Slo-mo bike/motorcycle collision

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere... please remove this thread if it has.
This has been shown on sky news today: http://www.youtube.com/embed/dNFaAqS2f18
This has been shown on sky news today: http://www.youtube.com/embed/dNFaAqS2f18
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The way you describe it sounds like the biker is a relative novice. I've never ridden a motorcycle so I have no idea how easy it is to control those beasts off a corner.
This exactly. Looked seriously painful though :shock:
Road - Dolan Preffisio
MTB - On-One Inbred
I have no idea what's going on here.
It is very, very hard to steer a motorcycle on a bend or around a hazard when you have closed the throttle. Even harder when you are braking. He may not be a novice, its very hard to train yourself to loosen up and get on the gas in these situations because your instinct is to brace up and brake.
In the UK most post learner courses cover cornering (vanishing point, steering dynamics etc) and they would have picked up on the line.
The issue is that the moment you close the throttle the weight transfers to the front and it makes the bike sit up which forces the bike to run wide. On a motorbike often the best way to tighten the corner is to open the throttle a little more which will make the rear drive the front up making the steering lighter. It also (because motorbike tyres are fat at the back and thin at the front) drives the rear out making the turn tighter.
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Road - Dolan Preffisio
MTB - On-One Inbred
I have no idea what's going on here.
I was going to comment on the same statement.
Cyclist would have had a sore neck judging by the way his head whipped, head took a knock as well. Helmet paid for itself that day. Could have been more serious, glad to see the guy walking at the end with nothing too serious.
I ride a motorbike as well, the comments above are on the right track. Biker is looking at the cyclist all the way through the bend. Looked like he apexed early, so was always going to run wide. Bike is hardly leaning, so lots of scope to pull a narrower line had the biker been more capable, even after the initial positioning error.
We need Smidsy for an expert view.
Glad they are ok though. An who was that chick??? Gotta love a bikers chick!
Specialized Hardrock MTB for Lumps
Specialized Langster SS for Ease
Cinelli Mash Bolt Fixed for Pain
n+1 is well and truly on track
Strava http://app.strava.com/athletes/1608875
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As has been described in detail above, it's target fixation. Once he's into "Oh no, a bike! Don't hit the bike!" mode, it's curtains.
It's easy to watch it over and over and say what he 'should' have done.
Probably cos he did the wise thing: kept helmet on and acted sheepish. Just annoying that someone has to pay for his inexperience.
http://www.msgroup.org/casestudy1.aspx
Cyclists suffer from it too. Think about how often you hit a pot hole or a stone even though you see it coming. If you see it with your peripheral vision you'll steer to miss it. If you look at it.....
Next time you are on your bike in a big open space try staring at a mark on the road and at the same try to avoid it. You'll be surprised at how "hard" it is not to
Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
I remember my brother in law (who is a motor biker & cyclist) telling me about it in a racing scenario. I remember a similar thing mentioned in the Stig's (top gear) autobiography. Similar thing, but when in a car, he was told by someone wiser: when you have oversteer don't just feed in opposite lock aimlessly, look where you want to go and your hands will do the rest.
I don't blame the biker at all for the accident; I can completely understand how it happened - as long as he said sorry afterwards!
Road - Dolan Preffisio
MTB - On-One Inbred
I have no idea what's going on here.
I know when I look over my right shoulder, I start to turn right..does that count?
Doesn't happen with the left though :?:
Yes, I got the target fixation thing - it was more a response about the comments discussing the difficulty of tightening the line. If closing the throttle would make it difficult to tighten the line, then it should make it relatively easy to widen it.
You should blame the biker for the accident. It was the bikers fault - 100%. You can't argue with that! You can understand and sympathise with the circumstances but it was his fault entirely and "sorry" would be scant compensation to me if my body and bike had been wrecked by their poor bike handling.
I think the point being made is that once he closed the throttle he realised he was in trouble and, then, by fixating on the bicycle he lost the opportunity to run wide. There didn't appear to be much space to the RHS of the cyclist however he should have gone there and sacrificed himself and his motorbike.
Totally agree and given it was in California I am sure he will be dragged through the courts both criminal and civil until his insurance company pays out a fairly significant sum. With video evidence like that he and his insurance company will have nowhere to go.
First comment is about road tax. Sometimes I just despair.
Once he has loaded up the front, the bars go straight and all he can do is just go straight on. Basically at that point he's a passenger on a missile. He cannot steer to the right any more easily than he can steer to the left. In the latest Learner test there is now a brake/swerve element to deal with this very issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TrXIaJSFNQ
From my days of teaching advanced, I have to say its not new riders (just passed the test) that have the problems, they are normally pretty good. Its those who rode in their teens and have come back to it after 20 years. The born again bikers (motorbikings equiv. of MAMILs). Just as we see fat blokes in their late 40s on 5 grand bikes we also see fat blokes in their late 40s on bikes with close to 1bhp per kg, who wouldn't be safe on scooters.
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Yeah, watched Sky news report on this yesterday and 'cuddly' Eamon Holmes first response was "why don't cyclists ride on pavements?" In fact, when I was riding up a local hill the other day some loon leaned out of a passing car window and shouted "get on the fecking pavement", don't think it was Eamon though.
Target fixation or not the root cause of that accident was the biker riding like a tool, it was his fault 100%.
There's clearly lots of cyclists on that road, I just hope other motorists think ahead a bit more than this one.