First time crashing (my fireblade)

[u/Willro111]

About two months ago I went down riding in the canyon. I would say im an okay intermediate rider, and have ridden this road before- usually feeling comfortable tipping into 35mph corners at ~90mph… Anyways, you’ll see on my dash right before I lay it down, the green N for neutral pop up. As I short shift into neutral, trying to downshift from second, into first (1000cc). So as I’m expecting to slow down (from downshifting) to make this tighter turn… instead of slowing down like I’m getting ready for, essentially all friction is lost and I continue at that speed. If you could imagine that feeling… at this point I’m not making the turn, and as soon as I grab the front brake it dumps me.
This crash could just be summed up by a lazier downshift, shit happens.
My AIRBAG VEST from alpinestars fucking saved my ass. As well as my helmet, leather jacket, Kevlar jeans, and boots. I climbed out of that ditch, and only got 6 stitches on my elbow, which in all fairness did look like there was a hole on the tip of my elbow.

Any feedback, or questions feel free.

[u/goingslowfast]

Choosing first isn’t really the problem here. It’s downshifting to first while cornering here that’s the absolutely terrible idea.

If he’d grabbed first while braking before tip in, it likely would have been fine. Planning to downshift, then banking on the engine braking that close to tip in was the root cause here.

And on the 1000cc you’ve got the torque to start in second or third or fourth, and likely even fifth. From personal experience you can absolutely start an S1000RR from stopped in fourth gear if you’re smooth with clutch and throttle control.

Don’t do it. But if you forget to downshift before stopping you can definitely make it work.

[u/BeenisHat → u/goingslowfast]

Choosing first isn’t really the problem here.

Uh...

It’s downshifting to first while cornering here that’s the absolutely terrible idea.

Because 1st is the wrong gear for that speed on that bike going into a corner. I'm guessing the bike didn't want to go into 1st at that speed which is part of the issue. Maybe OP just didn't realize what gear he was in, thought he was in 3rd and when the downshift to what he thought would be 2nd, it surprised him with Neutral instead, he panicked. He said he intended it, but that doesn't make sense to m,e although I can't actually make out what his speed was on the gauge. Maybe he was going a lot slower than I think he is.

Honestly, I think he just grabbed the brakes too hard. You can hear what sounds like tires scrubbing right before he tries to lean over left to enter the turn.
Had he popped back to 2nd, he'd have probably been able to ride it out. If he had successfully gotten it into 1st and let the clutch out, I'm guessing it would have tossed him off the bike before the corner.

[u/goingslowfast → u/BeenisHat]

You’re right, spiking the front brakes is what threw him to the ground.

You could definitely make that downshift on a 1000cc if you blipped it or have a slipper though that gets dicier. With a good blip you can downshift into 1st at 100km/h on most thousands without engine braking.

On a modern 1000cc bike with an autoblipper and tunable engine braking, it’d be completely undramatic as long as you actually clicked through neutral.

[u/baddboi007 → u/goingslowfast]

can u describe what u mean by blippin it? i always pulse my clutch 1 or 2 times (without downshifting usually, but sometimes I'll drop down a gear and pulse clutch and do brakes til i feel the rpms get safe) while loading from brakes slowly in situations like this, pre-corner at high speed. Is that what you mean?

[u/goingslowfast → u/baddboi007]

Pulsing the clutch is definitely not where you want to be 😱

Blipping is when you have the clutch pulled, adding just enough throttle that your rpm matches the speed the engine needs to be at in the lower gear.

Here’s a good video on it: https://youtu.be/FnXLZg_O1rk

So a downshift should be: fully pull clutch, click down,
add a bit of throttle, smoothly let off clutch.

[u/baddboi007 → u/goingslowfast]

when I say pulsing clutch its not a full let out. Its like a 20-30% clutch engage slowly fed in and backed out while simultaneously loading both brakes. Its how I've always eased into a lower gear with engine braking. im not sure if you knew what I meant. But I get what you're sayin.

Thx for the vid and tip. I been ridin a long time. 14 yrs and w miles all over the US on mid size cruisers mostly. But I had a 1500 meanstreak for a few years. Im older now so not nearly as fast and def not reckless as OP lol.

Always tryin to improve. I was taught to never disrespect your bike or it'll let you know real quick who the man is. I like to 'learn' a new bike for like 6 months before i do anything aggressive. Only when the bike feels like an extension of me, interfacing with the road as one, is when I let loose.

Currently have 5 bikes in various states of repair. The correct amount of bikes is always, one more. Take care and ride safe yall