Point here is...standing the bike up, crossing the centerline to the opposite shoulder is, as you already know, a prescription for real bad things to happen...but I"m sure we've all blown a turn or two in our riding careers. Now that you know what it feels like, it won't be such a surprise and shouldn't elicit a panic reaction.
Given my general inexperience as a rider, I am concerned that in the event of a panic reaction (what Keith Code refers to as your survival instincts being set off), I will elect to crash the bike instead of riding it (as you say above).
The tragedy in that scenario is that what will have occurred is that the rider's limits will have been reached way (possibly waaaaaaaay) before the bike's limits. A perfect example of crashing the bike (or creating a crash) is going in too hot to a curve and thinking that unless you straighten up the bike and brake, you will crash.
Well, in fact (for this scenario) the bike could have made the turn if the rider had pushed the bars down further and held an even, or increasing, throttle. But because of the rider's limitations, meaning his lack of knowledge and experience in leaning the bike aggressively at speed through a turn while scraping a peg, he causes a crash by standing the bike up (not talking about you, John, BTW, but a hypothetical).
That's the reason I try to push my and the bike's limits* so that I can gain the knowledge and experience to "ride the bike" and not panic.
I've heard from those who know on this forum that when your peg starts to scrape you've got a "lot" more lean over available. I have not wanted to experiment with that on public roads, so when we were at StreetMasters on a closed course, at the end of the day when we had free time on the track, I went out there and purposely "cooked" the corners so that I could learn more about FJR clearance and my own abilities to tighten down a corner rather than go off the road.
It was fun as hell but also scary--I was afraid I'd crash; managed not to. No surprise: you have more lean-over clearance on the right side vs. the left, where you've got that big ol' center stand hanging out there. I also found that I started doing this weird body English with my legs when I got nervous in a turn, bringing them off the tank and trying to balance the bike differently with them. Anyway, I've got a lot to learn still. Next up: Keith Code's Superbike School.
Jb
*I've scraped a peg when making a left turn on a (fairly remote) public street starting from a stop at a left-turn arrow, just to practice leaning the bike aggressively, quickly. I did it on my Sportster a few months back at a stop sign, turning right after a full stop (rural, no traffic anywhere), but the pavement was greasy from the 90-degree weather, and I low-sided. Picked the bike and myself up, dusted off my ego, and was on my way (finger took a beating from having the brake lever smash down on it, and it swelled up for a couple months).
So you do this stuff at your own risk, but I maintain that this kind of probing and practice prepares you to "ride the bike" when the time comes that it really matters--like when I changed lanes on the freeway from the fast no. 1 lane to the no. 2 lane just as a maniac SUV driver flew into the same space out of my right-quarter blind spot.
We were all going about 75 MPH on a downhill curve to the right, and by now a car was to my left in the no. 1 lane. I swerved like nobody's business into a nano-space on the white line between the nos.1 and 2 lanes with cars on either side and the pavement curving to the right. That's the closest I ever got to being killed on a M.C. But I'm proud of how I manhandled that big ol' FJR in a pinch at speed with a flick-flick.
Sadly, I contributed to this scenario by having failed to check my blind spot under the false presumption that there were no maniacs flying through rush-hour traffic and changing lanes very 5 seconds. But what really saved my bacon was my riding strategy of only ever making "soft" lane changes, and not moving immediately into the center of a lane, but going over gradually.
This was a perfect example of the "three degrees of separation." Degree 1--Good strategies, namely, soft lane change and (usually
) a head check. If that fails, then degree 2--good skills, in this case swerving. Degree 3 was thankfully not needed, namely ATGATT.
[i guess I'm in a chatty mood this morning....and didactic too.
]
