh well 96 is still an A in the books, so you are an honor student

[alex.s]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Roll off smoothly, per my experience and TOTW2. It works, if your talking about a near highside.

i disagree if we are talking about a 250.


hernan said it best in my opinion:

Originally Posted by Motofool

gas it up and steer in the direction of the skid (the handlebar will try doing it on its own, you just need not to interfere much).

pin it to win it bro

[csmith12]

Common yo, we both know that each rear slide is different. So what do you say to someone that asks? I can't count how many highsides I have "nearly" had. 20% luck, 30% do nothing, 50% throttle control. 250 or bigger.... been there, done that got the t-shirt.

[Miles_Prower]

all you get is a tshirt?
here i was thinking you get balls of wurtzite boron nitride lol

[alex.s]

heres my feelings on it. don't listen to me though i'm wrong. and like you said there are different causes so lets dissect it

regardless, you would rather low side than high side right? nobody likes getting thrown into asphalt. we all know controlling rear slides is easier than a front slide. so we have a bit of a contradiction on our hands. we have to assume the result will be to not crash, so we have to assume the logical choice is the option that provides the largest chance of success, right? tucking the front has a very low chance of success. sliding the rear, while having a higher chance of a high side, it also has a much higher chance of success vs tucking the front.

dirt and jumps: temporary loss of traction, you know its coming back but you aren't quite positive when or how quickly. the rear is rotating out. what happens when it comes back and you are off the gas? highside. what happens if it comes back and you have the same gas? buck. what happens if it comes back and you are pinned? it slowly comes back while you are squatted and you dont get bucked off. the problem with pinning it is that if you still have a bit of traction on the rear, you are basically throwing it all away and committing to a hard slide. something thats fine if you have no traction but if you had some traction, you might have been able to hold on to it.

overloaded from power: you should be beginning to come out of a turn begining your standup. as the rear goes, the bike naturally picks itself up and stabilizes. as it brings itself up its easier for it to grab and thats what it will do. off the gas highsides it, steady gas and it bucks back and forth. extra gas and you maintain the slide until the bike stabilizes upright and it comes back smoothly.

underloaded into the corner: high chance of tucking the front but if for some magical reason your front tire is in god mode its easy for the rear to slip out especially downhill... this is kinda a "too late" situation but i think the answer is the same. more gas.


i think the largest difference is how much extra power is applied. on a big bike you almost dont need to touch the throttle since simply sliding and having the rpms go up will give the engine more than enough power to maintain itself smoothely but on a 250... i think roll on the throttle.

[csmith12]

Alex, I feel you brah, but not sure how to dissect it to answer the question at hand and your comments leave it totally to chance, where there is no skill involved, nor 100% answer, although your comments have 100% case by case validity too.

"What is too far gone?" (inevitable highside/lowside) to some, may be different for others and that don't take into account other factors. I tell the OP in post #8 basically the same thing as you, the "smaller" slides are just simply no big deal, roll on and enjoy the ride, even kinda fun. But there is a point of no return and this is where a "skill" can mean the difference between going down or riding it out. And that choice is solely placed on the rider at that instance in time. Pinning it can toss a rider into the tarmac just the same as rolling off. However, just as in the case of this thread where the "mistake" of chopping the throttle saved the day, what if he had pinned it? What if he had rolled off? Would there even be a thread for us to comment on? Dunno....

All I can comment on is what has worked for me countless times and is taught/documented by riding schools. While I will agree, small skips/hops/slides on the track, stay on the throttle and 9 out of 10 times you will ride it out with just a bit of SR to deal with. Fact is, in this case it is not the track and shouldn't be treated as such. Be it a more or less cc's, the tires & pavement don't care, traction is traction, and once it's gone preferring/accepting a lowside is not quite what I consider an acceptable outcome. I will fight (roll on/roll off) to keep the bike under control until the point my hands leave the bars, and at that point, I will accept the outcome of my choices. It's really the only way. What I am somewhat willing to accept is: "I did what I could by finding the balance between throttle and slowing down to regain positive traction. Of which can only be achieved by a smooth roll off" because a rough ride is better than a lowside or highside.

[csmith12]

Imma go out on a limb here too...

I would wager the vast majority of 250 riders here who have experienced a slide (front or rear) for right or wrong, either chopped/maintained or rolled off the throttle. I would also guess that it has happened more times than they have put the bike in the dirt. I would bet my left arm there are a number of advanced riders here who have hammered the throttle during a slide too.

Would be interesting to see the "true" ratio of saves vs. crashes in this context that includes ALL riders novice to advanced.

[choneofakind]

I almost lost the front once. It was totally my fault, it was chilly, road was cold.

I felt the front wiggle and push, so I lightened up on the bars and it gripped again. I kept the throttle pretty constant. It felt just like riding a mountain bike hard, only, I had some more adrenaline in my system.

