[il_ragazzo]

Smash the gas and drift.

Have you ever ridden a 2 stroke dirt bike?

Nope i have never ridden a 2 stroke dirt bike... the closest think to a dirt bike i have ridden was some 125 Honda standard bike for during msf class and my DR650. That's kinda why I bought the DR, to get more experience on dirt. cause i always seem to end up on gravel and dirt roads.

Really? smashing the gas doesn't just make you low side? Is there some sort of range you need to be in? Like a balance between throttle, leaning and steering angle vs available traction?

something like this? :

high side(0 wheel spin)< range of wheel spinning safely<Low side(infinite wheel spin)*

*other factors that would make this a lengthy physics discussion.
Does that make sense?

[soulless kaos]

It seems you are over thinking it. Just do what feels right if you go down try to remember what you did wrong.

[il_ragazzo]

When talking about bodies in motion (especially mine) you can't over think it. This is really safety and all.... I find it hard to believe I have never heard any one talk about this in more detail. I would think this would be golden stuff to learn for track riders.

[scottynoface]

When talking about bodies in motion (especially mine) you can't over think it. This is really safety and all.... I find it hard to believe I have never heard any one talk about this in more detail. I would think this would be golden stuff to learn for track riders.

Yes, you are overthinking it.

You do whatever it takes to keep the bike moving forward in the right direction.

I'm not rec. you go out drifting...just that in an extremely limited set of scenarios staying in it might be the best idea.

[ncj_23]

Roll on the throttle. Try to get the bike upright, meaning no counter sreer. If turning left while this happends you would drop your left knee more and push the bike up to the right. Dont let off the throttle and do not touch the front break. If your in a leaning turn sliding and slam the throttle your chances of low sliding are more than drifting. As far as where to roll the throttle. Act as if you were going to blip it or a quick rev and hold it. Nothing crazy. The idea is to transfer more weight to the back tire.

[il_ragazzo]

Forgive me for over thinking things , but I feel like we have a way to handle quite a few scenarios; like locking up the rear wheel, head shake, too fast in a corner ect... all of those are single person accidents that happen all the time, and we have techniques for countering each of those mistakes. What makes the inevitable rear wheel slip any different? I'd just like to understand the mechanics behind what to do just in case it happens and I have the wits about me to do something about it. I'd rather know and not have time to use it, than not know have the time to use it but can't because I don't know. catch my drift? ( see what I did there? funny huh?)

This idea makes sense.Try and get the bike more upright by hanging off which should increase contact patch, try to get more weight on the rear means better traction. This seems like something one could benefit from knowing doesn't it? Thanks guys

[ErrEs]

The fact that your rear tire is bigger than your front makes it want to go round the front tire. Combined with counter steering that's the physics behind cornering. You control this with your right wrist. The more you twist, the more it will try to get round. You need to control the power on the rear tire and combine that with the wheight shifting when acc/braking.

[muffinman]

I think the worst thing you could do in that scenario is get off the throttle. You pretty much have to stay committed to it or your going down. When I rind my friends VFR this happens quite a bit. It has a lot more torque then my kat and a lot of times when I corner I forget and get on the throttle hard causing the back end to drift out. My kat has done it a few times in rain or going from unpaved to a paved road. If you were to freak out and let off the throttle then I definitely think it would end up in a high side.

The best way to learn is usually through experience. Close calls make you a better rider the next time it happens.

[Spyderturbo007]

My new Pilot Road 2 tires were installed last week and I have about 50 miles on them so far. But now I'm scared every time I go around a corner again. I was just starting to have a good time with the corners and now I find myself trying to stay away from them.

All of my confidence has vaporized and I fell like I'm back where I started 3,000 miles ago.

[Psycho1]

Don't worry too much about the corners with those PR2's in it. Once they are scrubbed in, unless you hit some sort of foreign substance (sand, dirt oil etc) in the corner, I doubt you will ever get them to lose grip on the street, especially on a heavy low powered Kat. One thing I noticed was a few people mentioned they would have let off the throttle in the rear tire sliding situation, however panicing and slamming the throttle closed when the rear tire was sliding could easily cause the rear tire to grip suddenly, causing you to highside. I've always read that the best thing to do is maintain the current throttle setting, and try to get the bike back upright to get more contact patch on the road smoothly. Worst case scenario with the throttle constant, would be a lowside, which hurts much less than being catapulted 15-20' in the air then having the bike land or flip on top of you. Maybe one of our exprienced road racers (like OldandSlow) could give us his insight on this.

[Flounder]

You did exactly what you should have if you exited the corner safely and didn't hit anything. Don't doubt yourself, and remember this is the exact kind of experience you were talking about not having before the skid! Overthinking it next time is probably more dangerous than using your reflexes. Your reflexes were spot on, and you probably countersteered without realizing because it felt natural and your brain is an AMAZING physics calculator. Kudos!

[Addiction]

Hi. New here. Wanna cough up a point.

In the MSF class they teach you to stand the bike up straight before decelerating/braking. The reason, they said, is that those things disrupt the leaned-over physics of a bike.

So at the very least, not interrupting your turn with braking or decelerating gives the back tire a chance to re-grab. Whatever upset it could be temporary: a patch of oil, sand, or paint stripe. Likewise, gunning the throttle could also let the tire take advantage of the break of traction to continue to spin, spin, spin.

On a dirt bike I've saved my ass many times by rolling the throttle back. I think that's a different beast, though. A dirt bike is always in some state of broken traction that you're constantly correcting.

So ultimately, if the break of traction is temporary then the best thing to do is stay the course. Correct steering as need be but keep your output as constant as possible in hopes that it locks back up.

But like many said, it's different in every situation.

Tell ya this: it was 20F and my old-ass tires were hard as rocks. I stopped, made a right turn, when my 90 degree turn was 89 degrees finished I rolled on the accelerator and that crazy old back tire decided it wanted to lead. Happened in a flash. I have never heard a sound worse than the side of a bike grinding down the road.

So when it broke traction the best choice for me would have been to throttle down, had there been time. So... it's different in every situation.

Thanks for reading.

[Zone07]

something similar happened to me; I had my back tire go over what felt like a rock while on an angle. The bike skipped, I panicked and roll on the throttle. The bike straighten out.

[mektek]

The macadam doesn't have very good traction to begin with. The age of the tire is not such a huge deal - I used a 20 year old metzeler for a long time and it only became a problem when it started cracking between the tread blocks and sidewalls When it started to leak through a crack I retired it - still with some rubber left.

[Kreylyn]

The macadam doesn't have very good traction to begin with. The age of the tire is not such a huge deal - I used a 20 year old metzeler for a long time and it only became a problem when it started cracking between the tread blocks and sidewalls When it started to leak through a crack I retired it - still with some rubber left.

*looks at location*

Aahhh...

Krey