It is advice my father gave to me when I first was learning to drive. It was in reference to dealing with a bad situation such as hydroplaning and driving onto ice and it has become the one constant in understanding any high stress situation for me regarding just about anything but primarily driving and riding.
In a hydroplane situation you typically don't want to do anything, every high performance instructor I've ever had has always said to maintain inputs and wait the slide out. Any seemingly minor change of input will lead to a drastic change as the vehicle regains traction and it never ends well.
The same is true for a motorcycle, but the rules apply to a lot more than just major situation. Any drastic change of input can obviously result in a crash on a bike, but minor changes or the act of doing nothing on a motorcycle usually is what leads to a crash.
Over the years I have seen a lot of crashes and quite a few on motorcycles. Of all of those 3 motorcycle crashes have occurred directly in front of me and all 3 had a similar sequence of events that lead to the crash. In the last few seconds all 3 of these riders simply stopped riding. (One even put his arms into the air directly above his head.) All 3 could have simply stopped or looked through the turn and would have been fine, but they flinched in their mind and gave up.
I once took a bike down a trail only to find the road disappeared ahead into a 6 foot drop. I leaned back and gave a little gas and landed hard. I mentally had to say "Oh crap I am still going" and got on the gas or I would have fell over and crashed!!
I didn't only because I didn't give up.
On Sunday I met up with a group of guys to help support a triathlon by carrying judges on the back of our bikes. We arrived on time but the organization of the event was not exactly as we were expecting and the rider who was to show us the course gave a hurried description and then said to follow him.
He popped on his sportbike (with sneakers :( ) and jumped onto the course. Here is where me in a hurry, put myself into a very bad situation. I started out of the parking lot, he went straight onto the street and flopped right. I decided to round the corner a bit and then understood the reason he did what he did was that he was too close to the rise of the curb. I had a split second to decide and had to much forward motion to turn hard right onto the sidewalk, so I straightened and gave my bike some gas. The amount of gas I gave the bike saved me, as if I would have done nothing the oil pan would have cause the rear to lever and I would have fallen off the bike.
As you see above the concrete shaved a little off the pan, but not overreacting meant I continued on with the day and no one was the wiser.
Well, in reality I am better for sure. Never again will I be pushed to keep up with someone that didn't plan things properly. If not I know I will pay the price personally. It is in my control to do things the proper way and I should have done better!
On the positive side the guys that volunteered for the event had a blast, were highly professional and were rewarded in the end!
Thanks for a great day and I can't wait for the next one!!
