Bonneville America Forums Forums Rider Safety Forums Riding Technique Graceful (?) Lowside

Gas. Give it more gas to get out of trouble. It causes the bike to actually lift up giving you more clearance to countersteer even harder and this will get you out of deep doo doo.
Really! It may seem counter intuitive, but that has saved my butt many a time. letting off the throttle lowers the bike quickly, you want the oposite action to occur. Try it, it can actually save your life.

Hey Benny
P!sses me off when following cars how many of 'em use the brake to shave off a little speed approaching corners instead of a little engine breaking or downshifting.

I wonder if he has one of those "biker in a bag" kits?

Yeah I can see using power in those clear situations, but I'm thinking more like, you go into a turn you know you can handle, and there's a Buick in the way all of a sudden... Brakes are about all ya got then, right?

moe,
After perusing just a few of these.....it's no wonder why dragons are extinct.

Brrr...

No flame, but the Buick throws all the "technique" out the window... your ****** will be grass, as they say...
I have escaped a few close calls. I have also ended up in people's yards, in the woods, on the berm.... every situation is different. Just today, I turned onto a downhill road where a truck was backing out of a driveway, covering both lanes. I went right, into the driveway and came to a stop at the front of their garage....
It was "Ho Ho... you almost bought it, Man...."

Ride like you're invisible except for the bullseye....

Dinq/everyone - Don't you agree that extensive experience with a manual transmission in a cage is great practice for proper technique on a motorcycle. I was lucky enough to go to stock car driving school last Summer in Canada. Try engine braking at 150mph with a high performance clutch! That is some serious braking! I will always engine brake when possible before actual braking. High RPM's are our friends! Of course, it doesn't matter in Florida, we just put on the cruise control and take a nap until arriving at our destination.

Ryan, I think EVERYONE should learn stick. Then again, I think I learned a lot because I was interested in HOW the car was working, not just the 1-2-3 step to getting it to go, so now I make decisions for gear selection, etc based on what the car/bike is doing. So for some people, they will never truly understand how it works and thus never fully utilize it. One of my best friends recently had to learn to drive stick cause his girlfriend's car is a stick. He called me out of the blue to ask how it worked (MIT computer geek, go figure...) and he said ever since I explained it, he's never had a problem stalling, shifting, etc. He just never had a good mental picture of what a clutch did, etc. Then again there are folks who say "shouldn't I shift when the needle is between the 2 and the 3?" And I say "sometimes" because every situation is different... They hate it when I make them sit with me and a chalk board before I even take them in the car

My wife killed the brakes (burnt up the whole system riding them) in the mountains in New Mexico. A bit spooky when the pedal goes to the floor without doing anything. I got us out of there and back to town using the automatic transmission D1 and D2 to brake.

I started out using the engine to slow me on the bike, have done it since I first learned to ride. (There was that one time, newbie rider, on wet road, lost traction downshifting just before curve, spent some time with the darling nurses in the hospital...but I digress. I've learned a bit about curves and rain and all since then.)

Then somewhere in the forum someone said it was bad for the transmission. Now I'm using the brakes and holding the clutch, mostly, but I'm confused again. Is it OK to let the engine slow me down a tad (long as the RPM's aren't too high) or is that a bad habit I need to let go?

wasp,
Definetly use the engine to slow you down, much better control. If someone said it is bad for the transmission, I hope they just meant not to downshift while doing 6krpms. Other than that, shift down, I always do that. More motor braking then brakes probably. I am always in 1st gear by the time I come to a complete stop too.

yeah, what they said....

Is it possible that the "bad for the transmission" comment was in the "Clutchless Shifting" thread????? Downshifting without the clutch is bad for the transmission...

Looked it up--yeah it was in the clutchless shifting thread. Good memory you got there, better than mine. (Just ask my wife <grin>)

A really great way to learn this is to get in some miles on an older HD with mechanical brakes. When there is nobody behind me, I often don't touch the brakes on my Triumph at a redlight untill I slow to idle speed in first gear.

I often only touch the brakes just enough to light my brake light to warn my followers of me slowing.