Tell me about "dropping" a motorcycle

In My Humble Opinion
21

With all of about 20 minutes experience on a Honda 400, I bought a fuel injected 1000 cc Kawasaki back in '80, a Z-1 Classic of which only 2000 were made in the US. Driving home from picking the damn thing up, I was negotiating a corner when a kid pulled out in front of me in a gocart. Inexperienced as I was, I hit the front brake and immediately flew over the handlebars.

Damage to the bike was minimal. A couple of scratches that I was able to buy replacement pieces for. Physical damage to me was somewhat more painful. Basically, hamburgered palms and knees and a rather scratched up helmet which, thank goodness, I was wearing. The toughest part was the mental though, getting back on the bike the next day. As mentioned, I had almost no history with bikes and this wreck was somewhat traumatic. The next day it took a great deal of mental effort to get back on the bike and go for a long ride. But I did, knowing full well that otherwise I’d never get back on it again if I waited too much longer.

I got to know the bike well, was from then on extremely wary of the skills and sight of other drivers on the road and ended up putting many thousands of touring miles on the bike over the course of several years and consider it one of the better times in my life.

Later though, living in a big city and getting serious (marriage) I realized that time was over and, although I enjoyed the experience, I’ll never have one again. For me it was a great experience, but it definately was dependant upon the proper time and place.

22

I’ve known a couple of motorcycle riding instructors who said that probably 90% of the time a motorcycle hits the ground, it’s at under two miles per hour.

Kickstand slipped and the bike fell over?
Lost your footing while backing into a parking spot?

Yup. You dropped it. Now go pick it up. They did teach you how to pick up a fallen bike, right?

Oh, one of these instructors managed to drop his still so new it smelled funny 1800 cc Gold Wing in reverse gear on a flat parking lot. First bike he ever had with reverse, and, well… Oh! Uhoh! <crunch> Augh!

23

Under 15 mph? You dropped it. Anything over 15 mph and you have “crashed”. I’ve dropped bikes a few times. Lost my footing in a parking lot, lost my grip on the bike removing it from a rear stand, that sort of thing. It’s embarrassing (unless nobody saw!), but usually results in no injury. The worse that can happen is that you damage something fairly expensive (which is most things on a bike!) and cosmetic.

CRASHING is a whole different story. I’ve only crashed once, on the track, a lowside at about 80 mph. My bike and i slid into an overrun area (safety factor1) and I suffered no injuries besides a slight headache, thanks to all of my gear (safety factor2). The bike was a bit scrapped up on one side but otherwise fine as well.

There are two types of crashes that I mortally fear:

The dreaded highside

Hopefully I would able to save it like this guy, but I doubt it!

And the awful tankslapper, which is something of a dark mystery, because nobody is exactly sure what causes them. Some bikes are more prone to them than others, and you can prevent them for the most part by using a steering damper.

A highside is something a street-rider is unlikely to ever experience, unless they are riding in ways best left to the track. A tankslapper can happen to anybody on any bike given the right (wrong!) conditions.

24

Those “crash mushrooms” are called frame sliders, If you are actually interested in getting some and wondering why you can’t find them :wink: . Don’t buy the cheapest set you can find, they are usually plastic with a cheap mounting bolt that will possibly bend or break, rendering them useless. They help more often than not, but in my experience they never completely protect a bike’s bodywork. You’ll still have damage, just maybe not as much as you would have without them.

25

You may have missed the “I am not a motorcyclist” bit in my post :wink:
My friends who are report they are definitely useful in the typical low-speed scenario (such as hitting manhole cover, kickstand error, or the classic bike + kickstand + fresh tarmac + hot day = :eek: ), inasmuch as you end up with a few scuff marks and scratches rather than needing a new fairing or something. And yes, the ones I have seen are a fairly solid bit of metal covered in rubber that bolt onto the engine/gearbox/frame or somewhere solid. I’ve never heard them called ‘Frame Sliders’ - my mates must be a lower class of biker, or maybe it’s just that they’re brits. :smiley:

Oh, and these seem to be a popular choice for stuff to keep bone flesh and skin in the traditional configuration - I think the choice may be based on funky logo, but I’ve NEVER seen them wearing jeans/t-shirts etc. when on the big bikes. I’ve heard enough horror stories to think you’d have to be a moron to do something like that.

