Hold on, or Bail?

Something that I was talking to Jax about that made me wonder how many other people are like me. So lets start...
When you cash the bike or have some sort of accident do you hang on, like Jax does?
Or like me, have you bailed off the moment the bike went beyond that point of no-return ensuring your far away from that heavy metal?

I'm interested as in 10 years of riding, 'touch wood' I've managed to brake only my thumb. Even after numerous accidents, mainly in the early years on the 125 that is my worst injury. I'm not counting the bike falling of the car transporter and stuffing my knee.

I've never had a choice in the matter, the bike's always dumped me and made it's bid for freedom.

Not sure why you'd want to hang on?

[northwind]

I'm not sure it's something I've ever had any rational control over. When I binned it at knockhill I was sliding away so I just let go. But when I, eh, rode it into a massive ditch, I held on while it tried to throw me off, till eventually I got kicked out of the saddle and landed sideways on teh bike, and finally slid off- I ended up about 5 feet from the bike. Worked out well for me, since I kept myself and the bike off the ground till it had lost a lot of speed, and very nearly saved it. But then. on another day it might have landed on top of me and messed up my leg.

Tend to let go and pray it keeps away from me. I usually use the trick I learnt when horse-riding - go as limp as possible to minimise broken bones.

If the bikes going down, bail out ASAP. Stay with it and you could get hit by it if it clouts something else, or if its a biggun (ooer missus) you could get caught under it (the voice of experience on that last bit, got pinned under an XS1100 Yam)

Kinda depends on the crash - but I guess I'd tend to hang on trying to save it until the last second and it threw me off - at least that's what I tended to do in most of my off-road spills, but they weren't really crashes.

In my big bad one I jumped though.

Sounds a bit dumb unless you been there, but I swear I saw that car coming from the side out of the corner of my eye and made the split second decision to just let go and jump upwards.
Good thing too as it then hit me mid shin rather than mid waist = paralysis or death rather than the bustup leg I got away with.

If I had to consciously make a decison, I would let go. My brother-in-law is a surgeon and has seen his fair share of bike accidents, but he said you should let go. Apparently some guy on an R1 had T-bone a car that pulled out on him. He hung onto the bars and the front wheel snapped sideways suddenly as it made contact. The force ripped all the tendons/nerves/(can't remember the exact medical terminology) out at his shoulder. The bottom line is the his arm is now dead. Blood still flows, bones aren't broken but you can't move it. He said it's horrible to tell a patient because they find it hard to understand why it can't be fixed and many opt for amputation.

And on that cheery note, I'm off to lunch!

Bottom line - I would Let go!

When I lowsided I didn't have much choice about it

[timwilky]

On the two occasions that I have gone down the road. I have not had the luxury of a decision. More a case of waking up at the side of the road thinking WTF just happened.


At least with the first time I had a little old man standing over me saying "I am so sorry". With the second I was just thinking why doesn't this hurt, am I dead.

In reality I doubt whether the rider has any real conscious input as even with a slow fall......matters take over at pace. Trying to hold on to the bike can only increase the potential for injury is my reasoning.

It is suggested that if you do fall off, you should try to hold your arms in to your chest to avoid damage to flailing appendages,(oooh err did that sound a tadge rude? ) But even with that, everything happens so quickly that, applying this safety measure in practise is highly unlikely.