SuzukiSavage.com - Highside - not the best way to dismount

Staplebox

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Highside - not the best way to dismount
05/15/09 at 21:49:28

So I initially took the car to work today cause it looked like rain again. It cleared up later so I stopped home to switch to the Savage on my way to a conference. Left the conference to go to HQ for a meeting, which is in rural Quaker Hill CT. Nice twisty road, that two semi's could not pass on, to get there. There was a car about 50-75 yards ahead of me that I left out that far. I slowed down before the last corner before the campus and accelerated into the sharp rh turn. Halfway through the turn I saw a kid on the left side of the road, walking toward me. Just before I came out of the turn I saw the car that was ahead of me stopped dead in the road- no stop sign on that road for 5 more miles. I was doing about 30 give or take. Fool in front of me, trees and rocks to the right, oncoming car / people to the left. Hit the brakes, started to slide and lowside through the turn and into the oncoming car (a$$ to the left) - somehow managed to bring the back around to the center - then it kept on going to the right side and caught.

Of course I have heard of the highside, and seen it on TV, but I'll be darned if I didn't fly off that bike like superman. I distinctly remember looking at the car in front of me, flying at it head first. I landed on my right shoulder in a roll in the middle of my lane, log rolled a few times and (I swear) popped up on my feet, like a good slide into second, looking back at the bike. I thought it was going to land on me but it was about 20 feet back.

Turns out the kid was a resident of my agency's (we have troubled kids in residential care) who was running away. The car in front of me was a secretary who recognized the kid and the staff following her, and had stopped to talk. I also managed to land in full view of former coworkers and kids at a shelter that is also on our grounds. They didn't realize it was me until I took off my helmet. Then they appropriately laughed at me and helped move the bike. I was also wearing a $100 mesh jacket that i just bought a few months ago - $ well spent.

No scratches on my helmet, lots of marks on the right elbow of the jacket. No scrapes on my leather shoes, not a mark on my jeans. The bike lost the right footpeg-sheared off, rear turn signal broke and hanging, right mirror bent upside down -under the grip ( I think it landed on that mirror), bent rear brake pedal, scrape the size of a nickel on the slash of my Hard Krome, torn back rest, scraped chrome on rh grip, cylinder cover took a beating but didn't leak.

I went to my meeting with a sore wrist and knee. Drove the bike about 15 miles home- resting my foot on the gear box.

The worst part is I broke a bone in my left wrist - the ER said it'll take 6-8 weeks in a cast. I'll be lucky to ride again in July - we don't have a long biking season here. Sad

I also have a big bruise on my left knee but it works fine.

I've seen them around here before but - if anyone could recommend some nice bolt up after market rear turn signals- its a good time to change. I need to take a closer look at the footpeg - Theres not much left- it may need some welding. Mirror and some bending should be easy.

Lastly - I'm not looking for any sympathy - I am fine and surely could have found a better way to stop - I just wanted to share. I would advocate a helmet (which is optional in CT- I wear one about 75% of the time - will be 100% in the future) and the cheap jacket definitely saved me some road rash.

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« Last Edit: 05/16/09 at 14:24:15 by Staplebox »

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Jay Serious Thumper Offline SuzukiSavage.com Rocks! Posts: 1445 Fort Worth, Texas Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #1 - 05/15/09 at 21:59:27 Glad you're OK. Life turns on a dime. The margin for error is slim. Hope the wrist heals rapidly. ATGATT, it really can make all the difference.
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verslagen1 YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Posts: 28884 L.A. California Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #2 - 05/15/09 at 22:11:42 +1 on the ok bit, could have been worse. This is a reminder to us all to practice emergency stops. And keep an eye out ahead, not just the car a head, but as far as we can see.
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sockmonkeygirl

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #3 - 05/16/09 at 04:52:08

I wasn't sure what a highsider was, so I looked it up. Glad you are ok.

A highsider or highside is a type of motorcycle accident which is caused by a rear wheel gaining traction when it is not facing in the direction of travel. For a highsider to take place, the rear wheel must first lose traction and drift out of the line travel of the motorcycle. The initial traction loss may be caused by a rear locked wheel due to excessive braking or by applying too much throttle when exiting a corner.

When the slipping rear tire suddenly regains traction it is not moving in the same plane as the rest of the bike. This causes the motorcycle to straighten up so quickly the rider is almost always thrown off, even at low speed.

Highside accidents are typically caused by over-acceleration or braking in corners, but are also a result of locking the rear brake in an emergency stop while traveling straight at high speeds, such as on a highway. Chopper style motorcycles with the front brakes removed are especially prone to highsider accidents.

