Readning about laying the bike down reminded me of my younger days. The method above is exactly what i used to do with my 25 lb 1972 Schwinn Stingray bicycle. Lock up that rear (only) brake, push the rear end out froum under you while pulling back on the handle bars. We thought it looked cool, and mostly only did it on dirt. But a few brave times did it on asphalt too. Of course we were only going about 15 mph, and not 55! hehe

Like has been said above, i think laying it down is more of an accident and reflexes than a purposeful event.

 

Bingo. +1 million.

And along those same lines, if you ride a motorcycle you might want to recalibrate your brain about "accidents." On a bike there are no accidents, only crashes. "Accidents" happen to you, whereas "crashes" are something that result from your actions. As in, "I was involved in an accident..." vs. "I did something stupid and I crashed." Yeah, there are always exceptions. But riding safe starts with an attitude. And my attitude is "Crashing is unacceptable." Doesn't mean I can 100% for sure avoid everything that might mess up my day - but at least I'm always thinking about everything I can do to prevent me from doing something stupid. And yes, I have crashed. One was all me. The other was mostly me, but the dang deer had something to do with it, too (notice front fender in my sig pic).

Crashing sucks. And there is no such thing as "laying your bike down."

 

When my brother-in-law bought his '08 FLHTCU he purposely did NOT get the ABS brakes because he figured that he wanted the option of 'lying the bike down' if he needed to. How the heck could anyone lay almost a thousand pounds of bike plus a wife on the back and himself down and have any good come of it. Upright tires have a friction with the road that is there to slow or stop the bike. There is no friction when sliding along on your side until you are under a car or truck tire that has lost its friction because you have become a grease stain under it. We all need to practice our counter steering and emergency braking and we all need to stay upright where we have the best chance of survival.

Great topic, gets us all thinking in the right direction.

 

Perhaps you misunderstood my response above. And perhapse i used the wrong word.

When I said
I mean that the rider made a mental-physical response mistake (or accident). In other words they WERE in the process of CRASHING, but instead of hiting something or avoiding something, they F*d up and the bike fell down. ie they did not 'intentionally' lay the bike down, they 'accidentally' laid the bike down.

What better word could i have used? perhaps 'unintentional'? not sure.

But like you i was taught, Motorcycles crash or wreck. they don't have accidents.

 

if it comes down to sacrificing my leg, side, and shoulder to the pavement or trying to ride my way out of an accident, i'm gonna find out just what my bike and myself as a rider are made of.

if i crash because i couldn't ride out of it, then so be it. but i don't even think i could bring myself to put it on the ground voluntarily.

there's nothing appealing about asphalt at 50 mph.

 

Amen to that brother! I never thought about saying "I laid it down"... the only things that came to my mind was... "I dumped it" "I crashed" "I'm a dumbsh!t"...

 

anybody ever find that downed powerline or transport across the road which could take you head off coming out of a blind corner. you may consider laying it down .

 

Last summer while meandering along a nice back road with my GF on the back, we approached an intersection. My direction of travel had the right of way, with NO stop sign. The road crossing, had stops signs on both sides. I was about 50' from the intersection when this car sitting at one of the stop signs decided it was her turn to go, and pulled out right in front of me. Now mind you, what follows happened in a matter of seconds, but seemed like forever while it was happening.

As soon as she pulled out in front of me, I pictured us slamming into the side of her car. I immediately stepped on the rear brake and the bike start skidding, and then started to fishtale side to side, and then the rear started kicking out to the right side. This is where most people would probably "opt" to lay it down... I'm not saying I am super rider or something, It happened so fast, that I didnt have time to think. All my actions just happened, and I can remember them as though it was a slow drawn out plan. As I said, the bike started to kick out to the right, and I had not used the front brake at all, had I, then I do believe the bike would have went down. As the rear started sliding out to my right, I pulled in the clutch and dropped 3 gears, which not only slowed me down, but also helped upright the bike some, I then gave it some throttle and was able you manuever the bike around the rear of the car, watching the rear bumper miss me leg by 2-3 inches. Like I said, this happened in a matter of seconds, and all my actions were reactions, nothing to think about, no time to think about it.

So, IMO, saying "I decided to lay it down", if you had time to make that decision, you had time to avoid the cause in the 1st place.

 

Learn to ride before going out on the road. Some people never get it.

 

You were lucky. Why do you think you would have crashed if you'd used the front brake? Do you suppose if at the time you knew how to stop quickly using only the front brake, and had not used the rear at all (which is comparatively pretty useless in a hard braking maneuver - even on a harley)
you would have avoided crashing? And done so in a way that you could reliably repeat?

Agree with your last point - "laying it down" is bs.