[alex.s]

i hear what you are saying but lets try to examine it closely. just to be clear we are talking about sliding while leaned over.

slowing down. what happens when you slow down? even just a little bit rolled off throttle? the weight starts shifting forward right? even if just a little bit from a very smooth roll off, or even going from rolling on to maintaining throttle position. less weight goes to the rear wheel and more goes to the front right? even when you begin to slide, less power is applied through the rear wheel and weight begins to shift forward. what happens when a rear wheel that is sliding under power gets less weight on it? i believe there was recently a thread on the subject... the majority of it comes down to a fancy word, surface normal force. traction is very closely dependent on the amount of force applied through the tires to the road surface... (we can't control the road surface or the tire surface frictions so we will ignore them for now) decrease the force and like we know, less traction. so with this in mind, what can we do to increase surface normal force to the rear wheel? its already sliding so increasing gas isn't going to do much for you right? what other controls do we have? what about lean angle? we know there's a higher centripetal(??) force the higher the lean angle (required to maintain the higher angle vs gravity) so what can we do to reduce the forces trying to make the bike slide? if your front tire isn't sliding, would decreasing the lean angle and thus the radius of the turn reduce the centripetal forces applied to the bike?
what else happens when a bike slides? the rear tire swings out right? what happens to the dynamics of the bike when this happens? it's no longer acting the same as it was before. the weight has shifted, the length of the bike has shifted, but more importantly, the position of the rear wheel in relation to the path that the center of gravity of the bike is taking has drastically changed. its much farther outside now. what does this do? the radius that rear tire is taking is much wider. the center of gravity compared to the position of the rear wheel is much lower and further to the inside in relation to the turn... so what does this mean? it means the front tire isn't sliding.


so now lets look back at hernans quote:

Originally Posted by Motofool

gas it up and steer in the direction of the skid (the handlebar will try doing it on its own, you just need not to interfere much).

what happened? more gas broke the bike into a full slide, the rear kicked out while the front picked up because of the decreased angle of the force applied to the rear wheel making it require less lean, as the bike picked itself up the amount of traction require on the rear tire decreased and it began to regain traction under power so that it returns smoothly.

[csmith12]

Word yo, I remember the long..... thread full of formulas that I had no clue about. hahahahahah

It just don't jive with the real world for me, it don't mean you or I are right or wrong though. And you know what bugs me even worse? We can't send a consistent message to the question. Coming from riders at our level too. I know what you are saying Alex, having been there, I agree with you 100%, facts are facts. My issue is with the gray area, the 500 miliseconds that make or break it when science and facts don't really matter, when gut feeling and reaction take over. So if some large percentage of riders are gunna let human nature/SR take over and chop the throttle, why not make it work for you rather than against you. Because it takes whole other level of experience and skill to build up to the bravery to give it more gas when your puckering already. There will come a point where a rider will learn through experience what is a non event slide and a slide where they need to do something about it. Yea... that gray area.

Per my experience and "the teachings of schools" less throttle equals less weight on rear wheel, less ground clearance the less available traction is there, ect.. ect and everything else you said. I get that, and it would make perfect logical sense that during a slide you put even more weight on the rear to recover the traction and then deal with your sudden adjusted geometry, line, speed. But time and time again, reality and the human will to survive debunks that 80% for 20%. Sure, it's rough and bucks the rider but still better than crashing.

For Motofool's post (good in its own right), there is also "waaaaayyyyyy too far gone"..... You know that point when leaned over and you are going to eat it. If you know it's totally gone, then go out like a boss. Fight it every step of the way, full on drift style.... bars turned into the slide to full lock and pinned throttle and pray. Then when you save it.... totally say you did it on purpose. hahahahahaha

I dunno yo, maybe we are at two different points in our riding levels through our experiences. What works at your level may not work at my level and vise versa. In the end it's all good because we put the info out for the OP to reach their own conclusion and what works for them. Still wish it could be consistent though.

ps. I wish all threads on the interwebs where two different points of view are debated with experience, level heads and good will.

[alex.s]

werd. don't get me wrong, i suck. but i'm also cheap. and cheap means **** tires that slide a lot. i think you are right but i think in that way-too-far gone situation, it happens so fast there really isn't time to do anything... i guess what i mean is, if you have time enough for the impulse to reach your fingertips, you have time enough to save it. sometimes there isnt that much time though and the bike simply runs away from you.

i read a post by keith code a while ago about the grey area you are talking about. his conclusion really surprised me, but when i thought about it it made sense. it was simple, but like you said hard to overcome mentally. simply put, push past the grey area. i'll have to track down the thread somewhere.

[csmith12]

Why do I get the feeling you don't suck? Sorry bro, crashing multiple times at the track don't mean squat. I call that exploring the possibilities. Which is more ballz than what I gotz.

[bdavison]

As someone who on a regular basis leaves tire marks in corners at 80+ on the 250R...I'm just gonna say this about rear slides on the 250R.
You can debate with technical physics discussions if you like, but I KNOW what the 250R does in a controlled rear slide.

Keep whatcha got in it, or roll-ON, and accept the consequences.

The 250R just doesn't have enough power to do a power slide unless you can pin it to 11K from the second it starts to slide, and are real good at balancing a bike on the front wheel with the rear bouncing and chattering like a impact wrench. Also...we don't have steering dampers...so good luck.

Second, the bike is carburated in the US....there is no such thing as a smooth roll off on these things unfortunately. The carbs will choke 800 RPMs off when you really need it not too. Dont believe me...go out, get on it, straight and level, do a smooth roll on(simulating your corner roll-on), then mid-roll on start your roll off and pay close attention to what the engine does. If your 250R is EFI....how nice for you.

Also, if you roll off the gas, the rear wheel WILL regain traction if its still in contact with the pavement/asphalt. If its just out a bit and you roll off....you just get a butt-puckering kick in the pants. If its out a lot and you roll off, you are going to experience the finest in over-the-handlebars highside or if you are fortunate a shoulder crushing low side. Lord, help you if you touch the brakes 'cause you are going to get to test that CE rated armor real good.

[csmith12]

Bryan, you say that as if we how 0 knowledge of what those kind of speeds and slides feel like. Fact is... it will not work 100% of the time.


yes he has a speedohealer

EDIT: don't matter, we are talking about the street anyway.