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first high side, ouch

16K views 172 replies 34 participants last post by  neocryte 
#1 ·
Reader's digest version:

I put new Q3's on, front and rear, took it for a ride to scrub them in, first stop light (2 blocks from my house), left turn, I gave it the routine amt of throttle, which was too much for new tires, slide, grip, flick, see Jackie fly, see her head bounce on the pavement four times.

ER - 4 hours, I'm fine, nothing broken just my ego.


Long version:

last week I lost the front twice under typical acceleration, what I mean is it was slipping. and from 2 trackdays, on a track of mostly left turns, I could feel a lefty chicken strip on the rear, so I decided to swap out the tires today, because it's the first day it hasn't rained in like 2 weeks.

I was really proud of myself, got the rear axle back in, in less then 3 minutes :), yes by myself. tires came on and off with ease, didn't eff up my carrozzeria's. balanced front and rear super clean, 1/4 oz...

I almost didn't scrub them in today, just had some errands to run, but I haven't ridden in 2 weeks.

Waiting for the light to turn green to make a left turn I make every day I commute. I was chanting to myself as I left my house, go easy new tires new tires new tires... green light, let the clutch out, just a little throttle, start the left turn and gave it my default throttle (not a lot, I'm not a nut), but too much for the first left turn on these tires. I felt the rear slide, and of course let off the throttle a little, then it caught grip again and I went flying, heard the fairings break, my hip hit the ground first, and then my head hit the group 4x times, first one was hard, then like a basketball dribble. shoulder and forearm. all the right side. and my abs hurt like a mofo.

had a MC jacket on, boots, gloves helmet. jeans. knocked the visor right off my helmet. and popped the frame slider off. I was right in the middle of the intersection, so several ppl stopped for me, and traffic stopped. It took me awhile to get up, but I did wave my hand when I did get up, to show I was ok, I remember one lady sticking her head out of her car window and saying glad to see you are ok. 3 men helped move my bike. I told them I was ok, and didn't need an ambulance.

I was walking the bike, because the throttle was stuck (racing). when I tried it again, I guess the cable had snapped, and I rode it home under idle power (slipping the clutch - it's flat where I live).

I have those rolled curbs, so I know I don't have enough mph to take the curb normally and ride it into my driveway. so I ride up at a slant and park the bike parallel to my driveway, on the sidewalk. I hop off and take my helmet off.

Then, I black out. because about 30 minutes later I'm standing over my bike, and I don't know where I am, why my bike is on the sidewalk and what time of day it is. yup. smacked my head good. This is when I decide to go to the ER.

I have kaiser. I hopped into my car and go to the closest kaiser ER. about 15 minutes. I get there, ER is no longer open.

so I double back to go to the non-kaiser, trauma one hospital 3 minutes from my house. unfortunately there was a big rig on fire on the freeway so I have 30 minutes to remember what happened.

4 hours in the ER (super busy). one of my riding buddies works there. not a favorite buddy but he helped my case along on a super busy day.

CT, full x rays... I'm good to go.

I have been riding 5 yrs, and low sided once, on a street corner I knew, decreasing radius, I just spaced out for a moment, landed on my knee at 35 mph, left knee.

anyway, I am very annoyed with myself. not my first set of tires. and this is definitely much worse than my low side. I do feel like a real MC rider now that I have high sided, lol.

ok, the damage: I think I snapped a throttle cable. other than that it's the big front fairing, but the frame slider took the brunt of it.

here's the new rear tire, you can see the high side marks:


and the damage, not bad:




 
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#2 · (Edited)
NOOooooooooo !!!!:sad010::sad010:
Glad you're ok Numbafree :(.
You already understand what you did, so no reason to comment further.
Just glad you're ok :thumbsup:

I've done about 5 years on a 600rr and 2 years now on a 1000rr ..
New tires I work in super carefully... But I understand that, "Hell yeah... just got everything finised" feeling whereby you give it just a little too much :(. I systematically relax for an hour before any riding after such work.
 
#7 · (Edited)
not cold, 65. roads were dry, hasn't rained in 24 hours.

I remember now. I did give throttle input after the apex, because there was a car possibly merging into my lane. a normal amt of throttle, I've done 100's of times, but with normal tires. I usually give a little throttle after the apex, that is normal for me. but yeah, I was trying to remember to take it easy too! ugh.

can't sleep, hurts too much.


Yeah, I hit my helmet hard enough, it popped the visor clear off. didn't crack the helmet though. Good thing I have two helmets, one for each bike, lol.

ok, time to see how much those fairings cost. the tank cover, I wanted a CF one from tekarbon anyway to with the new BSTs in february.
 
#4 ·
Oh crap!. Glad to hear that you are OK. Every time we hit our heads we should be in full alert. TBI' s are pretty complicated to diagnose on the spot. Particularly if they are not severe and without episodes of amnesia or loss of consciousness. I think overall you can consider yourself lucky. The bike seems to be in pretty good conditions, and you walked away with what seems to be just a moderate concussion.

As far as tbr tires go, I would personally blame the temperature/throttle input rather than the tire itself. Other than the soap that you use to swap them, new tires are perfectly fine to ride from minute one (urban legends apart).
 
#9 ·
Noooooo Poor Numba.
Glad you are okay .
What pressure you were runing?

If everything like you used to do...there were some oil patches on the road maybe.

On cold tires. I never accelerate out of corner. do it on straights to heat them up.

Time to get body massage :D
 
#10 ·
My work alarm went off, so I'm up to login and report my absence (I work at a school, but I am a specialist, so no sub for me).

Well, it's about $1000 in fairing damage. that's with a partzilla discount. a pro mechanic buddy will fix the throttle housing and put new cables in for me and look the bike over. but to make the blade look new again, the mid cowl, gas tank cover, front fairing, and side air duct all need to be replaced.
the mid cowl is $230ish, gas tank cover about the same, and so is the front fairing that houses the windscreen. $750 right there. oh and the brembo lever (pazzo) has a nice about of nub worn down, $50 for a new one.

my coolant overflow hose came undone. Not sure if it's stll on the bike or two blocks from my house. other than that, and a little scuff on the CF Jardine exhaust I think it's all ok.

time to let my dogs out, let's see how much more my hip hurts lol.

Oh, road was clean, no oil. it was too much throttle for the lean angle on the brand new tires (sigh). pressures were 34 psi cold front/36 rear. which is what I run for street commuting this time of year. and yes that is a 200/50.
 
#14 ·
So on a normal tire, even slicks what are you supposed to do to avoid a high side, when you feel it slip?

Even though I stayed home today, I ended up changing a few tires for friends, and helping out with brakes for another buddy.

one of them is an AFM racer and he was mentioning that with the brand new, cold tire, I really didn't have a chance to save it. I guess a low side would have been better.

gonna go shop chinese ebay fairing kits now.
 
#16 · (Edited)
So on a normal tire, even slicks what are you supposed to do to avoid a high side, when you feel it slip?

Even though I stayed home today, I ended up changing a few tires for friends, and helping out with brakes for another buddy.

one of them is an AFM racer and he was mentioning that with the brand new, cold tire, I really didn't have a chance to save it. I guess a low side would have been better.

gonna go shop chinese ebay fairing kits now.
Pretty much IMO too ... There's no part of the tire that could have caught (cold+tire wax) consistently enough for you to get out of the predicament once it started. I high-sided on a mountain bike out on Saratoga Gap trail once .. ended up in the ER with w/ a blown out knee that slammed into a rock further down the hillside I flew over...

I was attempting to low-side to get out of a bad situation .. I guess the big thing is really committing to laying it down and putting your weight and body down with the bike... I feel like the high side comes when you get that genius moment that makes you think can recover it without the bike fully 'catching traction' yet... So, you try to counter the low-side .. tire still hasn't gotten traction.. horiz momentum shifts to high side.. you are still slightly pitched to the low side .. tire gets into unstable wobble (opposing forces + forward pull <|>).. catches traction and pitches you to the high side. So, it seems like theres an art to it ...

First thing I did when I got used to the 1000rr is get in the habit of doing controlled slips of the rear tire under aggressive leaning to learn the feel of it ... and how to recover.. I would say preventing high sides takes practice slipping your rear and learning how to gradually control increased slips. Your muscle memory gets used to all of the zones of slippage and thus you just master how to negate a high side.

TLDR : Once you lose traction on the rear... Continue with input until the tire catches traction : Reserve steering input and directional correction until the rear catches traction into the slippage angle. It's that front tire (with traction) crossing up the rear (without traction) that causes the big trouble.

Here's a good save attempt (tried to wait steering input changes as long as he could but still too aggressively applied steering input change) :


P.S - I'm still learning ;)
 
#15 ·
Highsides are really hard to save... once the bike slides past the point of no return, gotta hope for it to keep sliding and lowside out from underneath you. The right thing to do is to stay on the throttle and maybe modulate it down just a tad. Sounds like you did that, but it all happens so quickly - very hard to be smooth and not chop.

You ride track quite a bit. I'd recommend just keeping the fairings as is... zip ties are magical. But Chinese fairings are also not bad - I had them on my bike for a while... they'll crumble when you go down next time though.

Glad you're OK, watch your head over the next few days.
 
#17 ·
If you ride dirt bikes a lot, then in theory it's easy. It's exactly like a power slide in the dirt. You feather the throttle, but you don't chop it all at once. The difference is that on a street bike, especially with brand new tires, there's not as much traction, and there's more power and more weight, and it happens too quickly. The natural instinct is to chop the throttle, resulting in the high side.
 
#19 ·
live and learn. EDIT: twist of the wrist vol. 2 is a really good read for all these types of situations. it may help with understanding everything going on. to sum it up, the bike will correct itself so ride it out without making inputs that will unsettle its chassis or traction . anyways, glad you are ok and not discouraged.
 
#21 ·
Sorry to hear about your get off but if you rode dirt you might have learned to save it by turning into the slide. Chopping the throttle without turning into the slide is a sure high side. Dirt is more forgiving in a situation like that but the principle is the same. Turning into the slide and feathering the throttle will keep the bike leaning in the same plane. Hope you feel better and be safe out there.
 
#22 ·
Time in the dirt is great for the street and track. I still ride a CR 250 and that little smoker will spin up very fast.
If there was enough traction for the rear to re grip and high side you then there was enough grip to not chop and ride it out. These happen quick and you have to not chop it. This morning it was cold and misting, rode my DR 650 and coming around a corner I gave it to much throttle for the conditions (and the DR has a lot of low end torque) it started to slide, I maintained throttle and had a fun power slide. Thin line between "whoot that was fun, and oh fuck!"
 
#23 ·
Thanks for the tips gentlemen. My head still hurts (at work right now), but I do feel better. I have saved it a 3-4 times, with a sliding rear tire in the rain, no issues. I keep reliving the moment mid corner I rolled on the throttle instead of maintaining, ugh! I have learned though.

and I have a six inch rear wheel. I prefer a 190/55 but this 200/50 has been sitting around so I thought I'd put it on and use it up.
 
#26 ·
Yes, the high side happened in what seemed to be, in the blink of an eye.

But I will always remember the sounds, as I was being flicked off, the rev of the throttle (as I was being thrown back), sound of rubber sliding, the crunch of plastics and that bouncing sound, then silence.

No headache today, but a little dizzy. low blood pressure runs in my family so that could be it too. My hip feels pretty good today. Time to take drugs!
 
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#29 ·
since he asked, and you mentioned about the shield coming off, does anybody know whats up with that ???? i knew a guy that happened to (he had a full one-piece suit, boots, gloves, and helmet), the shield cracked and somehow sliced his neck open (the only part of his body NOT protected..... he lived and all, but i'm just wondering is that common ??? was it open ? or not latched ?
 
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