For Breakfast - A Tiny Tankslapper

[faffi]

 

That was close

[warregl]

That was scary. A couple of weekends ago one of the TD organizations I ride with had a rider get a tank slapper coming out of the last turn onto the straight. He rode through it but when he got to turn 1 he had no brakes because the brake pads had been pushed out by the tank slapper. It ended with an airlift to the hospital.

 

A lot of the guys in the paddock were unaware that a tank slapper could do this so if it happens to you, remember to check those brakes immediately after you regain control.

[ktk_ace]

holy moly! that was waaay too close for comfort!!

[YellowDuck]

That was scary. A couple of weekends ago one of the TD organizations I ride with had a rider get a tank slapper coming out of the last turn onto the straight. He rode through it but when he got to turn 1 he had no brakes because the brake pads had been pushed out by the tank slapper. It ended with an airlift to the hospital.

 

A lot of the guys in the paddock were unaware that a tank slapper could do this so if it happens to you, remember to check those brakes immediately after you regain control.

 

This is such good advice - thank you very much for that reminder.

 

I have had one or two slappers over the years that were as violent as the one shown in this video...and it never occurred to me at the time to pump up the front brakes afterwards.

[Fajita Dave]

I love the slow motion with those camera angles. You can pretty much tell everything he did to result in a tank slapper!

 

He got the bike to a nice lean angle and started applying throttle doing a good job of not mixing the two. It looks like he applied a little to much throttle and the rear started to slide. This caused him to lift off the throttle and tense up on the handlebars which caused some headshake. The tense arms kept the headshake going for a while AND transfered it to the rear end (hense the rear bouncing all over the place too). If the rider's arms are relaxed headshake stays iscelatied to the front wheel unless the steering damper is very stiff. When he finally relaxed the bike recovered on its own. Suspension may have played a part but who knows what kind of condition its in.

[faffi]

I were thinking that perhaps what saved him was the lower friction of the sandy shoulder since that likely wouldn't be enough to allow the handlebar shake

[Hotfoot]

So... we know that unwanted bar pressure combined with a front end made light by acceleration can result in a tank slapper. When you watch the video closely, can you tell WHICH bar the rider was pushing on?

[Lnewqban]

.......When you watch the video closely, can you tell WHICH bar the rider was pushing on?

 

Hard to tell, ......but it seems that the bump made the front steer to the right, ...........so, we could assume that he was pushing hard enough with his left hand as to "encourage" the oscillation?

 

This video may be interesting to some: