I'm just getting back to riding after casing a double and breaking my collarbone and was wondering is there a right way to come up short? Are you supposed to land on the throttle? Put your weight back? or do you just hold on tight and hope for the best?

oh dude, i cant answer ur question but glad to see that ur getting back to it.

That's kind of hard to answer. Every situation is different. I don't think being on the throttle and leaning off the back off the bike are going to help in every instance. Think about it like this... your gonna take a big hit your bike is gonna absorb as much of the impact it's able to and when it can't any more because it's completely bottomed out your body absorbs the rest of the hit then before you can shake the cobwebs from your helmet the bike rebounds kicking you in the boots sends you for a ride over the bars. Does that sound familiar? When I know this is coming if i'm landing on something flat or more of a gradual incline or roller or bump or whatever I gas it hard being more neutral than leaning back at all on the bike. If I'm gonna come up short on a steep face of a landing instead of just taking it like a rag doll I'll drive my legs through the pegs almost pre loading, knowing that the bike and my body are hopefully gonna leave the ground together when it rebounds and ride it out. I hope this makes some sense.

yeah, Bail Out...I don't know,, I crash all the time and haven't found a good way yet.

This happened to me on a smaller scale:



Lucky I got it on camera!

My best advice is to let the bike take as much of the impact as it can. The best solution is to not come up short, but that isn't always your choice. Usually in these types of events you aren't really thinking about what to do, but just reacting.

Glad your coming back to riding. Good luck and take it easy!

Man you could talk this subject up and down all day, but in reality, there's a reason crashes aren't planned. Hold on and hope for the best. The more you tense up, the more chance you have or being seriously hurt.

Bail and flap...worked for CR!

As said above, there really isn't a "proper" way to crash. Also, when you're crashing, the last thing on your mind is to make corrections as your body flies through the air, disconnected from the bike. I liked the thread a few weeks back about someone saying that practicing on a trampoline and doing gymnastics will help you when you crash, as if you will somehow do something differently. :confused:

Every crash is different, but here are a few types of crashes;

- The corner recovery crash; This is when you've lost of the bike in a corner and attempt to recover it and then crash worse. In this situation, its usually best to let it go, pick up the bike and keep riding. I know many people who've had simple crashes like this and wind up more seriously injured then the initial crash justified. Example; front end wash, turning into a highside and a broken collarbone.

- The instantaneous impact; When something goes so catastrophically wrong, you don't even know what happened. This can happen when someone else hits you, or you make a gross mistake that face plants you without knowing. Usually this type of crash you can't correct for at all, you are a passenger and thats it, good luck.

- The jumping/landing crash; These can be the worst type of crashes because it usually involves landing from a great height incorrectly. The good thing about them is, you can usually "attempt" to recover from these. So being proficient at recovering is an important skill to have. Staying attached to the bike, instead of letting go, is also critical when you're landing out of control. Even if you know the bike will toss you off when you hit the ground, its better to have that absorption from the machine, then not. Obviously, if you're riding loose, then you might not have a choice but to get booted off in this type of crash.

There are many other crashes, but as you can clearly see, its almost impossible to predict what's going to happen. Your decisions and skill set as a rider are only part of the issue, the other part are the people around you and how they interact with you.

If you go into riding motocross with the worry of crashing, you will not go any quicker... I should know because right now I can't afford to crash financially and honestly, I'm SLOWER now then I've been in a while because of it. :(

^ True story.

I recently had my throttle stick WTFuuuuuO coming up a hill in a stand up wheelie. It stuck about half way but didn't just stick where it was, it went to the moon. I love my bike to death, fully restoring it, and my buddy said I had no regard for the crash I was trying to catch my bike like if I was going to grab it safely. Whatever, I don't remember the crash. All I remember was feeling the most powerful onset of powerband I have EVER felt along with a very quick acceleration. As I went down I do remember seeing the bike do a full on backflip at full rpm ripping the rear fender off. I didn't have a kill switch at the time, so killing it was a jooooy.

Anyway, we don't know what caused it. I got on here and talked about it but the throttle housing and cable was a million years old. Not only that, it was routed wrong. So we fixed all of that and it hasn't happened again but I tell you, it's one hell of a gorilla on my back/in my mind trying to legitimately ride around the track and go fast thinking "is it going to flip out on the face of this jump? or in the whoops after?" when the slightest compensation can put you on your ass anyway. It really has effected my riding, but it's one of those things that will just take time I guess. Bike runs amazingly and the throttle is better than ever, but still, my older friend says "just don't think about it" Yeah right guy I'd love to see you try if yours had done it....Anyway, just as an extension of what tye said, No Fear! It's everything.