26

Hurray, another potential convert.

I’ve ‘dropped’ my bike(s) three times. Once the kickstand wasn’t all the way down and it fell over in my driveway. One was turning into a gravel parking lot. They filled a pothole with a couple of shovelfulls of gravel, my front tire sunk right in.

Third was trolly tracks in Boston MA. I was blind tired after riding six hours in the dark and going over the directions in my head. I was looking for the cross street I needed and noticed I was riding astride a trolly track. “uh-oh” I was doing about 20m/h and tried to nudge to one side and clunk.

Full face helmet, jacket with armor in the elbows and shoulders, gauntlet style gloves, boots all the time yadda yadda yadda.

27

Oh, BRITS! Well never mind then. They have an entirely different set of terms for motorcycle-related things heh.

BTW, a crushed popcan under the kickstand is a cheapie method of avoiding the old classic bike + kickstand + fresh tarmac + hot day = :eek: scenario.

28

A seller might be tempted to classify a significantly worse “crash” as a “drop” in order not to scare off buyers.

As others have said “dropping” in the vernacular typically refers to a zero to low speed “oops” with typically minimal and mainly cosmetic damage to the machine…typically the rider suffers no injury at all. Such cosmetic damage can be depressingly expensive to fix…so it often gets left.

Typical “not worth fixing” items would be: Abrasions or mildly bent clutch and brake levers. Scratched/chipped paint. hole in end of bar grip. Mildly cracked body work. cracked mirror. Turn signal stalks and lenses are pretty voulnerable to “hanger rash” so may not necissarly indicate the bike has been dropped. Hanger rash= damage resulting from parking in too tight an area. e.g. Squeezing a bike into a two car garage which already contains two cars, a snowmobile, and another motorcycle.
With training and practice, a bike can be ridden with near zero speed with both feet on the pegs. Lacking practice, a new rider tries to “paddle” the bike around with thier feet. Beyond a certain point they will not have the strength or leverage to keep the bike from falling over. Or they step on a patch of sand or pea gravel, or a pot hole. Or release the clutch when they “thought” they were in neutral. That is a “drop”.

At speed, a motorcycle “wants” to stay upright. Handling a motorcycle well at very low speed/tight quarters, requires a fairly delicate balance of throttle, clutch, brakes, steering, body english, and just plain balance. Rider instruction courses can teach the basics in a short time. Worth doing as many of the techniques are far from obvious, and the courses are tought on light, easy handling machines that somebody else gets to fix if you screw up. After the course, you’ll know what to do, but practice is required to hone reflexes, and of course to learn the idosycrasies of YOUR machine.

Regarding leathers: There are now viable textile alternatives that can be cooler to wear in hot weather, or water proof for rain, etc. Some of these should be considered “sacrificial”…only good for one crash, but offering decent protection when needed. I’ve witnessed a couple of crashes where this stuff worked as advertised, and don’t see how anything but full racing leathers would have been better.

Heavy “racing” grade leathers are probably a bit better, and tend to survive multiple crashes. They are also hotter than hades. Many light weight leather garmets worn by “bikers” are simply wind and bug resistant fashion statements…a leather vest is little more than a place to sew patches, chaps will stop the wind, but leave hips exposed to road rash, and lacking any exta padding/armor in the knees won’t do much there either.

Regarding crashing: Do anything and everything to avoid it. Your brain, non-impared, and fully focused on riding and threats from other drivers is your most important piece of safety equiptment. Then you need to accept that there is a significantly non-zero probability that you will crash anyway. Wear helmet and other gear EVERY time you ride, so that when the odds catch up to you will be wearing it. The gear doesn’t make you “safe”. Nothing makes you “safe”. If you can’t come to terms with that concept, don’t ride…and don’t drive either.

