Crash on the Dragon

[Gryphon Rider]

It was definatly my friend Ron.  He's sent me a message telling me he was for the most part OK.  Ron is no stranger to scrapping pegs, I think he started his banking late and hard and it supprised him.  I won't second guess his failure to re-lean.  He made a decision to hit the Corvette straight up.

If he had laid it down, he may have slammed into the side of the car abruptly.  All I know is Ron survived a head-on collision with a Corvette and walked away.  He's able to continue his vacation instead of laying in a hospital bed.  Two hours ago he posted pictures of his condo in Panama City Buchanan, FL where he's staying tonight.

You should buy the series of photos on DVD for him.  If he's the kind of guy with a twisted sense of humour, you should have a poster-sized print made of him floating through the air.  If it were me, I would definitely display that in my office or garage, with the caption: Gryphon Rider, Crash Test Dummy.

[f6john]

  Seems lucky he flipped over landing on his a$$ rather than head first into the Vette or on pavement and snapping his neck.  Vette guy is probably not very happy.

   The Corvette owner must be a pretty cool dude as he posted about this mishap on the Corvette Forums. Said the biker just kept on apologizing for the accident while he was checking to see if he was ok!  While most Vette owners are completely anal about their cars, he had a great attitude. He said his car is an 01 with 111,000 miles so at least it wasn't a 10k mile garage queen.

[Rams]

The Corvette driver is faced with a losing propostion and handled it well, please let him know, I think he is a class act.  IMHO, the rider is totally at fault and there is no doubt about it.   That doesn't mean I'm condeming him but, it is what it is.  That could have been me.   Hope he fully recovers and rides again. 

We all can learn from such mishaps.  Hopefully, that is through another's experience and not our own.

[Rocketman]

I have to say, last night, after having read through this thread, and thought about distractions and their effects on my ride, I took a night ride over to my brother's house.  A police car was doing something odd in the oncoming lane of the divided road I was taking.  I spent some time trying to figure out what it was that he was doing, but then I realized that I was spending too much time at it.  It didn't affect me (divided road, and I had already passed them), so I needed to keep looking forward checking for the deer that frequent that stretch, rather than being distracted.  No deer jumped out at me, so I can't say "It saved my bike/life/roadrash", but this is why we talk about these things.  To share information, and hopefully make everyone here a better rider.  I know it affected me positively last night.

Mark

[Michael K (Az.)]

"This reminds me of my need to practice, where do you go to practice peg dragging?
Hairy"



For me, Yarnell hill N.E. of Wickenburg, Az. works well.

[donaldcc]

"This reminds me of my need to practice, where do you go to practice peg dragging?
Hairy"



For me, Yarnell hill N.E. of Wickenburg, Az. works well.

For me 4-5 miles from my house heading up to Idyllwild.

[R J]

I think that be the hill that F6Gal took me on once.   She put on a ride for me when I came to Phoenix for a Driving Course I won on Hot Rod Power Tour December 2000.

Was out there 3 days and on Sunday before the School, she had like 30 Valkyrie riders on hand.    She got me an I/S to ride, don't remember from who or where now, but it was a fun deal.   Was good food (breakfast) at the start and then a delicious meal on top of one of the big hills we went up.   Would love to do that again.

[Michael K (Az.)]

Perhaps this is where you ate in Yarnell.

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Two words.......target fixation...
Also looking where you want to go and not at the car would have helped.
Hope it wasn't your friend.

Hay
Jimmyt

PLUS ONE. It will get you every time. 

Target fixation is a weird thing I'd never heard of till after I got the valk even though I'd been riding pretty much my entire life.

Before I rode motorcycles and even after for a few years I rode bicycles. Bicycles on the street, bicycles off road, bicycles to the pool and local swimming holes. My buds and I were always unable to explain what happened when you got too close to the edge of the sidewalk. It was like you'd get right on the edge of the curb and you were stuck there, struggling as you tried to slow down. And, always you'd wind up going off the side of the curb and into the road. We talked about it, we wondered about it, we were probably ten years old.

When I found out about your bike going where you look it finally made sense, we would fixate on the edge of the curb and we were stuck there. I'm sure I had many bicycle and off-road motorcycle crashes because of it without ever understanding.

[Gryphon Rider]

Target fixation is a weird thing I'd never heard of till after I got the valk even though I'd been riding pretty much my entire life.

Before I rode motorcycles and even after for a few years I rode bicycles. Bicycles on the street, bicycles off road, bicycles to the pool and local swimming holes. My buds and I were always unable to explain what happened when you got too close to the edge of the sidewalk. It was like you'd get right on the edge of the curb and you were stuck there, struggling as you tried to slow down. And, always you'd wind up going off the side of the curb and into the road. We talked about it, we wondered about it, we were probably ten years old.

When I found out about your bike going where you look it finally made sense, we would fixate on the edge of the curb and we were stuck there. I'm sure I had many bicycle and off-road motorcycle crashes because of it without ever understanding.

I think the bike on the curb thing is less target fixation and more that your subconscious was aware of steering dynamics that your head was unaware of.  When you're at more than crawling speed, to create the lean required to turn away from the curb, your front tire has to momentarily steer towards the curb.  Your subconscious knew that there wasn't enough room to do this and forced you to slow down before attempting the manoeuvre.

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Target fixation is a weird thing I'd never heard of till after I got the valk even though I'd been riding pretty much my entire life.

Before I rode motorcycles and even after for a few years I rode bicycles. Bicycles on the street, bicycles off road, bicycles to the pool and local swimming holes. My buds and I were always unable to explain what happened when you got too close to the edge of the sidewalk. It was like you'd get right on the edge of the curb and you were stuck there, struggling as you tried to slow down. And, always you'd wind up going off the side of the curb and into the road. We talked about it, we wondered about it, we were probably ten years old.

When I found out about your bike going where you look it finally made sense, we would fixate on the edge of the curb and we were stuck there. I'm sure I had many bicycle and off-road motorcycle crashes because of it without ever understanding.

I think the bike on the curb thing is less target fixation and more that your subconscious was aware of steering dynamics that your head was unaware of.  When you're at more than crawling speed, to create the lean required to turn away from the curb, your front tire has to momentarily steer towards the curb.  Your subconscious knew that there wasn't enough room to do this and forced you to slow down before attempting the manoeuvre.

Man, you're right. Couldn't have turned away from the curb if you're too close. Wish I could go back and try it again. 

[Jess from VA]

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-general/3150753-victim-of-the-tail-of-the-dragon.html

Simply substandard riding.

Dragon Time lapse	powered by Aeva

[Grumpy]

Much as I hate to say this, probably was better off hitting the vette. On that curve, if he had gone off the road, would have been a steep way down the mountain with probably an encounter with a tree. Could have caused a lot worse injuries, possibly severe.