A personal example of how full gear can save your ass!

[fasternyou929]

Originally Posted by DLIT

A buddy of mine that picked the bike up said there was some gravel by my bike's sliding marks. The kind of gravel that falls from a gravel truck. I think I said that earlier in the thread. And you can take it as bragging, I look at it as I'm very experienced.

I understand where you're coming from though, but sometimes tires aren't to blame for wrecks? Are you kidding me? What's one of the first things you here at the morning meetings at track days? "Make sure your tires are warm." There was no inputs being made from me at the time. I wasn't trail-braking, counter-steering, shifting my body...nothing. I'm not afraid to admit it if I fucked up, but nothing I was doing at the time seemed like I would be the main cause.

I could say I fucked up...but how? And what lessons can I learn when I don't know how I fucked up? I'm thinking it was a combination of things at this point. Cold-ish tires, improper suspension set up and maybe there was gravel. I wouldn't mind saying I fucked up but I wasn't doing anything different or special than I usually do. I guess you could say I fucked up by hauling that much ass on the street to begin with. Tiny mistakes multiply even more at higher speeds.

I'm honestly still baffled by it, so I'm doing what I think is best for me at this point.

I must've missed the part about the gravel... certainly doesn't take much of that to ruin your whole day. As far as bragging v. experience, I guess it's just personality differences. I know a lot of experienced riders, and none of them started a conversation about their crash with "my limits are higher than most". As someone that knows neither you personally nor your riding abilities, I thought it cames across as unnecessary and just wanted to point it out to you.

I wasn't implying tires can't cause wrecks, but unless you lived a half mile down the road from the crash (doesn't appear to be anything for miles in either direction), it seems a pretty odd place for a "cold tire" incident. Seems you should have been riding at a good clip for a while at that point, that's all. One of the most aggravating crashes I had in '09 was a low-side at VIR because I just couldn't figure out WTF I did wrong. Like you, I just wanted to understand why. The only conclusion I could come to was I must have put too much weight on the clip-ons during that lap. It was toward the end of the 2nd day riding there, each day over 105 degrees. It took me weeks of over-analyzing everything about it to draw that conclusion, so I understand where you're coming from.

Good luck with it, and I hope you find a way to continue enjoying your bike.

[DLIT]

Originally Posted by fasternyou929

I must've missed the part about the gravel... certainly doesn't take much of that to ruin your whole day. As far as bragging v. experience, I guess it's just personality differences. I know a lot of experienced riders, and none of them started a conversation about their crash with "my limits are higher than most". As someone that knows neither you personally nor your riding abilities, I thought it cames across as unnecessary and just wanted to point it out to you.

I wasn't implying tires can't cause wrecks, but unless you lived a half mile down the road from the crash (doesn't appear to be anything for miles in either direction), it seems a pretty odd place for a "cold tire" incident. Seems you should have been riding at a good clip for a while at that point, that's all. One of the most aggravating crashes I had in '09 was a low-side at VIR because I just couldn't figure out WTF I did wrong. Like you, I just wanted to understand why. The only conclusion I could come to was I must have put too much weight on the clip-ons during that lap. It was toward the end of the 2nd day riding there, each day over 105 degrees. It took me weeks of over-analyzing everything about it to draw that conclusion, so I understand where you're coming from.

Good luck with it, and I hope you find a way to continue enjoying your bike.

Oh, I hear ya. My bad.