Pucker Factor 9.7

[Ivan]

Sunday I was out and about on the Special wasting some time and just having a good time all around.

So, I came to an odd shaped T intersection in which a right turn ends up being more than 90 degrees. After stopping, I rolled into the corner, and when I thought it was ok, I rolled on the power. Thats when some odd stuff happened. I hit it hard enough to lift the front wheel a bit, and about the time it was settling down, the rear broke loose. This left me with a bit of a precarious riding position usually seen on flat track dirt racers. The bars were cranked left and the rear was swinging left as well.

Now, most people would think this to be an awesome display of riding ability, had my cheeks not taken chunks of foam loose from the seat, as I got ready to depart the bike.

I instinctively got out of the power and the XS ever so gently straightend up, and away I went. I had been messing with a M50 Boulevard rider earlier on, and hadn't noticed he was following still, until I came to the next stop and pulled up beside me. He had a "what the sam hell did you do that for?" look on his face. My butt was just then starting to relax, and I was trying to shake it off.

I really didnt know what to say. He finally said "That thing come with brass balls from the factory?"

I chuckled and said "Big ones."

[DGXSER]

So you were attempting to turn right, and the ass end decided to go it one step further and keep on turning? Yep, time for a seat to be surgically removed!!

[GARTHXS]

nice save

You must have grabbed a big handfull to wheelie and burnout at the same time

[Wildkat]

Good job pulling that one out...


I wasn't necessarily talking about the seat... but you know... that too...

[madmax-im]

Ride 'em cowboy!

Sounds like you had a bucking bronco...a real rodeo...yee haw! Glad you pulled it out...sounds like some weird physics were at work too.Not to mention serious pucker factor...

[DiverRay]

So Ivan,
All that time riding dirt bikes as a kid DID help!

[Ivan]

So Ivan,
All that time riding dirt bikes as a kid DID help!

Yeah, that 5 minutes of experience was invaluable...

[Ivan]

You must have grabbed a big handfull to wheelie and burnout at the same time

I am not sure why, but it is easier to lift the wheel on a corner than straight away. I am guessing since the bike isn't lifting straight up, but at an angle, an inclined plane of sorts. Usually when this happens, I am pretty quick to back off, but this time I must have hit a small bit of gravel or some snot a chronic smoker hacked up and spit out the window of his Geo Metro. It certainly felt like it.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Ivan,

Thanks, that's the best story I've read here in quite some time! Glad you had the composure to handle it, and the comment to the other biker afterwards!

I remember when I was first learning to ride, had an old '67 Yam 305 2 stroker twin. I lived in Texas, was a warm/hot summer day, just pulling up to a stop gently applying the brakes, in the left wheel track of the lane, but found some oil , back end started to slide out to my left leaning the bike to my right, caused me to pull my right foot off the brake to try to stop it from falling down on that side...this released the rear brake, wheel rolled off onto some dry tread, it grabbed and jerked the rear of the bike to the right, but over the middle oily section, I tried braking again, it locked up the rear again due to more oil, slid out to the right of me, falling to the left, putting my left foot down to try to stop falling, apparently let off of the rear brake again just enough to allow the rear wheel to roll to dry tread, it grabbed again, and jerked the bike farther over to the right finally clear of the oily patches in the right wheel track of the lane where I was able to finally stop it before rolling thru the intersection! A fun tank slapper type event for sure!
T.C.

[Montreux_Blue]

Reminds me of my left turn wheelie on my Kawasaki 305 LTD, not sure how I did it with less than 30 hp but it happened! All I saw were the gauges in my face still don't know how I pulled it off. These are those kinds of videos that they will play when were at the gates to the "after-life" with them saying, "What the hell were you thinking!"

[wa407mpp]

How old is your rear tire? Old hard rubber will slide like that even on dry pavement.

[Ivan]

Hey Ivan, Thanks, that's the best story I've read here in quite some time!

I try to do enough stupid stuff to keep the place entertaining.

[Ivan]

How old is your rear tire? Old hard rubber will slide like that even on dry pavement.

Not sure, but I try to keep it worn down to the fresh stuff. I learned about the slick glazed layer on tires once before, that time I bent the engine guards, and rolled a couple times like, well, like a fat guy that just dumped a scoot.

[Rasputin]

Its funny how that pucker factor can imprint itself into your brain. I had a similar incident. Matter of fact you describe it almost exactly how it happened to me. I had rolled thru a very small patch of water that only got a couple of inches of the rear tire wet. It hooked up real good for the first part of the tire rotation, then it hit the wet spot. HOOHAH what a ride!! Reading about your incident brought it to mind. I recall with crystal clarity every little detail of it, and it was in 1980. Good job Yamaha put a seat on there or I still might have a 12 volt battery stuck in the pucker zone. I liked how you handled the reply to the other biker too, class.

[Guy_b_g]

It's true that a bike will lift the front wheel more easily coming out of a corner than going straight.

When you're in a corner the G-forces load the suspension, and if you whack the throttle as you straighten up, you are unloading the suspension at the same time as you lighten the front wheel by tranferring the weight to the rear from acceleration.

As we all know, the rear tire will also step out in a slide if you feed it enough throttle and some of the bite normally being used for forward traction is being used for cornering traction in the situation you described.

I used to do safety instruction demo rides for the MSF on safety day in the Army, and one of the demonstrations was the "wave off" emergency turn (obstacle avoidance). My Concours would hop the front wheel off the ground between the left and right turns as I did the demonstration. That was all from suspension loading and unloading, add some throttle and you have a wheely, a little more and you have a wheel up slide going.

I'ts generally not a problem if you have good throttle control, just don't feed any more throttle in (not much chance of that, most people just want it to stop at that point), and don't "chop" or abruptly cut off the throttle. If you chop the throttle, there's a good chance the rear tire will suddenly find traction, and the bike will rotate around it's axis and either put you into a highside or a terrible tank slapper when the front wheel touches down.

Just ride it out and try to act like you "meant to do that".