What the Vision rider SHOULD have done

[bobhamlin]

This is an oldie and has probably been on here before, but at the top of my hit list. I HOPE I'd be able to remain so cooly aware of the situation and respond as appropriately. I'm guessing I'd probably freeze somewhere near the point where my feet were above my shoulders.



Dan Lund, can you do a video for us, breaking this down into easily learnable steps?

[Cajunrider]

I'd seen this one before Bob. I always said besides being pretty darned good, he's pretty damned lucky.

[glwilson]

I figure this guy had no control over what was happening to him and it was all he could do to just remember to hang on. Even regarding that, he likely didn't even realize he was hanging-onto the handlebars.

Sometimes things just end-up the way they are supposed to without any extra effort, thought, or input. I suspect this is mostly what happend to this rider given the speed and momentum involved.

If only a few "things" would have been different the results would likely have been different.

I imagine he has to love the video though.

[ells]

I'm guessing that he is younger than 30.

[dantama]

Originally Posted by glwilson

I figure this guy had no control over what was happening to him and it was all he could do to just remember to hang on. Even regarding that, he likely didn't even realize he was hanging-onto the handlebars.

Sometimes things just end-up the way they are supposed to without any extra effort, thought, or input. I suspect this is mostly what happend to this rider given the speed and momentum involved.

If only a few "things" would have been different the results would likely have been different.

I imagine he has to love the video though.

I disagree Greg, I think a lot of what he did was conscious decisions. I don't know if he could do it twice though.

Highly trained people sense the world different than we do. I've heard Pro Baseball players say that they can see the threads on a ball as it is coming towards them from the pitcher. It would be such a blur to me that I'd be lucky to start swinging before it was in the catchers mitt.

People who watch the X-ray machine at airports can identify items in luggage with just a glance, that the rest of us would have to look at far longer to identify.

New NFL players often talk about how fast everything is when they first got to the NFL. Eventually their brains catch up, and things seem to slow down, but they are just as fast. Their brains just catch up with the faster speed.

I'm sure that professional racers have time stretched out compared to us when they are riding. I think that when he first headed over the bars, he tried to react in a way that stopped him from going over. He could have come back down to the side of the bike and let go and slid off the track on his back; but I think he made a decision to hang on and see what he could salvage out of it. Made a very athletic maneuver to get back on the bike and saved some hide.

I wouldn't have been able to think it all through, but I'll bet his brain was conditioned to making lots of decisions at high speeds, and he just did what he thought made the most sense as it was happening.

Great decision making and the right instincts combined with a good dose of athleticism got him back on the bike I think.

[markusmaximus]

In this instance, I agree with Dan. I believe it was a conscious decision to hold on to the bars. But for the rest of us, accidents happen so quickly and (mercifully) so infrequently, we react in unpredictable ways, not fully realizing what we are doing at that moment.

The only way to increase probability of reacting properly in a given situation is to mentally put yourself often in various situations, and then think through how you would react. Most people don't do this, and instead panic when faced with the unexpected.

[bobhamlin]

author=dantama board=safety thread=13621 post=217899 time=1254008115I've heard Pro Baseball players say that they can see the threads on a ball as it is coming towards them from the pitcher. It would be such a blur to me that I'd be lucky to start swinging before it was in the catchers mitt.

To back up Dan: Ted Williams did a test in which his bat was blackened and he hit some practice pitches. When he hit a ball, he described a "cross-seams" or "with seams" contact. He was accurate.

I tried and couldn't even do that in slo-pitch softball.

[ringadingh]

That fella was young and in good physical shape, he did make some choices to hang on and work it through, but overall I think he was just really lucky. I agree, I doubt he could do it again if he had to.

[blowndodge]

OMG!! I'm agreeing with Dan too!!!

In an interview with Ben Hogan on how he could hit a 5 iron low and under the wind he responded that he would hit the ball on the second groove from the bottom of the club!? Talk about a focused mind!!!

[glwilson]

Dan is suggesting this rider's possibility of having "unconscious competence" to which I would agree somewhat -- however regarding someone's unconscious-competence; that is gained mostly from training and practice.

I can't imagine that rider has ever practiced doing flips over the handle bars of his bike while screaming down a race track... anymore than Ted Williams practiced hitting the seams of a baseball while sliding into home-plate.

Thus it remains my opinion that much of what happened was shear luck for the guy and that he couldn't do it twice.

[bobhamlin]

Originally Posted by glwilson

Dan is suggesting this rider's possibility of having "unconscious competence" to which I would agree somewhat -- however regarding someone's unconscious-competence; that is gained mostly from training and practice.

I can't imagine that rider has ever practiced doing flips over the handle bars of his bike while screaming down a race track... anymore than Ted Williams practiced hitting the seams of a baseball while sliding into home-plate.

Thus it remains my opinion that much of what happened was shear luck for the guy and that he couldn't do it twice.

As wonderful as our brains are, they process all available sensory input with "dial-up" speed. We constantly decide (mostly unconsciously) what we deem important enough to thoroughly process.

This rider- admittedly lucky - could focus all his attention on things of immediate importance because he could instantly prioritize based on racing experience and above normal physical ability. I imagine he can do wheelies, front-wheel stands and just about anything else the sport-bike types like to casually do.

