highside lowside?

[sprintrock]

OK can someone please explain exactly what the difference between a highside wreck vs a lowside is.  I have an idea of what the difference is, but I have never been sure.  Thanks!

[M.Brane]

 A lowside is when the bikes slides out from under you. A highside is when it stands up suddenly, and throws you off.

[sprintrock]

right on! thanks man.

[kevin_stevens]

One reason you see the two mentioned together in crash reports is that many highsides *start* as a lowside.  The (usually rear) tire will begin sliding out and the bike will be headed down into a lowside; then the tire catches suddenly and the momentum of the bike pitches it up and flops it over to the other - high - side.

KeS

[Tony T]

OK can someone please explain exactly what the difference between a highside wreck vs a lowside is.  I have an idea of what the difference is, but I have never been sure.  Thanks!

Highside's tend to hurt more because you are thrown off rather than laying on the ground and sliding.  

[JimWilliamson]

Low side
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ZaMuSD0y8




High side
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzsScCnW9AA

[M.Brane]

 Note from first video: do not try to stand up while you are still rolling.

[Zerosum]

It's also possible to get a taste of the forces involved in a highside without loosing control.  If you're "ham-footed" with the rear brake mid turn, you can momentarily loose rear wheel traction and regain it a second later.  The bike will stand right up and try to "catapult" you off.  

I did this once or twice with my 1st bike.  Moral of the story: Respect the rear brake.  Less is more.

[kevin_stevens]

It's also possible to get a taste of the forces involved in a highside without loosing control.  If you're "ham-footed" with the rear brake mid turn, you can momentarily loose rear wheel traction and regain it a second later.  The bike will stand right up and try to "catapult" you off.  

I did this once or twice with my 1st bike.  Moral of the story: Respect the rear brake.  Less is more.

You can do this by rolling on while cornering across a white painted line.  The lateral slip on the line will give you the sensation, but unless you are doing something really dramatic won't generate enough force to really highside.

KeS

[thecap]

You can do this by rolling on while cornering across a white painted line. The lateral slip on the line will give you the sensation, but unless you are doing something really dramatic won't generate enough force to really highside.

KeS

Great example of what a highside feels like with out the nasty part.  A friend of mind told me to think of them as highside and lowslide to keep them strait in my head.  Personally I don't like to spend that much time thinking about crashing.

[Doc Bacon]

You can also highside on rough trails.  

If you've ever heard of target fixation you know how it works: your body tends to follow the steering inputs from your eyes, so when you're concentrating on not hitting that big loose rock in the middle of a steep, narrow singletrack instead of concentrating on riding the line to either side, you will ride right into the rock.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this.  I'm probably also not the only one who scraped the front tire past the rock only to drag the bash plate across it so that it nicely lined up the rear wheel for the off-balance hit.  Once the arse end is well and truly airborne, with a bit of a sideslip thrown in for extra style points, your bike is no longer accepting steering inputs at all.  When the rear end eventually comes down - sideways and with a bit of a tilt to ensure proper pole vaulting form - all the energy of motion that carries one smoothly across rough terrain is, instead, spent in the blink of an eye as the bike flips you off over the top.  

I swear that I could hear a rodeo announcer saying, "He's off in seven seconds, no ride, cowboy".  When I did land I was a good 30 ft from the bike and a fair bit downhill.  The guy on the bike behind me thought I'd hit a landmine: it looked like I blew up all Hollywood style.  However, nothing was broken and the bike was still running when I picked it up.

Sorry if this is a bit wordy for a first post, but it's not a bad reflection of my riding experience.

[FARAIM]

doc just stay on the gas it will push right through

[Doc Bacon]

Faraim:

I'm a one-trick pony - I use throttle to overcome all my trail riding challenges.  Even on my mountainbike I'm always on the hammer.

In the incident I related, however, I'm not sure what the heck happened.  I knida think that the bounce off the rock that got me sideways also kicked my arse off the seat; when the bike and I got back together (sideways, and at speed) I was only holding the controls, not in control.

Oh well, as the pilots say, "any landing you can walk away from is a good one; you get bonus points if we can use the aircraft again".

[Kootenanny]

It's also possible to get a taste of the forces involved in a highside without loosing control.  If you're "ham-footed" with the rear brake mid turn, you can momentarily loose rear wheel traction and regain it a second later.  The bike will stand right up and try to "catapult" you off.  

Don't try this at home, folks.  You're as likely to get a feeling of exactly what a highside feels like--because being "'ham-footed' with the rear brake mid turn" is exactly what causes many highsides, and that is exactly what is likely to happen.

My highside wipeout happened many years ago, on a dew-covered left-hand corner in the middle of the night.  I gave the bike a bit too much throttle, the rear stepped out, then caught: I was suddenly flying through the air.  I landed about a dozen feet away, on my helmet and shoulder; I had a (upside down) view under my armpit of my bike completely in the air, crashing down on the right side (remember, I'd been turning to the left).  I was able to ride it home, after doing some roadside repairs...this accident happened at relatively low speed (you do NOT need to be speeding for a highside to happen!).  

My mistake was too much throttle on a slick surface, but too much rear brake has exactly the same effect--once the rear wheel breaks traction in a turn, if it regains traction, watch out! (This is why the MSF teaches that, if you lock the rear brake, do NOT release it; in the same vein, when racers spin up their rear wheels on corner exits, they keep the power on to keep the wheel sliding--the so-called "power slide.")

[ctbandit]

rear brake? whats that?

[CMS_Sprint]

rear brake? whats that?

Its that thing under your right foot you sometimes use in a parking lot...

[ctbandit]

Its that thing under your right foot you sometimes use in a parking lot...

ohh right the parking lot brake.  

[black hills]

doc just stay on the gas it will push right through

+1