"That" moment.....

[monthefish]

You know the one, You've entered a corner waaaaay too hot, not realising it tightens and you are going too quick to make it round (or at least you believe you are).

Do you lean over a bit further? (i.e. more than you thought you/your bike was capable of?)


It was reasuring to see Stoner in a similar (not identical) situation at the Laguna GP when he made that mistake (by his own admission) and had to avoid Rossi and ended up going into the kitty litter. Could he have cornered harder, and stayed on the track?

So, in principal, what is the best way to deal with this situation?

[monthefish]

Stig said:

Generally speaking, the bike is probably able to make it even if you don't think you can. The temptation is to believe you're going to come a cropper, then you get target fixation and do just that!

Just try to make it - bl00dy hard to do, but you'll be surprised what you can get away with.

Schmeeky said:

You've nothing to lose by leaning further and trying to get round...

Cheers guys, that's pretty much what I thought.

I suppose the difficult bit is convincing yourself that you & the bike can lean further.
(and thinking back to my own 'moments', I have no doubt that I could have leant further).

Just been looking at the footage of Stoners incident. Any idea why he didn't lean a bit more at 0:34?

[monthefish]

black-k1 said:

Lots of useful stuff including:

Have the throttle very slightly open so that the bike is slowly accelerating. (I can never manage this but a neutral throttle is an OK compromise!)

I'm always far more comfortable accelerating through corners but, again, it's hard to tell your brain to apply more throttle when your senses are telling you ther root of the problem is that you're arrived at the corner too quickly in the first place.

...and yes, I know braking would be a bad idea!

[monthefish]

711 said:

From my experience though, the problem is when that bolt of panic hits you, like a wave of nausea and ice, and you start to freeze up and fixate on the part of the scenery you think you're going to hit.

That's the one!





I'll point out that, in a good number of years riding, this has only happened a handful of times, and only twice when it was relatively serious (1. a left hand bend and ended up straying onto the other side of the road - thankfully nothing coming other way, and 2. right hand bend and ended up going a little bit off-road, but managed to stay on the bike and get back on the road)

[monthefish]

Exige46 said:

I think the difference between yourself (and the rest of us) and Casey Stoner in a MotoGP is that you riding on the road will be nowhere near the limit, and will not know, or feel confident in where the limits are. I would imagine Casey Stoner has a pretty good idea what his bike can and cannot do.

Absolutely, which is why I was wondering:

monthefish said:

Just been looking at the footage of Stoners incident. Any idea why he didn't lean a bit more at 0:34?

He's not exactly on/near the limit at 0:34, and shirley he knows that keeping the bike on the track would be a far better than entering the gravel?

[monthefish]

Carl-H said:

I think the reason casey didn't lean more is probably because he was on whats called the marbles which is where all the bits of crap are because no one ever rides there to move them out the way.

Reasonable theory...

[monthefish]

Stig said:

Worst case, give it a big handful to spin the rear up, then use oversteer to see you out the other side of the corner.

Even better if you can manage it one handed, whilst waving with the other to some top-heavy lovelies by the side of the road.

Now, you see, that's what I've been doing however I wasn't sure whether it was proper biking etiquette, hence the reason for me starting the thread.