Saw a dude wipe out on his motorcycle this evening

Even though Milton passed through here more than a week ago, we still have water on the road.

While following someone on a sport bike this evening, he got to some of that standing water before we did. My eye seemed to lock onto his white helmet as it went down and to the right. He laid it down. We were probably a good hundred feet back. 

A few guys on bikes heading towards us stopped, and the dude was back on his bike fairly quickly. No idea how he’ll feel tomorrow, but I’m going to guess he’ll be thanking himself for wearing that helmet plus jeans, a padded jacket and gloves. 

As we passed him and the other bikers, I heard him say that he just locked up the rear and rode it down....

Straight road or on a curve?  Standing water, what might be hiding under that water, and turning in such conditions always makes me pucker and I'm the slowest guy on the road when I'm riding a motorcycle.  Hopefully he doesn't hurt too much in the morning.

The rear brake comment really confuses me but I really don't use the rear brake much at all myself.

I stopped riding when I had kids. My life is more than just me now, and I have had a few friends pass away while riding. I still miss it, but just can't justify the risk. Glad this guy was ok. 

Straight road because Florida. 

Harley? Because favoring the rear brake is definitely a cruiser thing.

In reply to Appleseed :

OP says sport bike. 

It's pretty easy to lock up the rear on a sport bike since more of the weight is on the front. 

I get that. I've had the front wash out under braking a few times and its spooky. Have it happen enough, and I can see even a sport bike rider end up dragging the rear brakes.

I've always been leery of wet pavement when riding, I had the front wash out one time and went down hard.  Standing water would be even worse.

In reply to brandonsmash :

Yup, it was a sport bike. It was green. 

grover said:

I stopped riding when I had kids. My life is more than just me now, and I have had a few friends pass away while riding. I still miss it, but just can't justify the risk. Glad this guy was ok. 

Weirdly, I feel the other way after having a kid. Not in a bad way, just that I've checked all the boxes for my life. 

Still haven't pulled the trigger on that Ducati...yet.

grover said:

I stopped riding when I had kids. My life is more than just me now, and I have had a few friends pass away while riding. I still miss it, but just can't justify the risk. Glad this guy was ok. 

Same here. I held on to the bike a couple more years and commuted in it some, but I still had so many dumb dangerous things happen around me (red light runners, tailgaters, right of way violators, left turners) so very very often that I finally made good on my self-promise to sell the bike once I had kids. I miss it sometimes, but I have the MR2 to put the top down on, and I'm more likely to survive a collision in that.

To the original story, sounds like he doesn't know how motorcycle dynamics work. Maybe an MSF class would do him some good, but he'll probably keep believing in the time he "had to lay it down." Ie, crash in order to avoid a crash.

brandonsmash said:

In reply to Appleseed :

OP says sport bike. 

It's pretty easy to lock up the rear on a sport bike since more of the weight is on the front. 

I had a GS500 that would easily lock the rear disc with little provocation. I finally asked the local motorcycle shop for their worst, least grabby pads they had.

I managed to make a safe stop every time I locked the rear brake, but when I locked the front in a panic stop, it was another story.

I've had many bikes in the last 35 years, but the last one I bought has linked brakes and extremely good ABS and it so much fun to slam on the brakes and let the bike do its thing ... even when leaning. Just got to be careful when I go back to my 2000 R1 ...

Its hard to drop a bike when locking up the rear brake on a straight line though.

Kid across the street broke his collar bone in a bike crash  6 weeks ago ,  

Healed up and back on his bike , .....

Ohh he was caught 6 months ago running away from the police at 120mph at 2am ,

got a slap on the wrist and 2 years probation......

Play safe !

Slippery said:

...the last one I bought has linked brakes and extremely good ABS and it so much fun to slam on the brakes and let the bike do its thing...

What bike?  My 6th gen VFR had linked brakes and I liked those although they were annoying to flush & bleed and added more weight and complexity to a bike that was already kind of full of those things.  Didn't get ABS, didn't know how good it would be as it seemed like an early iteration.  Z900rs of mine has ABS but no linked brakes.  Not sure which I think is of greater value.

