Ride Well......Not So Much.......

[tobyzusa]

This gives me the willies

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzbfkWV4gs0

[Tony_K]

Yup, that be the crest right there!

 

and yes that happens all too often.

[russell_bynum]

That kind of sh*t is exactly why I don't like riding popular roads like the Crest.

 

A friend of a friend met an oncoming Ducati rider on her side of the road in a corner up on the crest not too long ago. Both bikes destroyed. Luckily she was (mostly) OK.

 

I've been crossing Ortega Highway twice a day every workday for 2.5 years now. I can't remember the last time I DIDN'T encounter at least one driver/rider at least partially in my lane around a corner...and it is FAR better on the weekdays when I commute than on the weekends when all the morons come out to show each other how stupid they are.

 

Same with Palomar.

 

Lisa met a Gixxer rider fully in her lane at Deal's Gap when we were there a few years ago.

 

Last Christmas, I had a fun one...coming east on Ortega Highway in my truck on a Saturday morning, I met three Harley riders riding three abreast around a f***ing blind corner. Naturally, this put the guy on the inside about 3' into my lane. With no shoulder, I had nowhere to go. The only good thing about it was watching the terrified look on his stupid face as he swerved wildly, collided with his buddy, and they all eventually crowded back into their side of the road. It didn't even look to me like he was attempting a pass...they were just side by side with their feet up on the highway pegs doing their badass routine. Freaking morons.

[MotorinLA]

That could have been real ugly… his speedo was showing 58 mph as he passed the first car. Pretty sure that would have been a +1 in the win column for the Camry.

[Bill_Walker]

Target fixation.

[pedro cerveza]

If you look at the angle of the keys it appears the rider hit the brakes HARD after the first car. That would have stood the bike up and kept it going straight rather than continuing the turn. This could have had a real ugly ending.

[leikam]

Shoulda-coulda-wouldas aside, he actually pulled through without a crash, didn't he?

[peterh]

This is a classic example of someone riding beyond their ability. Stoopid and deadly.

[russell_bynum]

Shoulda-coulda-wouldas aside, he actually pulled through without a crash, didn't he?

 

After the initial mistake (probably target fixation), he did a pretty decent job of keeping everything intact.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Didn't learn much though, stupid bastitch was back on the gas hard at the end of the video.

[casticus]

Hopefully that nitwit hasn't "bred" yet...we don't need any of his DNA passed on.

[Quinn]

Was that the delayed apex cornering I keep hearing about?

[philbytx]

Total Wanker accurately describes the rider

[Knifemaker]

No excuses for this rider.....COMPLETE STUPIDITY!!!!

 

Makes you wonder if the rider is "Saving thier Talent" for something more spectacular?

 

Not only was the playing with thier lives but the lives of possibly the drivers and maybe children in the cars.

 

No way to defend riding like this. This rider should loose the privledge to ride. Sorry for the soapbox but you or I could have been on the recieving end of this idiots "FUN".

[Dave_zoom_zoom]

 

Very good points Knifemaker!

 

But, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel!

[leikam]

This rider should lose the privledge to ride

 

Sure he made a mistake that could have had fatal results and not only for himself, but are you really saying it's one mistake and you're out? How many riders do you think would be left? Has anybody here been perfect from day one or ever put anybody at risk? Maybe you're right: riding might be fun, but it's clearly too dangerous to allow.

[TN_R11_Girl]

Shoulda-coulda-wouldas aside, he actually pulled through without a crash, didn't he?

 

After the initial mistake (probably target fixation), he did a pretty decent job of keeping everything intact.

 

I don't know about that ... it looked like he darn near took out the other motorcycle as he pulled back across the road into his own lane!!!

[TyTass]

This rider should lose the privledge to ride

 

Sure he made a mistake that could have had fatal results and not only for himself, but are you really saying it's one mistake and you're out? How many riders do you think would be left? Has anybody here been perfect from day one or ever put anybody at risk? Maybe you're right: riding might be fun, but it's clearly too dangerous to allow.

 

I'm doubt this is a "one mistake" case. Any Law Enforcement types on this thread? How many laws did he break?

[leikam]

The point is we don't know whether the rider does this all the time or not. And there's the trouble with damning somebody based on 30 seconds of video.

[russell_bynum]

No way to defend riding like this.

 

Riding like what?

 

He didn't seem to be going all that fast. It was a case of target fixation, not a case of excesive speed or anything intentionally reckless.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

+1

Didn't really see any big time lean or, for that matter, he wasn't really covering ground all that quick.

 

Looks to me like the minivan scared him, he target fixated on it and things went downhill from there. I actually had something similar happen to me on the 1100S out at Cody a couple of years ago. I realized what was happening and recovered my composure and line long before I crossed the double yellow but, I was a lot closer to that pickup than I wanted to be. That kinda stuff can happen to anyone, all it takes is a momentary distraction and the car coming the other way seems to appear full blown out of nowhere. I do think he would benefit from learning something about "widening your vision".

[Shaun]

Riding like what?

 

Well, I suspect (but don’t know) that he was in the rush of camera/friends/nice-day/gotta-make-this-good (maybe he’d watched too many Ghostrider vid’s on youtube). Had to catch up with his friends didn’t he? Hit over 100 on occasion, ignored the ‘Slow to’ for curves, ignored rapidly catching his bud’s at the blind corner (were they slowing for him?), was in an awful position at entry, cranked the bike over pretty steep too late, fixated on the car, straightened up after the car (may have clipped the rear quarter) before reacting to the first truck, nearly smucked into the other rider (as mentioned by another), then completely ignored the consequences of any mayhem to the 4-wheelers and continued on his merry way.

 

I’m really glad that the outcome wasn’t, as could easily have been, more negative. But, at least on this day, the biker was acting like a totally self-centered $hit and was riding like an a$$. On a bad day you could probably say the same about my style. However, I've never put my life or anybody else's at risk just yet.

[russell_bynum]

However, I've never put my life or anybody else's at risk just yet.

 

I doubt that.

[onmyrt]

Looks to me like the rider wasn't familiar with the principle of 'Counter Steering'.

 

If he'd used it, I think he might have been able to stay in his own lane.

[Shaun]

I doubt that.

Why?

 

On a more positive note, I’m using this case as a vivid reminder of the importance of environmental cue’s and not to confuse goals with priorities. A goal may be to; catch up with friends, make an appointment, arrive home safely, improve a lap time, etc. A priority is more immediate; a successfully negotiated corner, traffic/pedestrian observation, smooth manipulation of controls, selecting reference/target points and escape routes, etc., etc. Priorities always take precedence … and any goal is always composed of multiple priorities.

 

However Mr. Bynum, YMMV.

[russell_bynum]

Why?

 

You said you've never put yourself or anyone else at risk. You're basically saying you've never made a mistake. Never run a little wide in a turn. Never target fixated. Never accidentally run a stop sign that you didn't see until too late. etc. Unless I misunderstood that statement.

 

Everyone screws up from time to time.

 

On a more positive note, I’m using this case as a vivid reminder of the importance of environmental cue’s and not to confuse goals with priorities. A goal may be to; catch up with friends, make an appointment, arrive home safely, improve a lap time, etc. A priority is more immediate; a successfully negotiated corner, traffic/pedestrian observation, smooth manipulation of controls, selecting reference/target points and escape routes, etc., etc. Priorities always take precedence … and any goal is always composed of multiple priorities.

 

Absolutely. This rider allowed the oncomming car that suddenly appeared in his vision to distract him from what should have been his most important goal: Making the exit point of that turn. That's a really common, easy to make mistake. I've done it, and I've seen some of the best riders I know do it. It isn't like he wiped out going way too fast around the corner trying to drag a knee, or lost it while doing stunts on a public road.

 

I'm not trying to remove fault from the rider...he definitely screwed up. Maybe he was spending too much attention thinking about the camera, braking from that last straight (though he really wasn't going overly fast...if you know that road, 100mph isn't totally unreasonable for some of the straights, and doesn't require a huge braking effort to make the next turn.), looking in his mirror for the rider behind, etc.

 

And certainly, the potential risk for this mistake was pretty huge. I'm not trying to minimize that.

 

I'd just hope we can see the difference between an 'honest' mistake that we've all made (though hopefully with less serious consequences) and a mistake born from some stupid stunt or a rider doing something that's totally unreasonable for public roads.

[Mike]

Late to the conversation, but if target fixation was a factor, it came into play only after he set himself up for the preceding curve totally bass ackwards. He was bouncing up to about 100 mph as he approached the right-hand curve. At that point, instead of being toward the left side of his lane, where would have been set up to clip the apex of the curve, he was actually on the inside (right side) of his lane. This placed him on a trajectory that would have required a pretty steep lean angle to execute the turn within his lane.

 

At that point, he froze up. Target fixation may have played a role in failing to lean the bike more aggressively, but the bottom line is that he failed to lean sufficiently after having set himself up poorly for the turn. If he'd been properly positioned coming into the curve, this would have been an easy one, even for an inexperienced rider.