Had My First Accident :( Thoughts?

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

So what? Surely something which can very possibly save your life is worth some minor discomfort?

Its not that straight forward is it, the bike might fall and harm you whilst practising locking the front, could be out of work for a while etc etc.

Training bars are a bloody good idea.

[yorkie_chris]

Nah if you do it right you are very unlikely to crash, well worth the risk to do it.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

So what? Surely something which can very possibly save your life is worth some minor discomfort?

Given the extremely high chance that I'd drop it, the comfort wouldn't be so minor. I'd rather stick to practising not locking it up in the first place.

If you are comfortable with your ability to practise it then great...however less experienced folk like me are, in my opinion, in their rights not to practise it until they feel comfortable doing so.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Nah if you do it right you are very unlikely to crash, well worth the risk to do it.

Please elaborate!

[yorkie_chris]

Couple of ways to do it,

one, riding along in a safe area, smack the front brake on hard and immediately release it. It will lock, you will crap yourself a bit, but it will tell you what a lock feels like and build up the instinct to release the brake when it does lock. Which is important.
The chance of falling off is absolutely minimal, the front can go quite a way out of line and still be recoverable... but you're only locking it for a split second, so it's safe.

The second way is to just practice emergency stops as hard as you can. It's safer than hurtling towards a car and trying it as most people do in practice (and it hurts). But there is still a chance of falling off if you lock it and do not release it immediately.
But, this is quite realistic, very useful, and if you gradually build up the aggression of braking then you are all the time improving your capabilities.

If your capabilities and/or confidence are low, then even starting gently is improving your skills yes?


An important concept is loading the front wheel. You need to get weight onto it to provide grip, so you need to brake gently for a moment to allow the squishy forks to compress, then you can progressively squeeze harder. The progression in the second bit can be very fast, once the forks are compacted then the weight transfer is near immediate.
In terms of finger movement what you do is quickly pull the lever to the point where it starts to bite (i.e take the slack up in the system) then put a bit of pressure on, then start putting more pressure on.

The part where you're putting more pressure on, the front tyre is buried in the tarmac, the bike is slowing rapidly and you need to try and relax your arms so grip the tank.


Lots of info, but by practising this in controlled environment you can practice each facet of it on it's own with full concentration available and that will result in real world ability that is VERY useful.

Thanks YC, breaking it down like that really helps.

Reckon I might have to give this a go, hopefully not when there are cars around

[yorkie_chris]

Like I say, learn a little bit at a time.

Guaranteed you will be shocked at just how hard you can stop.

i agree with what YC is saying,

i have practice'd locking the back up as well as the front in the dry and wet so i know what to do and what it feels like when i do lock up, and now i dont panic half as much when it happens for real.

just the same as wheelies get used to them and they dont seem as scary when you do it by accident

[keith_d]

I have a funny feeling that an accident like yours, but involving damage to the car, has been through the courts and they ruled that the filtering biker might reasonably expect cars to come through a big gap opposite a side road. So both parties bore some liability for failing to spot the other, in other words 50/50 is probably the best you could expect.

I don't know, but I wouldn't expect much change from £50 for a genuine Suzuki brake pedal. That's still less than your insurance excess, and you can respray the lowers at your leisure.

Definitely not worth involving the insurance companies IMO.

Keith.

[kaivalagi]

Yeah, thanks Keith....genuine brake lever is about £60. After a quick wash of the damaged areas of the bike the fairing doesn't look so bad...need to wait for proper daylight light though so we shall see. Not sure I can polish out the scratches on the exhaust and I will need a foot peg, crash bung plastic and a front right indicator unit too

I'll be adding up the cost to replace all the parts for as new (the bike is a 2010 L0 so was pristine) and weighing that up against a 50/50 claim excess and premium hikes. I'll also be looking at bare essentials that are needed too and then take it all from there.

What I really need to know is how much I might lose in the long term on trade in, and whether it's worth going full monty with the repairs and insurance or not...I am assuming if I did trade in with a scratched exhaust and front fairing I would lose the cost of the replacements and labour off the trade in price right? Or would it not be so much of a loss? I was expecting to trade in at the end of this year so the bike would be almost 2 years old by then