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Old July 6th, 2019, 08:33 PM   #1
AlanDog
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Hairpin lowside/highside on KLX250SF today

Heading down towards the turn, I felt like a kid staring at a chocolate cake and given a fork... beautiful day, beautiful turn. Probably explains my tunnel vision, although not sure if I could have seen the truck coming uphill until the bike was leaned over. But that was my first mistake. Basically I took the turn at a speed where I was assuming a car would not be... exactly where the truck was.

This was a narrow road, not even 2 full lanes, backcountry road. So yeah, basically going too fast, and being a Saturday afternoon, in retrospect I was rolling the dice for sure with that assumption (for anyone in the Sacramento area, this was Iowa Hill Road out of Colfax, last hairpin before you hit the N. fork of the American river, heading east)

https://goo.gl/maps/ZnThmz63XoamDrcG8

Yep, 5 mph narrow road... https://goo.gl/maps/vNNajzbaiTccJdR57

(Looking at the images, I feel ridiculous reporting a crash on this turn... crazy tight turn!)

Basically, I was already mid-turn when I saw the truck, and with the bike fully leaned over grabbed the front brake, it tucked and lowsided, but I flew over the bike and rolled in front of it (so is that a lowside or a highside? I guess if you go over the bike, it's a highside). I can't say I would have hit the car if I didn't hit my brakes. The truck was, to the driver's credit, moving slowly and on the far right of the narrow road. And they did stop and get out to check on me.

Although I did hit my head, I was fine. What is it about crashing where your mind just blanks out? I have one memory of looking ahead and seeing the truck, I remember grabbing the front brake... and the next memory I have is being face down looking at asphalt. In the time I was getting thrown from the bike I did have the realization I was crashing, but my mind was a little like "wow, this is really happening". I was thinking rather than perceiving. I have no idea if I rolled or flipped, or what... the next moment it was over and I was getting up. Would have loved to have a video of that.

I have a scraped elbow (somehow completely missed the elbow pad in my jacket), and that's the worst of it. I was wearing a back protector and had just upgraded the back pad in the jacket, and I think that did help. I also was wearing knee/shin guards (7 years old now) and the right one was scraped, so it did it's job.

The weirdest thing is I hit my right shoulder... and it turns out my jacket was missing the right shoulder pad--what? No idea how that happened. But the crash was at a pretty low speed and I have just a little bruise on my shoulder.

The bike was fine... just had to tighten the rear-view mirror on the right side. Right grip is scraped. Minor plastics side scrape. Started up and ran no problems. I got lucky.

If I had entered the corner slower and focused on the possibility of a car (or large truck) around this blind turn, I may have been able to hit the brakes with the bike upright, or more upright and/or fight off the instinct to grab the brakes and had the bandwidth to just steer the bike into the far right side of the road.

I should share my ninja pregen to ninja 400 impressions sometime, but coming home tonight I thought... oh, oh, I can post this. I have found this sub-forum useful in the past if only as a reminder how easy it is to crash and how ridiculous some people are. I'm not going to beat myself up too much, but I'm feeling somewhat ridiculous.

The funny thing is that I imagine that the 40-something driver in the truck was probably ready to give me lecture thinking I was some teenager on supermoto, until I pulled off my helmet and saw I was ten years older than him!
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Old July 6th, 2019, 09:18 PM   #2
CaliGrrl
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Glad you're (mostly) ok! It is a weird thing that you blank in a crash. I did, too. Not long, but just a moment.


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Old July 6th, 2019, 10:27 PM   #3
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Yikers! Sorry to hear about crash!

Definitely get checked out for head injuries. Memory-loss is an indicator of concussion and people drop over dead days after seemingly minor incident.

Practice slamming on both brakes mid-corner. Upsets bike much less and lets you maintain control.

Best wishes for speedy recovery!
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Old July 7th, 2019, 07:02 AM   #4
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Sorry to hear about the crash but glad to hear that you are ok.
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Old July 7th, 2019, 01:32 PM   #5
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Glad you are ok.
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Old July 8th, 2019, 04:52 AM   #6
AlanDog
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Thanks for the well wishes! So my friend was behind me and was taking video, but I doubted he was close enough for it to be useful. But he sent me the video, and in fact, he was pretty close but I went out of camera view before I hit the brakes and went down. But what you do see is that I make it through 75% of the turn before I go out of view around the hairpin, and as he rounds the turn I am already on the ground.

So the video is really changing my perspective on what I did wrong. In my mind the truck was out of view until the last moment, but from the video you can clearly see my head turned and looking at the turn exit at an angle where the truck would have been visible. So I was facing the oncoming truck, but was so focused on the road I didn't see it until the last second. Tunnel vision.

Of course the slo-mo from the time I turn my head to the time I go down is probably a second or 1.5 sec, something really quick, and just like on the track, things happen really fast. But if I was looking ahead more and thinking about the possibility of an oncoming car, I could of had more time to respond in a gradual fashion.

The other thing the video of me on the ground, here is a screenshot:

My position relative to the bike makes it clear how I went down. No wonder I have no memory of falling, I basically just got slammed into the ground after grabbing the brake. So I did not go over the bike at all, just a low-side where I ended up in front of the bike. But it appears I could have just not braked at all and there would have been room for me and the truck...

But the lesson for me is more about looking farther ahead and anticipating things before they happen versus not grabbing my brake.
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Old July 8th, 2019, 09:17 AM   #7
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It's good to analyze a crash so you can figure out how to avoid doing the same thing in the future.
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Old July 27th, 2019, 07:27 PM   #8
AlanDog
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https://youtu.be/H_JNdlJK8s8
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Old July 27th, 2019, 08:29 PM   #9
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Looks like speed was OK. Line was decent, could’ve late-apex all way in.

Just that grabbing handful of front-brake and tucking front-end did you in.

Last futzed with by DannoXYZ; July 27th, 2019 at 11:57 PM.
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Old July 29th, 2019, 11:49 PM   #10
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Glad you are OK. From the video, it looks like although the road is only 1.5 lane wide, you were using most of it on your approach & planned corner line. Looks like there was plenty of room to pass the truck on the correct side. I’m not sure why you braked, but that is what put you down. A rear brake input would have tightened your line & the bike would have stayed upright. It’s a technique I have used often on turns just like that in the Alps & Pyrenees.

A bit more situational awareness would help, rather than the tunnel vision. I can’t tell from the video, but on those switchback type lanes, it’s often possible to see the lower road through the trees, to check for other vehicles, as you approach the corner.
I’m sure you will be more cautious in future. No harm done.

Live, Learn and enjoy the greater knowledge & experience
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