You can do things on your Nomad that novice riders can't. Everytime you move to a new bike, your brain has to accomodate the new noises and vibrations before you can relax and re-focus.

Dan Lund can scrape pegs while thinking about the next cliff he wants to use as a parking pad. To scrape my boards (if I REALLY wanted to, of course), I have to combat my brain klaxons yelling that I'm about to fall over. We're both getting the same sensory input. Dan's brain has already created a checklist that has removed I MIGHT DIE!! from that particular action. His brain frees up bandwidth for processing other data.

Back to the video. As I admitted: As soon as my feet would go over my shoulders, the action would be so abnormal that I would not know which sensory input had priority. I can almost predict the internal decision. Bailout in a semi-predictable tumble and roll on flat asphalt or try to hang on and crash anyway, possibly wrapping my neck around some pole. At that moment, saving the ride would not have been remotely considered.

But, we'll never know, will we.

[glwilson]

Originally Posted by bobhamlin

As wonderful as our brains are, they process all available sensory input with "dial-up" speed. We constantly decide (mostly unconsciously) what we deem important enough to thoroughly process.

This rider- admittedly lucky - could focus all his attention on things of immediate importance because he could instantly prioritize based on racing experience and above normal physical ability. I imagine he can do wheelies, front-wheel stands and just about anything else the sport-bike types like to casually do.

You can do things on your Nomad that novice riders can't. Everytime you move to a new bike, your brain has to accomodate the new noises and vibrations before you can relax and re-focus.

Dan Lund can scrape pegs while thinking about the next cliff he wants to use as a parking pad. To scrape my boards (if I REALLY wanted to, of course), I have to combat my brain klaxons yelling that I'm about to fall over. We're both getting the same sensory input. Dan's brain has already created a checklist that has removed I MIGHT DIE!! from that particular action. His brain frees up bandwidth for processing other data.

Back to the video. As I admitted: As soon as my feet would go over my shoulders, the action would be so abnormal that I would not know which sensory input had priority. I can almost predict the internal decision. Bailout in a semi-predictable tumble and roll on flat asphalt or try to hang on and crash anyway, possibly wrapping my neck around some pole. At that moment, saving the ride would not have been remotely considered.

But, we'll never know, will we.

Good points. Although maybe others' brains process at dial-up speed -- at my age it takes my brain awhile to realize it is supposed to process something!! By then it might be too late.

[dantama]

Originally Posted by bobhamlin

As wonderful as our brains are, they process all available sensory input with "dial-up" speed. We constantly decide (mostly unconsciously) what we deem important enough to thoroughly process.

This rider- admittedly lucky - could focus all his attention on things of immediate importance because he could instantly prioritize based on racing experience and above normal physical ability. I imagine he can do wheelies, front-wheel stands and just about anything else the sport-bike types like to casually do.

You can do things on your Nomad that novice riders can't. Everytime you move to a new bike, your brain has to accomodate the new noises and vibrations before you can relax and re-focus.

Dan Lund can scrape pegs while thinking about the next cliff he wants to use as a parking pad. To scrape my boards (if I REALLY wanted to, of course), I have to combat my brain klaxons yelling that I'm about to fall over. We're both getting the same sensory input. Dan's brain has already created a checklist that has removed I MIGHT DIE!! from that particular action. His brain frees up bandwidth for processing other data.

Back to the video. As I admitted: As soon as my feet would go over my shoulders, the action would be so abnormal that I would not know which sensory input had priority. I can almost predict the internal decision. Bailout in a semi-predictable tumble and roll on flat asphalt or try to hang on and crash anyway, possibly wrapping my neck around some pole. At that moment, saving the ride would not have been remotely considered.

But, we'll never know, will we.

Very well put, and accurate as far as my human behavior training in my Psychology degree goes. I really like the way you explained it.

I think that the majority of bike crashes happen because a rider got into a situation where the physical sensations, and mental processing made a huge "holy sh*t" impact, and that made everything else go out the window. On any of those crashes, if the sensations felt more natural, there would have been no crash.

CheriAnn's post about two bikes going down is a good example. It was a very easy turn to make. It was very easy to make even going too fast with gravel. But I presume from the description and photos that it was nothing more than a rider going wide and getting a holy sh*t moment and rather than correcting, lost it mentally and headed off the road. I think if he was used to the sensations of taking a turn at double speed, was used to riding off road in gravel, etc. he would have done just fine on that turn.

I see it skiing all the time. A newer skier gets in a little over their comfort level and they basically lay down (yup, they "had to lay it down too ) There was no reason that they couldn't have kept going if their mind could get used to the holy sh*t feeling in that situation, and their body get used to the physical sensation. By the next season, that same situation doesn't bring about a holy sh*t feeling, and they just keep skiing down the run. The main difference, assuming they are still considered a beginner, is just getting used to the physical sensation that happened just prior to going down.

Back to the subject of the video clip of the racer. That saying about riding and having a bucket full of luck, and an empty bucket of experience... and the trick is to fill the bucket of experience, before the bucket of luck runs out... fits this situation.

I think he had a way full bucket of experience, and had a little bit of luck left in the other bucket still. :)