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

Slippery said:

...the last one I bought has linked brakes and extremely good ABS and it so much fun to slam on the brakes and let the bike do its thing...

What bike?  My 6th gen VFR had linked brakes and I liked those although they were annoying to flush & bleed and added more weight and complexity to a bike that was already kind of full of those things.  Didn't get ABS, didn't know how good it would be as it seemed like an early iteration.  Z900rs of mine has ABS but no linked brakes.  Not sure which I think is of greater value.

2021 S1000RR

I never liked the linked brakes that I experienced before on other bikes, but these work very well.

grover said:

I stopped riding when I had kids. My life is more than just me now, and I have had a few friends pass away while riding. I still miss it, but just can't justify the risk. Glad this guy was ok. 

Me too.

Now that the kids are grown and I'm facing retirement, I've thought about getting a bike again. 
 

Girlfriend says absolutely not.

I like my girlfriend. 😊

Alternative opinion here:

I rode before I got married to the practice wife, and continued to ride and raise 2 kids. Continued to ride with wife #2 as we raised our kid. It was never implied, nor was I asked to stop riding in either relationship. I've bought and sold many motorcycles over the years, and there are currently 8 in the garage. 5 are mine, 2 for the wife, and 1 for my 12yr old daughter.

I've continued to ride 500-750mi a month over all those years, including trackdays and racing motorcycles. I didn't ride like an ass-hat prior to marriage and kids, and just kept that up with the kids. It helps that there isn't a riding season where I live, cars see us everyday.

I'm a motorcycle safety instructor and understand the risks more than most, and as such pride myself on managing the internal and external hazards. It's been at least a decade since I had a close call with another vehicle, and easily a decade to the one before that.

I can appreciate the decisions others feel they must make and would never give someone E36 M3 for their choice to ride or not.

Ride safe everybody.

Last summer on an epic trip to the mountains, saw the remains of a bike crash in Wyoming. Based on what I saw, the bike ran wide in a corner and hit an suv. Since we passed by it after sitting about an hour for the road to open, kind of expect the worst of that one. 
 

Later, on the return, we saw what looked to be a single bike crash without a helmet. Given the guys running at him after he put it down, it may have been a test from a shop. We didn't stop since there were plenty of people already there, but it sure looked bad. 
 

Don't want to be a part of that. 

I kept reading this as dude wipes.  I wasn't sure what the content would be...

Glad I actually read the title.

In reply to SV reX :

Interchange wife with girlfriend.

In reply to Appleseed :

That's funny, but nope. I ain't giving her up. 
 

She's the kind of woman most guys WISH they had!  The wedding will be in the Spring. 

Nearly ironic timing for this thread. I ride all the time. Haven't had anything near a close call on the street in forever. I put some new tires on the 990 over the weekend and rode in to work this morning. There's a grade separation on the way in that's got this nice 90 right into a banked uphill left-right-left onto the higher road that is always fun no matter what vehicle you're in or on, and that new rear tire let go as soon as I started rolling on the throttle to come out of the first 90. It's a good thing I am so used to bikes sliding around.

Checked the tires over when I got back home because I've run tons of these over the years and never had a dry pavement traction problem, even though they're pretty knobby. The rear tire is date coded 4508. Somehow I got a rear tire that is 16 years old!

I only started riding in my 40s. I'm 59 now. I mostly ride the opposite of how I drive. Cars=10/10ths. Bikes= 5/10ths. Plus, none of my bikes are particularly fast. No sport bikes for me. Riding is a leisure activity, not really a sporting one. But, even being a careful, doddering old guy you can't plan for every oil patch on a corner.

That broken hand was a several-hours surgery involving metal parts and a cadaver donation. I did the PT though, and fully recovered. Still ride; I just view corners a bit differently now. 

I didn't 'ask' if I could buy a motorcycle. I'm an adult. I now have four. She won't ride on any of them; that's her decision. Riding has contributed positively to my mental health and probably helped me stay married. Those who ride probably understand. I'm sure I'll give it up someday when it's too hard to balance or throw a leg over. Until then, I'll risk the occasional 'off'.