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Anatomy Of A Highside


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This was posted on Triumph675.net and has been making its rounds around the Internet.

 

http://www.triumph675.net/forum/showthread.php?p=533235

 

The photographer did an excellent job of capturing this crash in motion.

 

The reason I'm posting it here is because I noticed something interesting when someone made this animated GIF of it...it wasn't as easy to see in the stills, but when the shots are lined up, it becomes obvious.

 

829b6f590add84ac06e8584e56f0ff5a.gif

 

The bike begins to pitch in earnest in frame 5 of the animation. Can you spot the "survival reaction" in frame 4? :o

 

Rider was OK, by the way. :)

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This was posted on Triumph675.net and has been making its rounds around the Internet.

 

http://www.triumph675.net/forum/showthread.php?p=533235

 

The photographer did an excellent job of capturing this crash in motion.

 

The reason I'm posting it here is because I noticed something interesting when someone made this animated GIF of it...it wasn't as easy to see in the stills, but when the shots are lined up, it becomes obvious.

 

829b6f590add84ac06e8584e56f0ff5a.gif

 

The bike begins to pitch in earnest in frame 5 of the animation. Can you spot the "survival reaction" in frame 4? :o

 

Rider was OK, by the way. :)

 

Squirrels, good observation on the SR, yeah, it's clear!

 

CF

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Squirrels, good observation on the SR, yeah, it's clear!

 

CF

Well as I look at F4 & F5, it looks like he chopped the throttle? Did I win anything here?

 

Rain

 

A cookie, I'll give it to you next time you come to the school :).

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Interesting. I see where folks note I chopped the throttle. Yet the slide sideways continues for some distance and time beyond that point. Thoughts? Did the rear end get light with the momentary chop, which in turn caused the rear wheel to spin faster and more sideways instead of immediately hooking up? If I had not chopped, would it had hooked up sooner possibly saving the highside? Funny thing is I didn't think I had chopped the throttle really, in my mind when it was happening. But from the photos, apparently, I did. I know I was (in my mind) not panicking, but instead I was looking at my next apex point (the 9/10 complex at Chuckwalla is an "S" bend curve that leads from a left turn to a right turn, which is why my eyes are then looking to the right) for that split second trying to will myself to get straight and get there, but to no avail.

 

As a side note: The throttle chop was only one of several mistakes in that corner for me it seems. First was poor line selection that put me in an area of the track that full of fine dust. In the first few photos, you can see the trail of dust as my knee puck slides. Reason: I was experimenting with going deep into the corner for a different line through the 9/10 complex. Obviously not a good move. At least I can now attest to that. Second problem seems to me was that I didn't have my body mass far enough off the side of the bike, which increased lean angle of the bike itself in an already off-camber corner. If I had the bike just a little more upright at the same speed, maybe I could have had more contact patch on the track and avoided the slide to being with.

 

Oh well, at least I have some cool pics to teach my kid what "not" to do at Chuckwalla.

 

Cheers!

Al

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I would guess that it a) takes some time from you close the throttle until the wheel loses momentum, B) that it takes even more time for the wheel to regain traction and c) that it also takes time to compress the suspension once the tyre starts gripping before it can rebound and send you flying.

 

But as per usual I could be wrong.

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Squirrels, good observation on the SR, yeah, it's clear!

 

CF

Well as I look at F4 & F5, it looks like he chopped the throttle? Did I win anything here?

 

Rain

 

A cookie, I'll give it to you next time you come to the school :).

 

Good form sir.

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Hey Al, good to see you here. I think it is very important that you understand what you did wrong to cause the problem and it seems you have a good understanding of the factors.

 

 

In any case, I think once the rear broke loose it continued to slide simply due to momentum. Once the bike broke sideways and began to slide momentum and possibly the additional load place on the tire because of the engine braking cause it to continue to slide.

 

So what should you have done? I'm not sure chopping the the throttle earlier would have helped. Typically in a slide like that once you feel it start to go the best thing you can do is ease out of the throttle just a little. The problem with chopping the throttle at any time is it is going to cause the rear tire to hook up abruptly. If you could have just stayed in the throttle a little you MIGHT have been able to ride out the slide because the rear tire might not have hooked up so abruptly.

 

I think that would have been a tough one to save in any case. When the track is dusty like that I would think the back end would come around pretty quick...

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Thanks for the welcome! Yeah its funny that I've now seen my photos on about 20 different forums :lol: . And there's all sorts of folks critiquing what I should or should not have done. But on this forum, I figured there would be folks who might actually know a little something :lol: Thanks so much for the input! I'm going to get out there to do the school later this year for my first time.

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