2Wheeltips

    I was at a casual dinner meeting with some of my bike riding friends late last week, and as is inevitable with most motorcycle discussions, we found ourselves talking about accidents. Since I began riding a little over a year ago, I found that the forensics of motorcycle accidents have always intrigued me.  I use all the lessons learned from these individuals and store them in my own personal memory bank for future reference in the event that I may someday need to work my way out of a similar situation.  Now, I am not an expert by any means, I am simply another “new” rider who has the ability to comprehend most things presented to me rather quickly and the best way to apply those new tidbits of knowledge;  it’s how I continue to learn something new every day. 

    This discussion we had involved a gentleman who unfortunately has found himself without his motorcycle for a very large chunk of this near perfect riding season due to a mishap and the required repairs on his steed.  I was surprised that this guy had been riding for a number of years, but was almost completely uneducated with regard to motorcycling.  His “accident” or crash was completely self induced and fortunately involved nobody but himself.  I left the dinner meeting that night and started to replay his words through my head trying to figure out what he did wrong besides the obvious and why, during a right hand turn at speed his motorcycle came crashing to the ground.  I took out all the other opinions such as “he may have hit some gravel” or “probably loose sand on the road when you made the turn”.  This biker did say that during the turn he felt he had taken it a little too fast for his comfort and tried to slow down in the turn.  Now before all the experts start screaming “Well there you go! That’s your problem right there, he hit the brakes!!” Let’s figure out what really happened and what we can do to not repeat his mistake and make us better riders out on those roads.

   After talking with this biker to get some additional information I realized what had happened.  As with most people who ride without considerable practice or training, they take for granted that when you hit the brakes the bike stops and when you roll on the throttle it goes faster.  Unfortunately it isn’t that simple.  This person had not honed his skills in  more than a few areas, but we are going to concentrate on what I feel is the single most important skill that all riders need to have, the one that will, without a doubt, save your life one day, and why I feel it is the main reason why his bike is in the shop today.  I am talking about braking. 

    The reason why my friend crashed his bike was because as he entered the right hand turn he wasn’t using his head and eyes to look through the turn and took it too wide.  The speeds we are talking about were, according to him, about 20 mph.  As he leaned the bike and tried to make the turn he began to cross the center line and head for the opposite side of the road.  He fixated on where he didn’t want to go and panicked.  He grabbed for his brake and in his heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, excited state, he slammed the brakes causing the pads to clamp and lock onto the rotors and lost any available traction, causing his bike to come crashing to the ground.  I am not going to tell you that it’s okay to hit the brakes in a turn; there is a correct way for slowing down, and that is to do it before the bike is leaned over, but that is a discussion for another day.  What I would like to bring to your attention is how to become familiar with your bike's brakes and begin practicing emergency stopping. 

   Like I mentioned earlier, I personally feel that familiarity with your bike's braking system is probably more important than anything else once you begin riding seriously .  The statistics state that nearly one quarter of all motorcycle accidents (in the US) involving another vehicle are left hand turners cutting in front of a motorcycle.  While you have options available to you that may include swerving around the front or back of the car turning in front of you, you need to be aware of what is on the other side as well as predicting the actions of the other driver.  Is he going to speed up to try and make the turn before you get there, will he panic and slam on the brakes, is there another vehicle on the other side, do I need to cross into oncoming traffic to get around him?  These are just a few things that you need to process before making that decision.  What I recommend is attempting an emergency stop to reduce your speed and the amount of kinetic energy from the weight of your bike and your velocity.  Even if it comes down to a collision, I would rather do it by slowing to 5mph than sliding into the other car at 30.  You may be asking "what about dumping the bike?"  Trust me when I tell you that rubber on pavement will slow you a lot quicker than steel and plastic sliding along the asphalt.  What we are looking for is a controlled stop at maximum braking pressure without skidding or especially locking up the front brake.  "How could this have helped the guy from crashing his bike," you may ask?  The truth is that if he was familiar with how his bike reacts to braking and was comfortable with applying brake pressure at various levels, he may have been able to slow his bike enough and still keep it upright.

