+1 for Akira Slide

Once when I was a kid, I was an avid, if not particularly talented or intelligent, bike rider. During that timeframe, I saw some professional bike riders; I think they were racing, but I might be misremembering. The point is, I observed that many or all of them had their elbows on the handlebars. I did not notice that their bikes were designed to support this.

As such, the next time I went riding, I figured "hey, the pros probably know stuff I don't. I'll try their methods!" then placed my elbows on the handles.

I had just about long enough to think "now, how do I steer ... " before I crashed.

When I was a kid I had a friend borrow my bike and watched him do this (slamming on the front brakes and being flipped over the handlebars), fortunately he wasn't injured, but I was mad because the front reflector broke off. In retrospect, it was worth it because I learned the easy way that you definitely should not do that.

Also that the default design of bike brakes is probably less safe for left handed people, since the front brakes are commonly on the left, but it's important to put more pressure sooner on the back brakes.

The timing on the bottom left panel was so flawless; it's reminiscent of standup comedy

[couple edits] One time, I pulled the front brake to see what would happen on ice. What happens is you suddenly learn that steering the front wheel is the only thing that keeps a bicycle balanced. Once it skids, you have no steer, and whatever tilting momentum you had at the time is now permanent. Sliding on the ice was actually quite nice [compared to grinding into pavement].

I didn't really understand it at the time, but it set the groundwork for a future understanding when I got into motorcycling. Having the front wash out and tipping into a "low side" crash is much more common on motorcycles, as it's much easier to get to the limits of grip. Same deal with balancing: you're constantly doing minor movements of the [bars] to keep you upright. It's not the gyroscopic effect, it's not your body moving; you're steering with tiny corrections on a mechanism with geometry that makes it work intuitively and with self-correcting steering.

Every time you want to go left, whether you know it or not, you start with a little motion of pushing the bars right. Even if you ride with no hands on the bars, your body shifts to force the bars the opposite way first. The bars and wheel go right, the tires roll to the right, the bike and body fall left, your arms and/or the geometry pull the wheel and bars left. Bam, you're now leaning and steering left while still in balance.

Every bicycle and motorcycle works like this. What makes it a skill worth honing is that once you decouple the "countersteer" motion from the entire turning process, it allows you to have much, much better control over the machine. In motorcycles, it's really valuable to be able to command more or less lean when you misjudge a turn. Something I try to explain to every new rider because bicycles and motorcycles just make it intuitive with the steering geometry, but motorcycles have much larger consequences without any real escalation in required skill beyond general road testing.

....wrong brake. Back brake and a shallow turn causes the desired effect. Had a blast at the same age until i wore my tire through lmao

I bought a little folding ebike. Wanted to get across a four way stop quickly so leaned forward to pedal hard instinctively. Went over the handlebars right in the middle of the intersection in front of everyone. Good times.

Congratulation, kid, you just achieved the Akira Yeet.

I still have a scar on my left hand from when I tried this when i was 10. The handbrake handle basically dug into my hand as I trebuchet'd myself across a carpark next to my house 🤣

Kaneda: "that bike's too big for a kid like you!"

still have the scar on my knee from doing something like that as a kid. landed on a broken coke bottle that embedded a shard in my knee

Jup same here, I was trying out my new bike that had these brake braces or whatever to make it brake extra strong (at the time,discs on bicycles wasn't a thing yet).

They worked really good.

Let the intrusive thoughts win.

Was riding my bike with my friend to the mall when i was like 10. It was kind of wet out as it had just rained and we were going over an overpass. On the the way down the hill, there was some metal thing in the road and i tried to stop too quick. Ended up going over my handlebars head first and launching into my friends back wheel. We both crashed in the middle of the road with oncoming cars. Im pretty sure my life flashed, but luckily my friend was able to help me up in time and cars saw us.

I had a big ass hill at my childhood home. Right at the bottom of our driveway. I would hit crazy dangerous speeds on that thing just to see how fast i could get.

One time I aimed badly and was going into a ditch. I tell you, I pulled off a perfect sideways akira slide... right into that ditch. Unfortunately it's really hard to control or stop a slide. So for about .1 seconds I bet I looked really cool. Before I hobbled back home with a busted up bike an some good scrapes and bruises. It's a minor miracle that it wasn't worse. I had a speedometer on that bike and could break 30mph on that hill.

Point being, you can totally make it happen, just don't use the breaks and don't expect to stop like he did. Maybe after you eat shit and break your bike 1000 times you'll actually be able to nail it.

did something like this with a friend, not on purpose, we were going downhill and the road was a bit wet, we slammed the brakes before a curve (like we used to do) and we just slid over the asphalt on our asses like idiots.

We didn't get hurt, just some bruises, but if a car had been coming from the other side it could have been dangerous, the visibility was not good since it was a 90° curve with some high walls

Lol I did some stupid stuff as a kid... But never this. This is... This is a special thing to do.

Edit: Oh man, the number of times I hit a fuckin rock when roller blading full speed, though... Still got the scars to this day on my knees.

I did this on a BMX with the standard pedal brakes. Went face first onto the blacktop. Meat crayon status. Would not recommend.

It was one of those situations where the bike was way too small for me. Lol. Head-over-handrails.

Just jump off the bike

Thats what i did when going fast and needed to stop

I've heard a few similar stories about the first time someone rode a bike with disc brakes.