Highsider

A highsider or highside is a type of motorcycle accident characterized by sudden and violent rotation of the bike around its long axis. This generally happens when the rear wheel loses traction, skids, and then suddenly regains traction, creating a large torque which flips the rider head first off the side of the motorcycle or over the handlebars.

The initial traction loss may be caused by:

Highsides differ from lowsides as follows: during a lowside the rear wheel slips laterally and continuously until the bike falls onto its side (the side that's inside the corner), while during a highside the rear wheel slips laterally only briefly before suddenly regaining traction and flipping the bike onto its other side (the side that's outside the corner, and therefore the higher side of the motorbike). As a result, highsides happen very quickly with little, if any, warning and are very violent.

If the wheels are not aligned in the direction of travel when traction is suddenly restored and the rear tire stops slipping, then a highside is likely, depending on how much the bike is turned across the direction of travel and how fast the bike is traveling when the rear tire stops slipping. If the angle is high enough, the bike is moving fast enough, and the rear tire slips and regains traction suddenly enough, the rider has no chance of preventing a highside.

Forces occurring between the motorcycle and the road (such as those that result in accelerating, decelerating and turning) occur at the contact patch through friction and normal forces. There is a limited amount of force tangential to the road that the contact patch can transmit before the tire begins to lose traction, and therefore slide or skid.

When going through a curve on a motorcycle, centripetal force (added to the other lateral forces such as acceleration or deceleration) is transferred from the road to the motorcycle through the contact patch, and is directed at a right angle to the path of travel. If the net force is greater than the static friction coefficient of the tire multiplied by the normal force of the motorcycle through the tire, the tire will skid outwards from the direction of the curve.

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Wikipedia