    So, let’s get back to your favorite parking lot, and this time you need to be wearing your best suit of armor.  Practicing this can be a little tricky at first because there you really need to understand what your bike is telling you as you begin practicing this life saving maneuver.  Please start slow and as you begin to read the feedback from the bike, you can start ramping up your speed a little.

    Firstly, you need to find a lot big enough that allows you to get up to speed and more importantly enough room to stop.  If you can’t find a lot big enough, take it to a commercial area that may be empty on the weekends and find a road that has no traffic and no debris that could impede your traction.  What you want to do is begin with getting up to around 20 mph and at that point begin applying pressure to your front brake gradually increasing pressure and at the same time applying some back brake pressure.  As your front forks compress gradually increase pressure on your front brake while adding some more to your back brake.  Remember that during this, your weight has transferred considerably to the front tire and you have quite a lot of traction in the front.  Generally, you can apply more brake than you think.  What you are looking for is getting to the point where you believe that any harder and the brakes will lock up.   In addition you must be squeezing the brake progressively, not slamming on the brakes, and not applying and releasing and reapplying.   

    If you manage to lock up your rear brake, do not release the pedal, just ride out the skid until you stop.  If you lock up the front, release the brake lever immediately, don’t even think about the maybes... just release the lever.  The reason you should ride out the back skid and not the front is because when the back brake locks up, the bike has a tendency to drift the rear to one side or the other.  If you release that brake while the bike’s front and rear tires are not in direct line with the direction you are going, the bike will snap to that track and throw you off like a bucking bronco known as a high side and this could result in a hospital visit.  If the front tire locks up, you have just used up all the necessary traction to hold your bike upright, you cannot counter steer, or even hope to balance the bike without any traction for your front tire.  You may as well be parked on a sheet of ice.  You will know if the front tire skids by getting an immediate mushy almost rubbery feel to the handlebar.  At the same time it will fell like the handlebar wants to snap to the left or right.  You only have a few fractions of a second to release the brake lever before your motorcycle is on the ground and you are lying beside it with full knowledge of what it feels like when the front brake locks up.

     The point to this exercise is to begin getting familiar with the brake limits of your motorcycle.  If you are in a panicked state and need to hit the brakes, chances are that you are going to go for the brake lever with everything you have to stop that bike.  Your muscles will be stiff and you will react by applying too much brake pressure too early.  If you know that under your present circumstance you need to stop the bike quickly but calmly and know exactly how to do it, you can do it while remaining upright and confident. 

    As part of my motorcycle workout routine, I incorporate this into a series of different maneuvers to ensure I remain proficient.  In addition, on my way home from riding every day, I will go down a street, look in my rearview to ensure there is no traffic behind me, and do at least one emergency stop.  I cannot understate the importance of good braking practices.  I live in New Jersey and there is nothing that scares me more than the thought of a huge white tail deer running in front of me; it has happened a few times.  There is no way to accurately predict the path of a deer so trying to steer around it is out of the question. 

     Being aware of my braking ability and ingraining into my mind that when I need to stop quickly it must be done methodically prevents me from locking up my brakes when all I need to do is slow down.  It would be a shame to lock up my front brake and drop my bike at a high speed, potentially causing injury to myself and most likely damaging my bike, because I didn’t practice this critical exercise.

