Background: Been riding for 4 years and a little over 30,000 miles now. Try to remember to practice my "parking lot" skills every couple of weeks or so, particularly threshold braking in the 20-60 mph range and, while not an expert, I've gotten compliments on that ability from a couple of track instructors, so I'd consider it a strength.

Been riding the bike as a commuter vehicle lately as I changed job locations, going from a 10 mile daily trip to 70 and I enjoy saving gas and being on the bike! Had a training out of my school building and was "appropriately distanced" following a co-worker as she knew the way and I did not. Upon approaching a stoplight intersection, our light turned yellow. I figured we were close enough to get through it with no worries and opened the throttle very slightly, just to be sure. She, otoh, was worried I'd get caught by the light and would lose her, so she hit the brakes... HARD! I was quick enough to not rear-end her van but lost balance and dumped the bike. Escaped with just a sore right butt cheek and some minor scraping of my frame slider and exhaust tip. Very happy about that!

Mulling it over (and over and over!), I realized a few things:

1) Panic situations like that always seem "sped up" as they are happening, i.e. my brain goes into hyper drive but my body feels like it's in slo-mo. Anyone else have that perception?

2) Despite my practicing, I was way over-focused on the rear brake. I could feel the rear sliding and became preoccupied with getting it to regain traction, even though I know it's effect on overall braking is minor. I know I was braking firmly with the front but have exactly zero recall of how firmly. Since the rear was still on the ground, clearly I had at least a little more I could've gotten from the front...

3) I also have no idea how I lost balance of the bike to the point of dumping it. Super embarrassing...

My take-aways at this point? I certainly need to practice more often and not get overconfident. I could've benefited from a helmet cam to analyze afterwards. Reality has a way of NOT conforming to our expectations!

Thoughts and/or suggestions re: practice, a decent helmet cam, etc.?

 

Panic is hard to overcome, but practicing a slow squeeze on applying the front and allowing the weight shift to occur before maximum braking applied is going to help for sure. Thanks for sharing and glad you're alright.

 

On the street, I always assume that the car will stop in that situation. Play on the safer side. Sounds like you were following a bit too close as well, your bike can stop in a lot shorter span than a van. If you had to brake that hard, you were a bit too close.

 

A little too overconfident in my "cat like" reflexes! Lol!

 

Lol, we've all been there

 

Don’t be so rough on yourself, Garfield is a cat.