Avoiding a highsider:
This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to train. Please help improve this article either by rewriting the how-to content or by moving it to Wikiversity or Wikibooks. (November 2008)

When braking, use both front and rear brakes on the motorcycle, and avoid locking the rear brake.

When exiting a corner toward a straight direction of travel, do not apply sudden acceleration inputs until the motorcycle returns to a near upright position. Lower gear selection and sharp acceleration inputs increase the likelihood of a rear tire abruptly losing traction on acceleration. Instead smoothly apply throttle as the bike becomes more upright and traction increases. If a riders experiences a rear tire slide under acceleration the best thing to do is slowly roll-on the throttle. If one reduces throttle while the bike is sliding you may regain traction suddenly resulting in the highsider. Tire warmers can increase tire grip for track days and racing. Riding conservatively until the silica in rubber compound and friction generate heat within the tire can also improve grip. Many highside incidents result from aggressive riding on tires that have not yet achieved a temperature suitable for optimal grip. Many tire manufactures add silica to the rubber compound to generate heat as the tire flexes. Temperatures of 170 °F (77 °C) are common for race ready tires.

Technical explanation:
Forces occurring between the motorcycle and the road (such as accelerating, decelerating and steering) are transmitted by friction occurring in the contact patch. There is a limited amount of force the contact patch can transmit before the tire begins to lose contact and slide.

When going through a curve on a motorcycle, centripetal force is transferred from the road to the motorcycle through the contact patch and is directed at a right angle to the path of travel. Applying too much throttle will increase the stress in the contact patch, because now there is an additional force which also has to be transmitted through the contact patch, this time parallel to the direction of travel. This additional amount of force may cause the tire to slide. It is during this slide that reflex will cause the rider to rapidly shut the throttle and cause the rear tire to lock. This same condition can be caused by applying too much rear brake while cornering.

Once a tire slips in a curve, it will move outwards under the motorcycle and cause the cycle to lay down in the direction the rider is already leaning to counteract the moment applied by the centripetal force and lead to a lowsider.

If the amount of force applied by the brakes or throttle is reduced then it is quite likely that the tire will re-establishing the grip on the road. However, if the tire suddenly regains traction while the motorcycle is moving sideways, this is similar to hitting an obstacle in the road: the tire will stop its sideways movement causing the motorcycle to suddenly jerk into an upright position (and beyond). This movement can easily cause the rider to be thrown off.

The name derives from the side of the motorcycle that the rider will separate from. If forcibly thrown over the bike, the rider is said to have dismounted on the high side.

The highsider has the additional disadvantage of the rider often being catapulted into the air by the sudden jerking motion of the motorbike and the increased possibility of the motorbike sliding behind the rider and threatening to crush him.

Because highsider accidents are so much more deadly than lowside accidents, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation recommends that if a rider locks the rear brake, it should be kept locked until the motorcycle comes to a stop.

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sockmonkeygirl Serious Thumper Offline 37 Stitches Posts: 819 W.Mass Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #4 - 05/16/09 at 05:00:54 motorcycle airbag jacket.
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PerrydaSavage Serious Thumper Alliance Member Offline Riding "The Rock"! Posts: 3522 Republic of Newfoundland Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #5 - 05/16/09 at 05:04:38 Glad yer OK dude ... take 'er easy and heal up!
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JohnBoy

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #6 - 05/16/09 at 07:23:37

Sorry to hear of your recent "adventure", I'm glad you had minor damage. It is amazing how fast you can dismount in a highside.
The cost of good gear seems pretty steep today, but take it from me, it is way cheaper than a single night in ICU. Like Momma said, "Too tough to die...and too stupid to quit", Best wishes on a speedy recovery.

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Ed L.

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #7 - 05/16/09 at 07:45:36

High sides really s*ck, I did one the second week after I bought my '02. Hit a patch of gravel with the front tire coming up to a stop sign, locked the tire up on the gravel, got out of the gravel with the locked up front tire which grabbed and tossed me off the bike. Landed on my helmet and right arm. Hit so hard that my arm got jambed into my rib cage which cracked four ribs. Like you say, it happened so fast I didn't know I was down till I was looking at the pavement. Glad to hear you had a lid on, mine did it's job and it sounds like your's did also.

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Silver '02, clubman handle bars, Cobra headlight, Sportster muffler, K+N stock air filter, 152.5 main, Superbrace, oil cooler, 1/2 inch aluminium plate forward controls, spark advance, goes like stink

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Charon

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #8 - 05/16/09 at 08:12:55

If I were in a position to make it stick, I woiuld REQUIRE that all motorcycles (and other single track vehicles such as scooters and mopeds) be equipped with linked brakes and ABS, so stomping the rear brake pedal would not result in a rear-wheel skid. That is because the trained reaction of drivers in substantially every other sort of vehicle is to stomp the brake pedal. The "stomp the pedal" reaction works well enough in cars and trucks, but is likely to be lethal on a motorcycle. The technology exists to substantially reduce the problem, and it should be REQUIRED.