29

My '78 Kawasaki KZ-650SR (14K miles, $500) got dropped twice. Both within the first month of my riding experience.

The first time, I was slowing down to the side of the road to check something, shortly after leaving my apartment. Overagressive front brake application, on sand = drop. (at about 5mph)

The second time, turning left, on a protected light, a MORON :smack: :wally :mad: tried to take a “right on red” in front of the car in front of me. The car in front of me braked hard, as did I, again, with too much front brake, in a turn, on oily pavement. (again, about 5mph) The MORON had the gaul to tell me after “Good thing you were wearing your helmet!” I should have thrown my helmet at the MORON :wally 'S windshield.

Thankfully on the 2nd fall, I was wearing my gloves, and other gear, and ended up with only some scuffing on the bike’s headlight, and transmission cover, and some severe scuffing on my glove where it slid along the road. My baby soft IT worker hands would have suffered far worse.

-Butler

30

I think that sometimes all the video of track accidents that you see on TV actually give some beginner bikers a false sense of security. They see someone come off a bike at 100+ miles an hour, and get up and walk away, and convince themselves that it’s really not all that dangerous.

But, apart from all the safety equipment that track riders wear, the biggest factor in their survival at those speeds is the well-planned runoff areas, with sand and haybales and padding to reduce the risk of serious injury or death. People sometimes forget that there are no “runoff areas” on the average city street, and if you lay your bike down while taking a corner, you’re less likely to run into a sandpit or a hay bale than a gutter or streetlight or telephone pole or car. And hitting such hard objects, even at relatively low speeds, can be enough to kill you.

31

In Russia, Harleys ride you!

(Seriously, they have a flywheel that look like a fifty-pound iron dumbbell and acts like the mother of all gyroscopes. At speed, that bike is going to go straight unless you ask nicely.)
Oh yeah, Re: the OP, I used to work as a Yamaha mechanic. We used to total dropped bikes on the replacement cost of the plastic; the bikes still rode ok. That’s one more reason to get the basics down on an older bike.

32

Moron checking in here.
Young lady tried to disprove the laws of physics and I paid the price. No amount of available safety gear would have made any difference.

On a personal note, check the accident statics. If you are not a 16-26 year old male on a crotch rocket, you have 1000% less to fear than that set of riders. No amount of safety gear will make any difference.

Defensive riding like defensive driving makes much more difference than safety equipment. You and I Should NEVER be in a position where we need the gear… but we access risk differently and so we end up where and when we should not be there. Why would anyone EVER ride on wet pavement while wiped out with fatigue of a long ride? Why did they not stop and rest? ( see how easy it is to call anyone anything? )

Why do people drive cars without helmets? Been proven over and over that they will save your life in a car wreck? Huh, huh , huh?

I am just as bad as anyone moron you can find. See, when I have all the armor on, I ride different than when I’m more exposed. What, me worry, I have on $10,000 worth of survival gear so I can go a bit faster, hit corners a bit harder, why worry, I got my helmet and leathers on…

Riding a motor sickle is like flying a plane, the buck stops with the driver. The cars are TRYING to hurt you, all cage drivers have malice of for thought and / or you are totally invisible and they can’t see you ever.

If you ride with any other outlook, you will die soon no matter how many $$$ you spend on safety gear. Motor sickles are not as safe as a car and a car is more safe if you wear a helmet and use a 5 point harness. I bet most anything you will not ever spend the less than $1000 to put that in your cars for any seats much less insist that you wife or chiled wear a helmet in your car.

Do what your personal risk assessment feels best for you because all the advice you are seeing here will not be backed up with actual help, acceptance of responsibility for what they said nor come and do your work for you when all their advice does not keep you from harm.

Live in a closet if you wish… Please don’t suggest that I do.

[i\]:: No accident of mine will ever affect or effect your insurance premiumsor in anyway cost you anything. I believe in personal responsibility. ::: *

All ‘you’s’ are generic so nobody get’s their feelings hurt.