Crashed 101/burlingame (old story)

[KROSSOVER]

I crashed on the 101 near burlingame last year. Old news now but I figure a "newbie" could maybe learn from my mistake. I had recently gotten my license at the time.... I was riding a GS500 and commuted to the City from bgame at that same time.

I entered the freeway from peninsula ave, usual morning traffic going about 40-50mph and all, merged to the far left lane. I found myself with decent amount of space infront of me and the speed of traffic started to pick up so I opened my throttle all to have the car infront of me hit his breaks pretty hard so I hit my breaks...I hit the back break just a little to hard that the rear tire locked and I found myself in a skid heading straight for the car infront of me.

I looked to my right and saw an opening so I figured I'd just release my breaks and get over to the open lane.....ROOKIE MISTAKE. Immediately upon releasing the locked rear tire I was shot into a wobble and pan-caked on the asphalt. Did a couple of roly polies and what not....bike slid to the far right lane.

I shot right back up onto my feet, ran to my bike(in pain), picked up the bike with the help of 2 random commuters(a special thx to them) & pushed it to the elbow. luckily I didn't get run over by any cars no did my bike hit any one either.

Suffered 2 broken bones in my left hand and a whole lot of road rash!. Bike only suffered a bent handle bar and a small dent in the dank(engine guard to the brunt of the crash).

[ridergrl3]

it's good that you got out safe. i live in the burlingame area and that ramp going from peninsula onto 101, there was a biker that was avoiding a car accident and flew off that bridge and died.. it was really sad and scary.. i saw his body. never going to forget that image. again, glad you're safe!

[pepperell]

what bones did ya break?

[KROSSOVER]

I think I saw that crash you're talking about Ridergrl, or at least the aftermath.

Pepperell, I broke two carpals. Luckily no surgery/pins were required.

[Nozzle]

Wow, that's some crazy stuff.

Lessons learned:
1. Wear lots of gear
2. Do not lock up rear brakes
3. If locked, do not release rear brakes
4. Don't rush into open spaces

Now that I started commuting to work, things like this will definitely help me in the long run.

Hope your bones mended well, and now having fun on your SV650. :)

[KROSSOVER]

Thanks...definitaly a lessoned learnt for me!

[Mad Gnome]

"3. If locked, do not release rear brakes"

Actually do release, just dont do a dramatic release. Smooth into and out of braking whenever possible ( a slow release dampens a lot of the swing back, if your rear end is coming around, so less wobbles when it returns as it will not snap back.
Big thing I saw in that story was that there was too much lead in the wrist for the traffic's conditions.
It's mentioned a lot on this site (for some reason I just can't figure out:teeth ) but practice scessions(sp?) of emergency stopping would've come in handy here too, I would think.
Hope the hand healed OK and that you got a set of leathers after that.
:Port

[Z3n]

I think the biggest lesson here is that practicing emergency braking is good.

Any modern motorcycle has brakes that are good enough to get the thing to stoppie, so you may as well learn to threshold brake. The best place to do it is a dead end road with some decent pavement and some shitty pavement. Find a marker, brake there, and try and reduce your stopping distance. Remember to lead into the brakes smoothly but quickly, as jamming on them will cause the suspension to have problems, and bottom on a lot of stock bikes (ninja250's, and SV650's come to mind). Practice from a variety of speeds, on a variety of pavement surfaces, and learn to analyse and compensate for good and bad pavement.

You want to lead in smoothly because it allows the suspension to remain settled, it gives you the chance to recover if you do lock the front, and you'll be able to hear the tire start to scream before it gives up traction. Also, it prevents you from having to release the brakes from too much application at once. On top of that, if you do start to stoppie the bike (my 929 does it pretty much at will) rolling into the brakes smoothly allows you to hold it with the back tire just a little bit off the ground, rather then having it come up quickly on you.

So...practice practice practice, and smooth is good.

Also, i'd recommend just clutching in in the beginning until you get somewhat comfortable with the brakes, then work on clutch in and downshifting, and finally you can work on braking and blipping/clutch slipping to keep the rpm's up. Baby steps, bob ;)