OK, I have scared myself...

[andrewsmith]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

I guess the best way forward is to decide what you want out of your motorcycling. If you are just looking for thrills then I would encourage you to take yourself off the roads and take up some form of motorsport, because the public roads are no place for such behaviour simply because there are to many other people at risk by it.

If on the other hand you want to be a good motorcyclist then as Rictus says you just need to recognize that self control and discipline are far more important that bravado. There is always going to be someone who is quicker than you on the open road, but that may simply be because they are prepared to take risks you're not, and that doesn't make them "better".

Taking up a low budget racing may cure the loonacy urge a bit, but also echoing dizzy, well done for admitting u ride too fast.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

I dunno about the track bit. Fast road riding is completely different challenge to track, especially compared to bumpy twisty B roads.

For me I find the little back roads just as much fun as track and a completely different and very rewarding set of challenges.

Beauty is you set the level of risk yourself, entirely your own choice where you leave the margins. So go slow around that blind bend leaving plenty of room, but at the right revs, so when it opens up you can leather the throttle and bounce the front end in the air while the tyre struggles for grip.
big grin.

The track day vs. road riding discussion is a thread in itself
but I'm with Chris and I like the challenge of variable road conditions and the aims of the road and track are at opposite ends of the scale.

TBH as a relative newbie i'm not in the best position to comment but track days or racing may subdue the urge to go nuts on the road.

Also the Hartside pass/ alston roads catch a lot of people every year, and a lot of locals (me included last year, possibly in the same place as you).

[andrewsmith]

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

I don't half pick em, people be lucky you have two proper working legs, I am. It does seem slightly on the morbid side posting stuff like this but fact of the matter is, it happens and there are consequences all along the way.

I am, as a Friend almost lost his in a 80 mph tank slapper hitting a parked car 8 year ago, he cannot walk more than a few hundred meters without being in pain. Makes a couple of us think about what we are doing on the bikes

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Of course obs is an issue, if you had seen it earlier you would not have taken that line at that speed.

Obs is everything. If your obs fails you cannot utilise any other facet of skill or capability. No point having best brakes in the world if you do not see and react to the hazard.

I saw the gravel as soon as it appeared round the hedgerow and was in my line of sight. It was a deep and wide, the kind of stuff that sits in a dip in the road and had gravel on top and powdery dust that has settled underneath it with the rain. There was a constant supply of it being dragged out of a side road. I was there Chris, you weren't. I was riding with 5 other guys who examined the road, the gravel, and all agreed, at high speed, it was unavoidable. The only way to avoid it would have been to be going slow enough to change line significantly, or slower so that the resulting slide was not so dramatic. One guy commented that he was glad he saw my bike in the hedge and slowed down, before he saw the gravel, otherwise he thinks he would have been off too.

Obs definitely was not an issue in this accident.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

I don't half pick em, people be lucky you have two proper working legs, I am.

Every time I forget, Miss Ophic beats me with both crutches

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by andrewsmith

I am, as a Friend almost lost his in a 80 mph tank slapper hitting a parked car 8 year ago, he cannot walk more than a few hundred meters without being in pain. Makes a couple of us think about what we are doing on the bikes

Fact of the matter is, you can't wrap yourself up in cotton wool. Telling someone how to ride isn't the answer. Telling someone whose come off to go on a track day, or do this, or do that to combat this that and the other won't work either. You can't make decisions for the other drivers that are going to crash into you either. You have to judge yourself and go off and do something about it yourself...but one thing you can never do is say..
It'll never happen to me.
We can all offer advise that we think might help, end of the day its Ralph that has to advise himself. Ralph the more you analyse what went wrong the more you go round in circles, then you over compensate when you next go out, and before you know it you are questioning your riding ability as you get paranoid.

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

I saw the gravel as soon as it appeared round the hedgerow and was in my line of sight. It was a deep and wide, the kind of stuff that sits in a dip in the road and had gravel on top and powdery dust that has settled underneath it with the rain. There was a constant supply of it being dragged out of a side road.

Streetview doesn't work in that part of the world, so I can't show you exact corner, but this is the same road.

[flymo]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

I saw the gravel as soon as it appeared round the hedgerow and was in my line of sight. It was a deep and wide, the kind of stuff that sits in a dip in the road and had gravel on top and powdery dust that has settled underneath it with the rain. There was a constant supply of it being dragged out of a side road. I was there Chris, you weren't. I was riding with 5 other guys who examined the road, the gravel, and all agreed, at high speed, it was unavoidable. The only way to avoid it would have been to be going slow enough to change line significantly, or slower so that the resulting slide was not so dramatic. One guy commented that he was glad he saw my bike in the hedge and slowed down, before he saw the gravel, otherwise he thinks he would have been off too.

Obs definitely was not an issue in this accident.

Ralph, you might be missing the point on this one. The point of observations is to be able to react to what you see. If you were going too fast to react then you didnt see the obstacle early enough for that speed.

Originally Posted by flymo

Ralph, you might be missing the point on this one. The point of observations is to be able to react to what you see. If you were going too fast to react then you didnt see the obstacle early enough for that speed.

Yes, that's fair comment and I take that on board 100%

What I mean is that I'm happy that I couldn't physically have seen the obstacle any earlier, and I'm happy that I didn't miss anything visually. It's not because I wasn't paying attention to the road surface, or anything else that should be looking at.

Obs and speed obviously go hand in hand, but if the speed hadn't been there, I would have had a much better chance of avoiding the gravel, when I picked it up in my obs.

It's similar to what Rictus was saying about understanding your "Observational speed", though I don't think I was tired or slow pick the gravel up, and it's just something that I need to take away from this thread as part of a learning curve. Not something I have learned for the first time, but something I need to learn to pay more attention to.

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

I was riding with 5 other guys who examined the road, the gravel, and all agreed, at high speed, it was unavoidable. The only way to avoid it would have been to be going slow enough to change line significantly, or slower so that the resulting slide was not so dramatic.

Just to add here, last year there was a serious road salt shortage, which occurred again this year. This year however, they mixed small loose gravel in with the salt. This was never cleared up, and has left the majority of country roads rather dangerous for bikers. This may or mat not be the case where you were, however I do believe there has been a considerable amount of neglect in restoring the roads to the condition they were in before gritting this winter. They were bad enough before! So, it may have been unavoidable, not necessarily by you or I, but poor road surfaces are most definitely avoidable, as are grip-less irons and slippy painted markings. The issue is that the authorities don't care about us.

[flymo]

Its fine to make mistakes, that's where experience comes from. In our chosen sport or mode of transport though we just have to make sure that the mistakes aren't serious enough to prevent you from having another go.

I think your mishap has had a good outcome, you've walked away from an important learning opportunity a more experienced rider. Don't stop riding if you love doing it, you cant wrap yourself in cotton wool. But at the same time keep the risks under control and you'll be fine.