Crashed today, gear played a huge part in survival.

Happy to hear you missed the trees, and that you are okay-ish. I presume you are more stiff and sore today than when working on the video. Hope mama and the kids are being supportive.

I agree, the front end pushed when it hit the sand and dropped instantly.

I'd guess the only comment of merit to make here is the conditions in shadows early in the season are suspect.... still likely to be sand and debris in the low spots. Your speed looked like it might have been a (small) tad high; if you had scouted the route to look for stuff before you started pushing the pace, it's possible you could have identified the limited traction.

This is not meant as criticism -- hopefully we can all gain something from the event. My advice to anyone riding at pace in the early part of spring is to limit your lines to ones that stay in the tracks that car tires have already cleared of debris. Two track vehicles will scrub the pavement clear of [email protected] much sooner where their tires work, than on the rest of the surface.

Using the whole lane (or whole road) is not a practical approach when the absolute limit of traction is an unknown. Conditions in the spring are NOT the same as they were last fall.... assumptions about the state of the surface will lead to choices that are not optimal. Best to know exactly what you are dealing with, before you go at it hammers and tongs.

Traction is best on clean pavement.

Traction is actually created by the tires of other vehicles scrubbing the pavement. When the tires interact with the road, they compress and stretch out.... that's what cleans the pavement.

As the transisiton is made from bad road conditions to good, there is a period where it's not completely in either state, and it takes time for the process to be completed. It happens most quickly in cities that have street sweepers.

In the country, it may take a couple of months after the sand is laid for it to be completely removed from any part of the road that a motorcycle may try to take advantage of. Caution is advised.

Aggressive line choices will result in the bike's contact patches sweeping all the way through the clean areas, into those that are not in a two track vehicle's two lines of travel. If you are at significant lean angles and are using the traction of your tires to overcome gravity.............. you may hit that patch of marbles with no margin.

The secondary effect to consider is that the munge on the road will get washed away from where it is laid, and will pool in places before it is rinsed off the road. This is the really fine silt from the sand. It will often accumulate on the lower edge of the inside of corners -- right around the apex.

Advice? When facing unknown traction levels, 'stick' to the clean pavement. Choose your lines so your wheels stay in the tire track areas that cars have already cleaned off. Open up your lines as the roads get more and more clear.

RJ2112 said:

Happy to hear you missed the trees, and that you are okay-ish. I presume you are more stiff and sore today than when working on the video. Hope mama and the kids are being supportive.

I agree, the front end pushed when it hit the sand and dropped instantly.

I'd guess the only comment of merit to make here is the conditions in shadows early in the season are suspect.... still likely to be sand and debris in the low spots. Your speed looked like it might have been a (small) tad high; if you had scouted the route to look for stuff before you started pushing the pace, it's possible you could have identified the limited traction.

This is not meant as criticism -- hopefully we can all gain something from the event. My advice to anyone riding at pace in the early part of spring is to limit your lines to ones that stay in the tracks that car tires have already cleared of debris. Two track vehicles will scrub the pavement clear of [email protected] much sooner where their tires work, than on the rest of the surface.

Click to expand...

Yeah this morning sucks for soreness.

I appreciate the support & kind words, I will get back on two wheels as soon as insurance does their thing.

I agree I could have scouted the road, I did know there would be gravel/loose dirt in places I was riding in California, and yes CA/NV sand, salt, etc, this road however was clean, minus the run off from the mountain / rock slides. The only problem with scouting this road, is I wasn't looking to "push" myself on it, because I already knew it was a bad road I was only passing through, I was under the road speed limit at time of crash, I was riding closer to center lane because there were a lot of pedal bikers on the road doing a lot of stupid things so I didn't want to hit any, the road is also very narrow, superview on the gopro distorts that, so I stayed away from the far outside lane in the blind corners... So I agree 100% to some of the comments above, I just had a bad hand of cards and there was no way to clear the table...

In my mind though I was already under speed, and assumed 40mph into a 50-60mph corner wouldn't be an issue IF there were to be gravel/loose dirt. I was wrong.

Here are some pictures of the bike after.