Brake failure... could you jump off?

[Scotsrich]

A moto gap racer probably considers sliding along the road on his arse as part and parcel of the job.

Most of them will do it several times a season and some several times in a weekend so bailing off would hold no fears for them.

Your normal road riders experience of falling of is ..it hurts and is accompanied by broken bones, bruising, time in hospital and off work.

So your default position is to hang on as long as possible and hope for the best at the end.

[demographic]

Anytime I've come off a bike my lack of injuries have been mostly through luck rather than skill.
So...yes, no maybe?

[MrLongbeard]

I'd have jumped....

..... up into a perfect form surfing position on the seat, then executed a perfect 360 front flip over the barrier 2 milliseconds before it hit

[Dutchman]

One of the great biking myths used to be "I laid the bike down to avoid a crash" aka "I panic braked, locked up, fell off".

Yeah you don't hear that half as much now that ABS is widespread.

I think I'd get as far as thinking 'hey this is like that time in the Styrian GP when Maver....' then I'd be in a hedge.

[Skub]

Nah,I don't kid myself. My old brain has a 1955 processor installed,way too slow for those kind of reactions!

A load of years ago,myself and a few mates were standing behind a 3ft wall in Clough village,watching the Mid Antrim races. We imagined we'd have time to jump if an off course bike came our direction.

Yeah,we all jumped,about 2 seconds after a bike hit the wall in front of us. If it had been just a little higher,I'd have been typing this with my head wand,or not at all.

[Couchy]

I had brakes fail on my TL1000R race bike on snettertons back straight, luckily there was run off and lots of it.
Also ran off track at Charlie’s one at Cadwell around 100mph, I took a couple seconds or less looking at tyres approaching and jumped or more accurately fell off the inside. I was prob doing 60mph and it’s not pleasant but there was no doubt in my mind or hesitation, I reckon most would do it tbh. On another forum one of the lads jumped when his brakes failed at Jerez too

[Screwdriver]

I thought some of you were there?



Front brake lever fell apart possibly due to vibration, first flying lap after shakedown of new build, flat out into a hairpin.

What you can't see so easily is, after I jumped off, I landed back on the bike...