Definition of "Drop The Bike?"

[Hondaguy]

When ANYTHING but rubber touches the ground and thus requires physical lifting.....consider it "dropped"

[Buicknick72]

The saying that I am used to is "There are two types of riders, those who have gone down, and those who will."

It's not a statement of fact, and should not be read into as such. It is simply that crashing/wiping out is a part of motorcycling. It happens, and you need to be prepared and constantly paying attention. You should never get to sure of yourself and your skills that you say "I've never been down, I'm so great at riding a bike, I'll never crash."

When I got my first bike, around the time I got a tattoo, the tattoo artist, and ex-racer, said something that really put safety in perspective for me. We were just chatting and I mentioned something about someone I knew went down on a bike, "but it wasn't his fault." His response- "Bulls--t, it was his fault. Your on something that has no blind spots, can out maneuver/accelerate a car. If you crash its your fault."
Now obviously this isn't something to determine fault at a crash for the police, but as a rider this is how we need to think and we always need to put responsibility on ourselves. Someone cuts you off, you should have anticipated it. If there's a patch of sand in the road, you weren't looking hard enough. If you got road rash, you weren't wearing the proper gear.
I ride almost daily so I have close experiences all the time. Just the other day, I'm driving over the "Q" bridge in New Haven, the bridge is a death trap. I am in the fast lane, I'm starting to pass the car next to me, I see the driver check her mirror, turn her head, turn signal goes on and she starts coming over, she didn't see me. Since I was paying complete attention to my surroundings, I anticipated it 100% from the moment I saw her look at the mirror, and gave a toot of my horn before she even crossed the yellow line. Had I not been paying attention, it may have been to late.

That's what the saying is about. It's not a statement of fact. Some riders may never go down. But you ALWAYS need to be ready for anything.

[Hondaguy]

Originally Posted by Buicknick72

The saying that I am used to is "There are two types of riders, those who have gone down, and those who will."

It's not a statement of fact, and should not be read into as such. It is simply that crashing/wiping out is a part of motorcycling. It happens, and you need to be prepared and constantly paying attention. You should never get to sure of yourself and your skills that you say "I've never been down, I'm so great at riding a bike, I'll never crash."

When I got my first bike, around the time I got a tattoo, the tattoo artist, and ex-racer, said something that really put safety in perspective for me. We were just chatting and I mentioned something about someone I knew went down on a bike, "but it wasn't his fault." His response- "Bulls--t, it was his fault. Your on something that has no blind spots, can out maneuver/accelerate a car. If you crash its your fault."
Now obviously this isn't something to determine fault at a crash for the police, but as a rider this is how we need to think and we always need to put responsibility on ourselves. Someone cuts you off, you should have anticipated it. If there's a patch of sand in the road, you weren't looking hard enough. If you got road rash, you weren't wearing the proper gear.
I ride almost daily so I have close experiences all the time. Just the other day, I'm driving over the "Q" bridge in New Haven, the bridge is a death trap. I am in the fast lane, I'm starting to pass the car next to me, I see the driver check her mirror, turn her head, turn signal goes on and she starts coming over, she didn't see me. Since I was paying complete attention to my surroundings, I anticipated it 100% from the moment I saw her look at the mirror, and gave a toot of my horn before she even crossed the yellow line. Had I not been paying attention, it may have been to late.

That's what the saying is about. It's not a statement of fact. Some riders may never go down. But you ALWAYS need to be ready for anything.

I agree and disagree.....LOL

I agree its 99% the rider's fault when they enjoy a get off. No matter who is at fault "legally"

I disagree most riders will have an injurious get off by any stretch. MOST riders will never go down. The statistics just are not there. Less than 2% of all riders will have a reported get off every year. Aprox 100K out of 5 million riders. Less than 5000 will lose their lives.
Over half of those are single vehicle rider "oopsies" many involving alcohol, lack of experience, hotdogging, and generally testing limits.

Bottomline:

If you suffer a motorcycle injury you are in the extreme minority of all riders in any given year. Which is why I don't do the helmet/ AGATT thing.

I look at Myrtle beach as a good example. This place got about 300K PARTYING helmetless gear less weekend warrior riders every year in the month of May and maybe 100K more at the Fall rally .............maybe 4-5 fatalities in a bad year and all you see and hear for weeks are bikes and riders all over the place hopping from one huge biker bar to another. Yet very few incidents in a helmet free state!