One beautiful Sunday morning, I was riding with 2 other bikers.  I was the most inexperienced of the three and I rode in the middle, between my 2 friends.  We were riding a route to one of our favorite places and, as we had done many times in the past, we were on small roads that ran through quiet towns.  Sunday mornings, along this route, there is little traffic and, having dealt with traffic on major highways, I felt completely comfortable riding…perhaps a bit too comfortable.  As a novice rider, I let down my guard and took for granted that any motorists on the road with me that day would not be a threat.  Wrong!  As we passed a small business on the right, a car pulled up to the left of us (this was a two lane road, one lane in each direction…I should have known right away that something was not right).  In what seemed like a split second, the motorist made a right turn into a driveway and cut off all three of us.  My friend who was in the front of the group, a much more experienced biker than I, was able to stop on a dime.  My friend who was behind me was so far behind me that he had no problem coming to an easy stop.  I, however, hit the brakes a bit too hard and locked them up.  I never hit the car that cut me off but I did go down.  Although the windshield I had just installed on my bike cracked into multiple pieces, thanks to the fact that I was wearing full riding gear and a full face helmet, I remained in one piece and was able to get right up and walk away from the accident.  My full face helmet absorbed the impact as my head hit the ground, my padded jacket absorbed the impact as my shoulder hit the ground, and my padded riding pants absorbed the impact as my knee hit the ground.  My friends helped me get my bike upright and they tested it to make sure it was rideable.  The main damage to the bike, other than the cracked windshield, was a bent front brake lever but it wasn't bent so badly that I couldn't use it to continue riding for the day.  As I got myself up off the ground, and shook the dirt off of my riding pants and jacket, a woman came up to me to ask if I was okay.  A good samaritan, I thought….I told her I was fine and just asked if she would put my broken windshield in her trashcan, which she did.  My friends and I mounted our bikes and took off for our favorite place for breakfast, Lulu's in New Hope, PA.  We sat over breakfast talking about the idiot driver who had cut us off and, although I was sore, I had no serious injuries, just a busted ego…I was ashamed that I had not been skilled enough to stop very quickly without locking my brakes.  It was at that point that my two friends told me that the good samaritan who had asked if I was okay was actually the woman who caused the accident!  I was upset that my friends had not told me at the time that the woman offering her help was actually the one who caused the whole incident and, at the same time, I was grateful to my friends for not telling me.  I don't know what I would have said or done to her had I known, and it was just as well that I got myself straightened out and back on the road. 
Here are some of the lessons I learned that morning:
1.  Learning to stop quickly on a bike, without locking the brakes, is a skill that all bikers must master.  It is a learned skill and needs to be practiced constantly.
2.  There is no substitute for good riding gear.  Good pants and a riding jacket not only can provide padded protection but they also act as a second skin.  A full face helmet is the only type of helmet I will ever wear, even if I am only riding as a passenger on someone else's bike…the full face helmet I wore that morning prevented me from having any type of serious head or brain injury and, yes, my head hit the ground pretty hard.  The helmet took the full impact of the hit and my head felt nothing. 
3.  Once back on my bike, I did wear the helmet that I had gone down with since it was the only one I had.  However, once home, that life-saving helmet went right in the trash can and I went to the store to buy a brand new full-face helmet.
4.  Sometimes, it is better to just move on and not confront the people who caused an accident (if there was no collision between their vehicle and yours).  I was lucky enough to get up and ride away from that accident and nothing I would have said or done to that woman would have made her an instantly better driver.  She was careless once and, most likely, she will be careless again, and I am not the person who can help or change her bad driving habits.
5.  I must always prepare myself for conditions on the road that can become potentially dangerous.  I never thought that the woman who almost hit me was going to make a right turn in front of all of us….she had created an illegal lane and did not have a turn signal on….I should have been prepared for her to do anything since she was already driving carelessly.
6.  Riding with friends can truly be invaluable.  Things can go wrong when you are riding and, having riding partners with you can make the difference between being able to get back on your bike and continue your ride or being left (even temporarily) stranded.

As your riding skills improve you will notice that a motorcycle can stop very very quickly. Making quick stops is a skill every rider should have but it does pose a unique problem at intersections.

Since a motorcycle can stop quicker than a car or truck, making a quick stop for yellow lights when traffic is close behind you can cause a serious accident. Since a car or truck can not stop as fast, you run the risk of getting rammed from behind.

In instances where traffic is close behind, it may be best to accelerate through the light as it turns red to avoid an accident.