Owning a high dollar Duke, does not mean you can ride a High $ Duke..
 

well for that matter owning a low budget bike doesn't mean you can ride IT either - and at least you look better sliding on the pertier bike. that front brake is touchy I guess. On the other hand I think most of it will buff right out.
Lucky he was moving slowly or that crash site would have been ugly

I think you mean "Duc".

That guy is glad he hit the guard rail on a low side. He is lucky he didn't get High sided and pitched over the guard rail. He wold have needed a parachute to save him there. WOW.

He even got his head stuck under the guard rail for a second

I thought this was going to be a KTM bike not a Duc!

Here's another example....14 thousand dollar bike....

Pretty much anyone that lives in Southern California has ridden that corner. It can be very entertaining to spend an afternoon at the "overlook" That corner catches a lot of riders out. ‘The Snake’ bites back with countless motorcycles crashes on Mulholland drive [Videos] I must admit to always cruising through that corner. Mostly because there are always so many eyes on you watching.

At least they're riding these nice motorcycles and don't just have them posted up on a stand in their living room!

I'd park in the living room if my wife would let me...:(

Haha! My living room's up a flight of stairs... never thought about riding it up there...

But would you put blue tape on those precious Italian lights?

Strange ... from the slow-mo part it looks like his front wheel just tucked under.

And looking at the barfed up armco he weren't the first to stuff it in there.

+1
I haven't ridden Mulholland since the early '80s, and back then there weren't photographers and video up there... thus, there was a lot less traffic, even though it was popular to hang out at The Rock Store.

I prefer to ride slightly less crowded canyon roads on weekdays, which I can do, since I'm retired.;)

Plus, it's a hell of a freeway drone up to Mulholland from Orange County.

And yeah, it looks to me like the Duc rider grabbed too much front brake. I agree with cliby.

notice the black skid mark his front wheel left as he goes forward going down - he just touched the front brakes a bit too hard while leaned over and that is why it tucked.

There seems to be a fair amount of footage of people putting their bikes down in that spot. There is another one of a guy on a yellow ZX10 who's front wheel tucks with hardly any lean in it (wasn't braking). Something is going on with that surface.

I used to ride the Ortega Highway (I think that's what it's called) when I was at El Toro in the late 70's. I imagine it must be a traffic jam on the weekends by now.

That, plus lots of inexperienced riders. It was way different 25 to 30 years ago. That's why my wife (on her SV) and I only do it on weekdays, between 10am and 2pm (non commuter hours). 63 trips on Ortega so far this year.

That was such a beautiful area. Even back then it was hard to believe you could find an area like that so close to crowds. Great memories from that time. <endOfHijack/>

Close Calls Compilation - YouTube

Good compilation of near dumps on that corner... pucker factor!

If you watch the yellow ZX10 crash in slo mo, it's clear he locks up the front wheel, before he goes down.

Yep... he had a full handful of brake, all 4 fingers. You can see him release the lever as he comes off the bike.

Aside from braking errors and target fixation, the cause of these crashes is a bit of a puzzle. The pavement looks clean, consistent and in good condition. Does a change in the camber of the road cause the rear tires suddenly to spin up?

He wasn't going anywhere near fast enough to tuck because of speed. He locked up the front wheel.

In fairness to the Ducati rider, a contributing factor might have been that the rider in front of him had basically stopped in the corner which might have caused him to get on the brakes too hard.

True, but have you seen the videos of guys going wide coming downhill into the right hander on that corner... way over the double yellow. I would think that experienced riders would stay away from Mulholland on weekends, just for that reason alone.

I had a 3 shot sequence of a guy with a female passenger lowsiding on that corner posted on the bulletin board in the shop at school several years back. They're on a blue Triumph Daytona 955 going uphill in that left hander, with his wheels almost on the double yellow, then he tucks the front. Compassionately, the final shot of them sliding on the tarmac wasn't shown.

He's in a T shirt, jeans and sneakers; she's wearing a tank top, shorts and flip flops.:shock: Must have busy in the skin graft ward that afternoon.

Poster children for ATGATT.

That bike is a mix of a 1098s and rs. He bought a race ready bike and moved everything over to the s to make it streetable. There is a video of him walking and talking about the mods. Before he stuck his head under the guardrail that is. he claims he has $140k into the bike. He also makes mention of the CF swing arm he wants but it would put the bike "underweight" for racing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Z-4...layer_embedded

close calls vid......camber is definitely a factor in terms of how much traction can be achieved, but if you're referring to the ass-end sliding out, it looks like too much throttle for the lean angle and speed. Keith Code deals with the issue of how there is only a finite amount of contact patch traction/grip and this is dictated by lean angle,speed, braking, and acceleration forces. In other words, leaning, speed, braking, and acceleration all use up pieces of the contact pie and when one or more is exceeded, things start to come unraveled.

It can get somewhat complicated, but when you're on the edge of your tire at speed and traction is near maxed out, any little inputs relative to brakes, throttle, lean in, body or steering movements, etc., can be enough to ruin your day. These guys were maxed out in terms of lean and speed(effectively not much of the contact pie left) and when they added or maintained throttle before reducing lean angle, the traction pie was exceeded.

A change in camber maybe, but when you listen to the sounds of their engines, it appears that throttle exuberance, over-confidence, or just having a little too much fun was responsible for traction loss.

that guy must be embarrased to have his videos all over the web

Well back in the day.... as the kids would say....when I lived in SoCal the corner in these video was named "Squids Leap" and yes we used to sit and watch from the overlook back then also.

Like was stated in an earlier post, if you go over the guard rail, it is a long ways down.... :eek:

In fact they used to find a body at the bottom of it every couple of years or so.

The corner has a couple things that will catch you out if you are not paying attention.

The first is that there is usually a fine layer of dust on the corner. The second is that is goes a bit off camber on the exit (this is where most people run into problems and why there are so many high side videos on that site) add to that the fact that some people tend to tense up when they see the guard rail because from the bike all you can see is air..... and you end up with what you see on those videos.

Now with the crowd there, the urge to show off really adds to the number of crashes.

So in reality, most of the crashes are people riding over their head because of the cameras..... ;)

After watching that video I think there may have been a few people I would have had to follow and slap some common sense into. After riding that rode several times though it is generally the cleanest and most sweeping corner and personally due to the people and cameras there everyone trys to show off a bit and what not. I generally take it easy on that corner the tighter ones that follow are more fun anyways.