Video Vednesday: The beauty of crashes

The more plane crash videos I see, the more scared I feel of flying.

The more bike crash videos I see, the less scared I feel of riding. 

There’s a certain evil beauty about motorcycle crashes. The speed of low-sides, the ferocity of high-sides, flying metal, sparks, and blood. I have seen a lot of them, maybe even a bit too many for a lifetime, but I just can’t get enough. For many people, crashing is the worst possible thing that could happen to them, even more so to their bike, and I get that. But you should never lose even a single chance to learn from someone else’s mistakes.  

Today’s Video Vednesday contains 3 of them.

The first one is rather sexy, watching metal fly away into nothingness in a matter of seconds. If you’ve ever wondered how useful footpegs are in case you crash, here is a small demonstration, courtesy of one Mr. Alex de Angelis.

Hypnotic, isn’t it? I watched this video over and over again. The footpeg sacrifices itself to save the bike, and that’s kinda awesome. By grating slowly on the hard asphalt, the peg helps the bike cruise to a stop, rather than thud to one, minimizing any damage to the vital parts.

And here you thought pegs were only good for standing up on, every time you speed over a bump.

The second video is also quite hypnotic, but in a completely different way. It has an emotional side to it, as against the completely “metal” feel of the first one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meaQucgQl2U

Both of them were lucky, in a number of ways. They didn’t end up getting pulverized by oncoming traffic. They didn’t end up hitting a wall at that speed. They slid for a long distance, minimizing the damage that their bodies took. The girl, however, looks slightly bit more lucky than the guy, simply because of having him in her life.

The dude, in a smooth, ballet-style swish, carries the girl with him, cradled in his arms. Not only did this prevent the girl from going off into some dangerous direction, it also probably stopped them both quicker because of the combined weight and friction. Overall, a pretty feel-good video to start your day with, apart from the fact that he was obviously over-speeding in treacherous conditions.

The last video is anything but feel-good. It symbolizes how quickly things can go to shit, even when nothing major seems to have happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ImuTpUYa-4

That’s some gnarly stuff right there. The crash looks pretty harmless, he wasn’t doing high speeds, there were no obstacles around, nobody to run into. But like I’ve said before, nothing can save a biker from the most dangerous thing that can ever come his way.

Being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even though the injury isn’t life-threatening, it’s probably the second worse kind there is. He is not knocked out, so he can feel everything. The impact is strong enough to have wedged a branch directly into his face, but not strong enough to send him to sleep.

I don’t know what happened to this guy, if he ever rode again or not, but that’s probably the world’s weirdest crash if you ask me.

Have you seen some crash videos that you’d want me to see? Let me know in the comments.