Not that crashing in and of itself isn't a problem, but every time I wreck I seem to tumble or roll. I'm pretty sure sliding is the best way to minimize bodily harm. Am I doing someting wrong that is causing me to tumble?
relax in the fall if you go stiff you tumble more....or so they tell me most of my wrecks have me seeing sky ground sky ground too
If you roll in the direction of the crash you will tumble...if you roll opposite you will slide. The idea is to roll immediately to your back and just slide it out. But it's easy to get disoriented and roll forward instead of backwards. I did a lot of tumbling drills growing up doing wrestling and martial arts. Too bad you don't have a mat to practice on. It's like anything else, you need practice to get it down...and no one wants to practice it while crashing. Not tensing up helps too!
AOD wrote about their theory on this a while back in RRW. If I remember right, Sam's idea was to cross his arms across his chest and pull up his knees to protect his hands,arms and legs. Then if you do tumble, you might not hurt as many limbs and digits. tom
Pulling your arms & legs in is a sure way to guarentee you will tumble.....spreading out is the only way to slow yourself down. Now if you are already tumbling, you do not want to throw out your limbs at the wrong tyme on you will pay the price. The best thing that works for me, is to find my back & put it against the ground, then dig my hands or legs into the ground, which ever is able to be dragged. I also try to take a look around to see what is coming at me, ie the bike or other bikes. You would be suprised how well you can steer yourself with your hands & feet.
yeah...you tumble. A number of years ago we sat around and tried to develop a mental plan of what to do after a crash. This is what we came up with: 1. Push the bike away if you are near/tangled in it. 2. Make fists (we all type for a living and broken fingers would be very bad) 3. Cross arms (this is to prevent an arm from being flung out and broken/strained/twisted) 4. pull in legs (see above) 5. Tuck in head. With the gear we wear this puts heavy padded body armor all the way around on the outside with no extra bits hanging out to get twisted/bend/broken. You will tumble and perhaps tumble futher but the theory is all little impacts will be taken by the armor and you won't get any broken fingers/wrists/collarbones/legs etc. That is the theory. It might be one of those "worse in small crashes, better in big crashes deals" but I would much rather land from a high side all balled up then onto an arm or leg hand etc. It might not make much difference in a low side...until you hit the gator teeth on the outside of the turn. We've tested it in some pretty good crashes and, so far, it has allowed us to escape injury and continue racing later that day. YMMV
the other thing is lowside you can more or less choose how you go highside and it is more luck. My biggest problem is when I know I am going to crash I roll off the gas instead of more gas. When you roll off you highside.
I like to smack my head on the ground as I crash. That way I go limp and don't break anything due to "bracing" for a fall. It also helps me from having bad memories of the crash. The ball your fist thing also keeps you from "bracing." Watch major league baseball players(pitchers mainly) run bases after they get on base. They usually hold their batting gloves in their hands to protect from jambing their digits in a slide.
You laugh but it's true. I'm like a human lawn dart. The ultimate "smart" bomb. The Ayatolla of unconcious rolla... I've had more concussions than Ryan Hughes. I've got my Orthopedic surgeon on speed dial. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. It's fun to be looking at a new X-ray and him say "When did you break these ribs? They were obviously broke some time ago." I respond "Uhhh....I don't know." Sometimes it's fun to be the punchline to your own jokes.
I can totally sympathize! My best friend once told ".....the story of your life will be told as a cautionary tale to others."
Thanks folks! I'll be here nightly until I'm gone. Tell your friends. It's been great. See ya next time
Re: yeah...you tumble. I read the AoD crash theory a while back and it sounded good to me after breaking a few fingers and having my ankle run over in various crashes. Here's a pic of the theory put to use during a front tuck in the rain at Daytona. Thanks to Matt Benson of AHRMA for the photo... So you see Sam, someone is actually paying attention to your ramblings
Hummm that's funny...I didn't think you had a choice of how your body is going to end up when you hit the ground...Seems to me the last two times I crashed...(highsides) I rolled and rolled...a little soreness the first time...bruised ribs...second hit the ground and after the initial hit don't remember jack sheeeet till I heard the corner worker say something...bruised same ribs it feels like lol, other then that catching thoughts back up I was fine in that one too...but neither crash was I able to let alone tell myself to roll with body parts in, and nor do i think I could have if I did think about it...once you hit the ground I think it's all luck.
I like the idea of rolling into a ball -- but I would only recommend that if you are sliding off the track. If you can stay on the asphalt, the best way to ride out a slide is to spread out and relax. If you hit a dirt, or god forbid a gravel trap, then there is almost nothing you can do to prevent tumbling. And God to I hate to tumble. Just watching them happen to someone else still gives me flashbacks.
Trent- WOW! Great Picture! CBRF4- If you have thought about it beforehand, and rehearsed it in your mind, you have plenty of time during a crash to take all sorts of actions. If you have it memorized (fists, cross arms, head down, knees in) then, when you crash, you just open up the "crash" flash card and your body does the rest. Gymnasts do this sort of thing all the time. Of course, if you whack your head hard enough all bets are off. Maybe we can get Sean to tell you what the crash seen looked like when I got together with another rider at IRP one time in the endurance practice and rolled 120 yard across the broken pavement in the back. The bike took down 100 feet of chain link fence. The aforementioned Kawasaki ended up impaled on a fence post. But I rode in the race an hour or two later. once again, YMMV, this is just what we do.
