OT: Anatomy of a Highside

[SMSTEVE]

A great photo sequence of a SV650 on track going through a highside, the guy was fine btw. Great photos from start to finish...

Anatomy of a Highside (Photo Intesive Sequence) Chuckwalla Turn 9 - Triumph675.Net Forums

[Jamikest]

Wow

[cageyar]

Yikes, not quite a Lorenzo cartwheel but nasty enough for mere mortals.

[AndrewA]

"Bandwidth Exceeded" = Fail x 2

[Corky]

U found the limit!

[Guest24]

In a word-U-G-L-Y. And ckcarr said, "what were the camera settings and shutter speed."

[turboflyer]

Glad he walked away. And some good photograph too. Uh no don't want to try that.

[lightfighter]

i assume that some here will know:

in the first few frames, it looks liek the bike flipped into the slide so fast that it came out from under him... would that be typical of a high side or is that more an indication that he had begun to "abandon the bike" when he realized he was going down, but before it high sided?

i guess the real question here is "if im over hot into a turn and i slide out, do i let go or not? mind you, i dont ride like that but this is a question those pictures made me ask.

[chewie]

Let go / hang on?

I can't see the pics, but I think I know where your coming from Brian. Winston Churchill said it 'Never give in, never give in, never give in"

Hold onto that sucker till the bitter end I say. In all seriousness and imho, unless the rider has been in the situation before and has learnt, the response will be whatever his/her survival reaction is...and who knows what that is, usually it is to back away from the problem, roll off the throttle, get away.

Keith Code says hang on, wait it out, sometimes it'll slide and then grip again. On my little postie bike I consciously say to myself, if it goes out around this corner just don't change anything and she'll probably get a hold again. These are corners that I go around (in both direactions) every day, so I am accustomed to a little slide and also the conscious thought, I won't be surprised by it - therefore I have power over my survival reactions in that instance.

I believe you can only change your reactions by being involved in the very thing you probably don't want to be involved in...you gotta find out what it's like to find out what you'll do

courtesy of the 2010 Paris Dakar - see, she's still hanging on

[lightfighter]

yeah, this is what i mean. after overrunning turns on dirt bikes and crashing more than i want to admit, ive noticed it seems to go better if i just ride it into the scene of the crash. i wonder if that instict will hold in a highspeed road screwup, and if its the way to go.

kinda wondering what the racers train(or at least try) to do.

[PFFOG]

I think it happens so fast by the time you try to react, it is too late. I have seen highsides and people tuck the front end, and it happens so fast you can't really see it, just sort of BAM, what was that.

[flatbutt]

and thats why we dress like Power Rangers

[anotheroldrider]

I'm not sure I'd have the courage to simply jump off the back at very high speed, but no less than Kenny Roberts talks of mentally rehersing "pre-packaged reactions" you can pluck from the files on a moment's notice. Having seen more than one hand with a finger ground off between the bars and tarmac, I'm of the opinion he's right - once it's well and truly gone, let it go its own way.

[roger albert]

Letting go or not is pot luck. I've personally seen 3 ground down fingers in the last 6 years, and none of them had tried to hold one. The hand just got caught under the bar in each case.
You could make an argument that holding on (vs having hand fly loose and happening to get caught under bar) would improve your case, but you could just as well label that as wishful thinking. In general, you don't have much control over the action or result. As much 'luck' as anything else.

One thing you can say for sure, is that if you let go or bail, you're definitely losing it. If you try to hang on, you might just recover. Giving up is a guaranteed fail, instead of just a likely one. Riding it out is almost always better. At the very least, you and the bike are decelerating faster than when sliding or tumbling, and the subsequent crash will at least be a slower one.

[roger albert]

in the first few frames, it looks liek the bike flipped into the slide so fast that it came out from under him... would that be typical of a high side or is that more an indication that he had begun to "abandon the bike" when he realized he was going down, but before it high sided?

Yes, very typical. That sequence was no doubt captured on full auto, meaning the shots were evenly spaced. Gives an idea how fast the actual flip happens, as the first two shots don't show much change, and by the next, it's pretty much over. Split second stuff.

[squall_line]

I was a little bit surprised as to how long it stayed upside-down on its bars/tank at the end.

The latter pages of the thread have the entire sequence in aminated-GIF form, as well as a rather funny "motivational poster". Which, given the rider is okay, and appears to be a regular on that forum, is probably more a sign of good-natured family ribbing than disrespect.

[anotheroldrider]

I'd not disagree with Roger's comments about giving up on the situation too early, nor on the fact that once it's happening, there's not enough time for most folks to react. (I do remember seeing Freddy Spencer disintegrate a rear wheel at Daytona once and abandon ship before the bike even went sideways.)

None-the-less, "don't give up till it's really gone" makes sense on the street as well. Lots of crashes could have probably been avoided if the rider had just tried to make the corner just that little bit harder - leant over just that little bit further - squeezed that lever just a little bit harder, etc. Seems like (me included) most folks start looking for the escape lane way too soon.

[PFFOG]

The one that took some guts to jump a few years ago was Colin Edwards when his bike caught fire at 160 mph!!

[roger albert]

Yes, most memorable, and justifiable Abandon-2-wheeled-ship ever.

[twodear]

Originally Posted by lightfighter

i assume that some here will know:

in the first few frames, it looks liek the bike flipped into the slide so fast that it came out from under him... would that be typical of a high side or is that more an indication that he had begun to "abandon the bike" when he realized he was going down, but before it high sided?

i guess the real question here is "if im over hot into a turn and i slide out, do i let go or not? mind you, i dont ride like that but this is a question those pictures made me ask.

Odd that I can see most of the photos but some were just placeholders from photobucket.

on the third or forth frame though, just before the bike is obviously sideways I think the photo captures the instant the rider recognises he's in trouble, his head has shifted from looking through the corner to looking more straight ahead. I wonder if it would have made a difference to the crash if he'd kept looking through the corner. No way to tell I suppose but it sure makes a difference in normal riding to look where you want to go.