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Eschew obfuscation.

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Duane Senior Member Offline Creatively Maladjusted Posts: 335 Terra Plane Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #9 - 05/16/09 at 09:28:52 Good info, I had never heard of the highsider before.
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JohnBoy Serious Thumper Offline SuzukiSavage.com Rocks! Posts: 825 Gender:	Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount Reply #10 - 05/16/09 at 09:31:54 Hey Charon, it's coming! I saw a Chinese, maybe Korean, 250 scooter the other day with ABS. Half the pice of the Japanese scooters and standard ABS!
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marshall13

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #11 - 05/16/09 at 10:13:12

i wouldnt be inclined to rely on mechanical "abs" systems like they have on scooters.... i had a 68 lincoln mark 3 with america's original electro-mechanical (no computer involved) "abs" system.... one day while tooling along the LIE in suffolk, i gently tapped my brakes to give a merging vehicle an opening.... whatever failed in that system resulted in my rears basically locking and unlocking in a completely ramdom, uncontrollable manner.... as i cried for my mommy, that steel behemoth spun, slewed, twisted, watusied,and frooged it's way across 3 lanes of a busy highway, barely being avoided by the other drivers.... after i came to a stop in the median(and scraped my skivvies clean), i took a walk to a payphone.... a pal arrived an hour later with an assortment of hydraulic plugs, tubing, and a qt of brakefluid... about 45 minutes later, that schizoid system was completely disabled.... it had NEVER given any indication of malfunction before that point.... had just 1 of the other drivers been daydreaming, it had the potential to have been a pretty horrible wreck.... any non-computerized abs system can do the same thing....

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justin_o_guy2

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What happened?

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #12 - 05/16/09 at 10:19:21

Crap, didnt know how lucky I got. Coupla years ago I had a Guzzi slide out on gravel in a corner & that thing rolled right out. Maybe the turning the front into the slide & not grabbing the brake( Not a conscious decision, just didnt, things were happening way too quick to make decisions, operating purely on reflex/instinct at that point)
I was surprised when it didnt wash out from under me.

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Rocco

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #13 - 05/16/09 at 11:29:46

i did almost the same thing...except was going 40 and went airborne lol

i now wear a jacket 100% as i still have roadrash, and i always wear a helmet

do u guys have cycle gear up there? i bought universal turn signals for 17.99......they have a bunch of shapes, even round ones that look like mini stocks....i went with the arrow heads....

and be happy u rolled, some try and stop themselves and do more damage!!!!

and i'm sure you'll fix her good as new!!

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'95 bobber rat...i guess it's a "bat bike" haha flat black mostly, bare metal tank, header wrap, always a work in progress !

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PTRider

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Re: Highside - not the best way to dismount
Reply #14 - 05/16/09 at 13:34:26

Staplebox,

Will you make a posting about the lessons to be learned from your wreck? Seriously, we all need to know, or get reminded, just what was done wrong and done right.

Right...protective gear. Helmet, (armored?) jacket, didn't slide into more danger.

Wrong...(probably way too hard on the rear brake), jeans aren't tough enough for many slides, boots needed, (did you wear gloves?), riding too fast for the distance you could see, (attention not on the road every moment?) what else?

More about HighSides
Quote:

if your front brakes are applied when your rear-wheel begins to skid, the rear wheel can begin to slow slower than does the front wheel. In such a case the rear wheel will move in the direction of slide faster than does the front wheel - it will 'catch up with' the front wheel. To do so it must skew to one side or the other from the track directly behind the front wheel.

In the real world our roadways are almost always cambered to facilitate the runoff of rain water. A sliding rear wheel usually skews (yaws) in the direction of that camber. Whenever the rear wheel skews from a straight line, because of how the frame and front-end are connected together via your triple-tree (at an angle), the body of the bike must lean in the direction away from the skew. i.e., the bike will attempt to lay 'down' as the first step in a 'lowside'. If ANY skewing has begun then your bike is in exactly the attitude it would be in if a rear-end slide had begun in a curve rather than in a straight line. Release of the rear-brake before skewing has advanced beyond perhaps 10 degrees results in a sharp torque to bike (and rider) as the rear-wheel regains traction and straightens out - usually not enough to throw the rider. But a skew greater than that leads to such a terrifically powerful torque if traction is regained that the rider and motorcycle can easily be thrown into the air - called a 'highside'.

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