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Comment by marxisttemp | Hacker News Reader

Not quite an acronym but to complete the trifecta, sometimes nobody was at fault and you just haddalayerdown (because we all know steel and human flesh are much better at slowing a motorcycle down than wimpy old rubber)

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Cue an extremely vivid memory of a rainy drenched Washington DC street awash with glare and sparkle from the street lights. Car in front of me lit the brakes, and I grab the front handbrake on my little 250 to.... nothing. No result. "uh" escaped my mouth as I grabbed a somewhat panicked handful of brake and slammed on the rear again to.. absolutely nothing except a lighter rear wheel. Finally had to just lean into a quick hard veer into the oncoming lane cause the wet and my small bike was just gliding. I learned that day that my last word will probably be "um"

I've a similar story, but 35 years ago, a situation which was entirely my fault, 100cc and 'shit'.

Ended up with a sore knee, bent forks and a realisation that leaning plus braking in the wet is a great way to make a nice groove into the asphalt!

That sounds dignified. I had a 911 a few years ago and it aquaplaned on the motorway at ~160-180kmh, spun 180º, and sent me into the central barrier.

I learned my last words were "AAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

When you say 'gliding' you mean the... what? I'm confused. When you lock the front in the wet, 'nothing' is the best possible outcome and even then doesn't last long enough. I'm assuming your 250 had ABS and the 'nothing' was it not dramatically flopping you onto the road. (As an aside, I used to hate ABS and I've now totally come around to it. New ABS is so incredibly much better than old ABS.)

Also there's no such thing as a quick hard veer in the wet, the road is like oiled glass.

No ABS on the 250 and I agree, I won't buy anything without it ever again.

By "gliding" I mean the acute sensation of the loss of weighted-ness on the road. Like when you hit a patch of ice in a car or when you're at a severe lean angle and the tires start to skip a little.

Let me assure you, there very much is such a thing as a quick hard veer in the wet. My fingers on the keyboard right now are proof, ha-ha

Oh god, that quite literally figuratively literally gave me whiplash. I've heard that "had to lay her down" line and... there is no, absolutely NO situation in which you have to "lay her down". Well okay, maybe if you're trying to slide under a semi-trailer, Bollywood style. Exception that proves the rule, and all that.

Edit: You do definitely hear that, though. Not saying it doesn't fit, just that I don't like it. :D

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