In the land of Nod

No, but you *do* have a CG125 (MSOHP) which, while undeniably real,
may not, in fact, be a bike in any meaningful sense of the word

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l. Really, Sprint 1.7
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Well... I'm not a racing expert; or even fan come to that. I think as a
spectator sport bike racing's pretty boring. It's interesting seeing
what people can actually manage on a bike, but only vaguely.

However, my understanding is;

lowside: too fast into a corner, bike leans over, rear wheel or front
wheel starts to slide sideways and bike skates away from you dumping you
on the track but you've not really fallen that far.

highside: similar to lowside to start with (rear wheel slip) but then
the rear wheel grips again, brings the bike upright and bucks the rider
off; often propelling them into the air some distance.

Of course, as in most things (apart from plural's) I'm probably wrong.

 

Now that's what I had thought. Is there a special exclusion for offs
executed by wankers on L-plates locking the back brake?

 

I recall at least one top racer (hmmm. Itoh? Ukawa?) who broke his
wrist in a highside, even tho he stayed on the bike and didn't crash.

 

I fear that no useful purpose will be served by attempting rational debate
with an Alfa driver. ;-)

 

I feel inadequate now...

 

This is true, but the word highside has come to mean a particular sort
of crash event. It goes like this:

- You're coming out of a corner, feeling like god [1], leant over hard
but starting to wind on the gas to accelerate down the straight.
- the back tyre breaks traction, and starts to slide sideways,
"hanging the back out" (like a rally car does). The bike is not now
pointing the way it is travelling
- you detect this and shut the throttle (bad move) - now two things
happen:
- the rear tyre grips, but because it's at least sideways-on to the
direction of the bike's travel, it causes the bike to 'stand up' ie.
go from leaning over to upright, *and*
- the transfer from weight on the back (under acceleration) to weight
on the front (shut throttle) causes the rear suspension to uncompress.
- these two effects the pop the rider into the air at some velocity -
people exxagerate, but a big highside can easily be 10 feet in the
air.
- gravity notices you up in the air and brings you back to earth at
9.8m/s/s. This "straight down into the tarmac" impact tends to be
rather painful, and generally causes much worse injuries than an easy
"slip off at full lean and slide along the track for 50m" crash.

hth

[1] not necessarily, but over-confidence is a sure-fired way to get
yerself highsided

 

<rapturous applause>

Er, I don't think I *quite* managed to see exactly what was going on there.

Any chance you could do another in the next race?

 

http://static.userland.com/images/cafeRacers/Randy.jpg

http://venus.13x.com/roadracingworld/pages/Highsid.jpg

HTH

 

Woah! Thanks.

The resemblance to spacewalking is uncanny. I sense a conspiracy theory
coming on....

 

Didn't give me the horn.

 

<snip explanation>

Cool, I got it (approximately) right.

It's fucking painful since it's what I did when I last dropped a bike
properly[1]. I think I fell from quite a height onto my back, possibly
landing on a car on my way down; breaking by shoulder blade.

[1] It only counts if you end up in hospital. I hate to think how many
times I've done this; 6 I *think*. Still that's only once every four
years so it's not so bad.

 

There's a bunch of them here :
http://www.zx-12r.org/Motorcycle_info/Motorcycle Movies/Motorcycle Movies Page.htm,

the best of which is :
http://www.zx-12r.org/Motorcycle_info/Motorcycle Movies/Highside7.mpeg

Owuch. Should get a perfect 6.0 for height on that one - at one point
he is upside down, vertical, with his hands touching the bars.

No. It fucking hurts.

 

He's Randy, not you.

 

Nah, you lie about it

You are most likely to lowside in that scenario though I *think* I
know I did

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l. Really, Sprint 1.7
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

<snip>

Aye, but I couldn't be arsed to type all that, and was pretty sure I'd
get it wrong. Nice to know knew it though IYSWIM

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l. Really, Sprint 1.7
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Oh dear. You;re gonna fir *right* in round here :>

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l. Really, Sprint 1.7
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Got the needle?

 

That'll spruce things up a bit.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19

 

Oh *arse*

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l. Really, Sprint 1.7
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk