So I'm out riding a relatively unfamiliar road, and I'm working on my lean angles and trying to tighten up my turns.  I'm watching the suggested speed limit signs, and using them to gauge my entry speeds.  Well, I go through one with a 20mph marking, and it was a fairly easy turn, then the next turn is a left hander marked 25.  No problem.  So I head into the turn, and I immediately think 'hey this is a tight one'.  I press the left bars a little as I look throught the turn, then a tighter section of curve comes into view and I realize I'm in it too hot    

Well, I pressed even harder.  I was low enought to drag knee if I had had it out there, and I almost cleared the entire turn but I was drifting too far to the right.  Fudge!  Gravel shoulder.  Still looking through the turn, I see that about fifty feet ahead the turn veers right so I stand the bike up and take an off-road excursion.  I went into some grass and up an embankment.  Now I have two options.  1.  go up over the knoll, and come out back on the road.  2.  Try to squeaze between  a gas main, and a roadside reflector with about 2.5 feet of total room between the two doing about 25mph.  

The problem with option #1 is that I can't see all the way over the knoll, so I don't know if it's a gentle slope on the other side, or if it's a drop off.  I go with option two.  

Now I know that you go where you look, so I focus my vision directly between the obstacles.  Now the situation is complicated by the fact that they are on a right to left slope.  I aim, and my bike slips left, but I just squeeze through and I only clip the road reflector with the edge of my foot peg.  

Not done yet.  

When I hit the road, my rear is still slipping right to left, then it grabs...tank slapper.  I relaxed my grip, and the bars evened out.  I rode away unscathed.  Lucky me!!!

Lessons learned:  Go easy on unfamiliar roads.  Observe recommended speed limits in turns (and don't trust them to be entirely accurate).  Stay calm.

Reasons to be thankful:  I had full gear on.  I didn't do this a year ago (when I didn't have the experience to ride it out).  I didn't panic.  There was a yard to go through.  The obstacles where 2.5 feet apart, and not 2 feet.  And last but not least, I had this board to learn about tank slappers a while back, and I knew how to ride it out.  Thank you GStwin.com!!

Be careful out there, and WEAR YOUR GEAR  

P.S.  It was a very nice ride otherwise.

Glad you made it out safe and sound to ride another day and re-carve the curves!

nice save! Lucky bastard.

gstwin is more handy than I ever thought...
cool.

Quote from: pantablocool.

Srinath?  Is that you?

What road were you on??

i'm really glad that you got out okay.

just a friendly caution though. just think what if...you could have easily hit a hidden boulder, flip over, then land back on the road, and hopefully only break few bones.

wearing a full gear is nice but if your luck has it that you're going seriously get hurt, you'll get hurt. nothing can prevent that other than you don't get in to situation like this in the first place.

if you want to push your limit, it's best done at the tracks, seriously.

from my experiences, gs is not a happy camper when pushed to its limit.

just think before you decide to conqure the next twisty...

wow... sounds like quite a rush (AFTERWARD).. glad you made it... hope I don't run into anything like that for a LONG time... after I finally get the bike...

I had to do something similar last week, too. I made the off road excursion and ran through some grass. I was going along fine, slowing, slowing, not slipping, when suddenly BAM! the front suspension on my GS compresses nearly all the way, and my groin gets accelerated into the tank. I had apparently hit a hole in the ground. Wonderful, no? Luckily I caught it before it fell, and rode over it MUCH slower on the way out and back onto the road. It was a few miles before the pain in my groin began receding. :lol:

Whenever I blow a corner I usually turn it around and do it over to learn what went wrong.  In this case it sounds like you were overriding your sightline.  How fast is   too fast?  http://home.comcast.net/~alan.s.moore/vp/vanish.htm

ajgs, I was out on S.R.42 West of Cloverdale near Lieber State Recreation Area.

Nice road, and now that I know about that turn, it'll be even more fun next time.   [/i]

what is 'tank slapper'?? Or do I even want to know?

A tank slapper is where the the front wheel starts ossolating <sp> back and forth, and so the handle bars "slap" back and forth from lock to lock in a really bad one, hence the name.
Usually caused by the front tire losing stability when accerating or from and unloaded (bouncing) suspension, but can be caused by a bad tire, or from the wheel trying to follow grooves in the road.

And no, you don't want to experiance one.

Quote from: aaronstj

Quote from: pantablocool.

Srinath?  Is that you?

Nope the copy cats are all over man ... next thing you know they all wanna be Nood's too ...  :lol:
Cool.
Srinath.