Close Call - Looking for Critiques

[Joola_imp]

My background is with dirt bikes and human powered road bikes so I consider myself to be relatively inexperienced with with motorcyles surrounded by other vehicles. Today was my first close call with another motorist and the first emergency stop I've had to do on the CB1100.

I was rounding a curve and the oncoming vehicle began to cross my lane (without signaling) to enter a business to my right. The teenage driver stopped once she saw me but I had already straightened out and began an emergency stop. The rear tire locked up, but overall front end braking left a lot to be desired. I will look into aftermarket pads for the front brakes. I was travelling between 35-40 mph when I began the e-stop.

I'm looking for any critiques the experienced lot of you may have for me as I want to stay a safe and happy rider for many years to come. It was a bit of a blind turn and I know the fault lies with the driver crossing traffice (signal or no signal) but I probably should have been going slower around the turn (i was about 5 mph over the limit). The second I saw the driver cross the double yellow, I straightened up and applied max pressure to my front and rear. To me, she was commited to the turn and even though she stopped, I had already cancelled my turn so I was comitted to stopping. Had I continued the turn, there wouldn't have been a problem, but I don't think that would have been the proper response in this given scenario.

Upon reflecting on the incident, I realized I didn't depress the clitch lever during the e-stop. The motorycle died when I came to a stop. I'm not sure why I didn't as I've practiced this numerous times. This is one of the errors I'm aware I made. My weight was still shifted to the right of the bike when I came to the stop, that's why the bike was leaning to the right. She was about a third of the way to getting dropped.

Captured with a GoPro Hero 2 mounted to my front fender with a suction cup.

[Deanohh_imp]

If your brakes had locked the front wheel you surely would have crashed.

[cb400four_imp]

Jared,

It is great to know that it was a close call and no contact was made.

First (possibly least important), it might be that the tip over switch killed the engine, since you mention that it was listing to the right after you came to a dead stop (I had the tip over switch kill the engine when I was stopped at a stoplight and the bike unexpectedly tilted a bit too far, I'm pretty short so the bike leans over quite a bit on me before I can get a good leg down). Maybe not having the clutch pulled just stalled the engine though (didn't sound like it).

Second, I believe your bike is a non-ABS model (if I remember correctly) and you seemed to be really 'on the brakes' after you straightened out to minimize the risk of locking up and lowsiding; do you think you still had enough traction at that point when you were on maximum brakes to make use of aftermarket brake pads as you suggest? I guess I wonder if the relative weight of the CB1100, combined with relatively standard suspension and somewhat narrow and standard tires, might be close to maxed out by the OEM brakes and pads (although better pads would definitely guard against brake fading, which probably isn't relevant in this case). Maybe other people could comment about the tradeoff between unmodified CB1100 capabilities and aftermarket pads. I think the fact that you successfully completed an emergency stop while rounding a curve without lowsiding is very skillful.

I think it is great that we can analyze this and all improve our skills in this fashion (and practicing in controlled environments helps as well obviously).

Thanks for the post.

[HikerToo_imp]

I would go slower and "hoped" I could have turned/leaned more to the right ......cool you got it on video.
to me, it looked like I knew she would have stopped and could have just kept going but move to the right side of the lane
And actually if the person in the car had not stopped for you, with the line you chose, it would have been a head on crash.

[Ole]

It is my opinion you did nothing wrong. The goal of every ride is to be breathing when you are done. You did good.

As far as going 5 over in a blind curve? Who hasn't done this? We all do!

[Joola_imp]

cb400four: Thanks for the comments. I think you're right about the tip over switch. I watched my shadow in the video just before I came to the complete stop and could see my hand did in fact have the clutch lever pulled in.

My bike is non ABS (forgot to mention that in my first post). I was REALLY on the brakes hard. All of the posts about weak rear brakes I've seen on this forum flashed before my eyes in that moment. The road condition was good and it rained pretty hard 3 days prior so I had good traction. I have just under 2000 miles on her so her treads are still great. I'm not sure if it was just the panic of "oh cuss I'm going straight into this SUV," or if the front brakes should be better, I just remember feeling the front wheel still rolling and thinking, "why aren't you cuss stopping?"

When I watched the video back home, I seem to stop pretty quickly, but with all the adrenaline at the time, it felt like an eternity.

[CIP57_imp]

Scary cuss I'm glad you're okay Just a few things I've learned on the track, always make sure you're covering your brake with a finger or two and Look as deep as you can into the turn not just in front of you, These two things can buy you a second or two.
If you rode a lot of dirt it's natural for your eyes to be fixed at a shorter distance.

[Jim21680_imp]

Wow, glad you got out of that okay. So....Forget about the tip-over switch, that's definitely not what killed the engine. It stalled; you can hear it conk out towards the end of 11 seconds. As for the cause of that? I'll guess that it was the sudden brake-induced drop in engine speed, which has happened to me in the past.
It also seemed like you may have become target-fixated on that Benz, but that's debatable. I think your speed was fine, from what I can tell at least.

Like what others have said, any ride is a good ride when you & the bike are in the same condition that you started out in.
We've all made mistakes and have close calls, and it'll surely happen again. You rode away, so you handled it well enough!

[dBuster_imp]

Glad your okay! Was that Benz driver on their cell phone or texting that they wanted to turn in front of you?

I had a lady in a POS van where I had a left turn arrow and started my turn as I approached the intersection and she decided to run her red light talk about quick thinking... rode away from it and that is what counts but this gal was on her cell phone.... they need to ban them things for all drivers.

Sent from my XT901 using Tapatalk 4.1.4

[Joola_imp]

Glad your okay! Was that Benz driver on their cell phone or texting that they wanted to turn in front of you?

I had a lady in a POS van where I had a left turn arrow and started my turn as I approached the intersection and she decided to run her red light talk about quick thinking... rode away from it and that is what counts but this gal was on her cell phone.... they need to ban them things for all drivers.

Sent from my XT901 using Tapatalk 4.1.4

It was a young girl with her mom in the passenger seat. Didn't appear to be on a phone. She looked 16-17 so the nice guy in me can understand the mistake. They both had very "oh cuss" expressions on their faces.

The cynic in me imagines their conversation afterward, "I mean, You stopped. Why they hell did he come careening straight at us skidding like that? He could've kept on going...he almost hit US!"