Tuck and roll

try and land on the throttle, leaning back, and heals on the pegs not toes is the generl rule, but varies depending on the situation

db330 said:

stomping on the pegs, or "preloading" the impact helps, not sure why, maybe the high speed valving kicks in and gives you stiffer suspension? I usually handle the casing no problem, its getting bounced slightly sideways off the top of the landing then landing down on track level sideways where I have fallen. When I switched to 4 strokes I found giving the throttle a jab on the landing caused the bike to bounce off straight. Going nose down also helps the back tire clear a little bit more of the jump but you have to give it a lot of gas to get the back tire to hit first if you managed to clear the jump

Glad you didn't get hurt ,but I can just look at that jump and tell you the lip is to small. Then you come in slow and let off.LOL Thats a small seat bounce at best coming in fast.
Funny video!

Zach Attack said:

Knowing in the air that I'm gonna case it, I land rear wheel first with the gas on when the bike lands. This slows the stroke of the rear shock down.
First thing you need to know when jumping is how to control the bike in the air.
In the air pull the clutch in and hit the rear brake. This will lower the front of the bike. Reving it will raise the front. These skills are key to "saving it" in a case jump.


+1

mywifefarts said:

limp1969 said:

True but for beginners (which I assume the OP is) they're not going to really be getting enough air time or height to realistically use any of these techniques...When starting out small even 7 ft up in the air when you go nose down, there is no time for all of that. By the time your going nose down your almost landing. It IS indeed a critical skill, and good to know, but not useable in beginner jumping unless the beginner is an idiot and "pinning it to win it"

This skill comes in most critical once you start hitting doubles...Tapping the rear brake and nosing the front down can be the difference in casing and not casing. Any beginner jumps should be done on table tops, step ups, etc. anything that don't got the gap.

Basically i would say panic rev it and lean back. Leaning back will help prevent you from kicking forward once it rebounds. Gassing it will give your bike more forward motion upon landing counteracting some of the vertical forces, its called a "G-out". Also get a neckbrace if you dont have one already

I wear a chest protector. If I know I'm coming up short I just naturally (I guess from my body position) take the impact with my chest. It lets the impact be taken by the broadest surface on my body so the force is spread over a greater...well...area. Kind of like would you rather fall on a board or a needle? I think the chest protector is key to this because it defects the impact to different areas. Granted, I'm not casing 70 ft triples. To me it just feels like a hit in football and actually makes me hungry for more. If you were to land lets say with your wrists as rigid as possible, hey would break because the force is more concentrated. I just go as limp as possible. I've taken too many impacts on my ankles so I know to get off of those. And these are situations where you know its gonna hurt and there is no sense in trying to ride it out. People react in different ways. Some people react incorrectly and they get hurt worse I think. How do you change how you react in a split second decision you cannot practice really? I don't know because you are just going to do what you do at that point.

I would be curious to know the proper way to hit the ground. One person said 'tuck and roll' and I think that has some validity since you would want to take an impact on your back instead of your neck and head.

any time i've come up severly short or overshot, i've known before or as i'm leaving the lip, at the point of no return and impending soil sample. When you know your coming up short, adjust your bike accordingly. It depends what your landing onto, if it's to flat or your landing onto an incline. Depending on circumstances sometimes it's better to land rear wheel first, sometimes both at the same time. You want the bike as strait as possible into the landing, if your rear is to one side a little bit it will kick the opposite way after you case. You don't want to land too much rear wheel first or the bike will be more likely to buck you over the bars. Throttle wide open, arches or further back on the pegs. Unless you are in danger of the bike landing on your, never bail. That chest to the bars things sounds like an endo waiting to happen, i don't know what size jumps your using that on.

So you just cased. Next thing, and it should come pretty naturally, do you Istay with the bike? If it's staying pretty strait and your not endoing or looping, stick with it. If your bikes trying to do a 180 flip (happened to me last summer), your better off tossing it away.

So your bailed or you stuck with the bike and it didn't work out. First thing, don't put your hands out, if i'm still with the bike i will hold on to the bars till i stop sliding, or atleast till i'm on the ground sliding. Thats also a product of never stopping trying to ride it out. Don't stick. You want to stop your downward movement over as long a time as possible. When your feet hit, you want to resist collapsing all at once. It's hard to explane, once you have stopped your downward momentem, then roll/slide.

JUDO ROLL!!!

Oh and when in doubt throttle out.

pin it so you dont stall once you case it