Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman did a television show a few years back on riding around the world, “The long way around.” They then a few years after that rode from Scotland down to South Africa, “The long way down.” While watching episode 5 of the Long Way Down I saw something that absolutely messed with my mind. I had to back it up a bunch of times and watch again, and again.
The item of my interest was the apparent deflection of the front tire at an almost impossible angle from the plane of the front disc and suspension. It looks like from what is a low speed slide the front tire is actually bending. What is amazing is he picks up the bike and rides it from Northern to Southern Africa after this accident (and many others). I brought this topic up in the tech threads of the BMWMOA forum because I wanted to know if this is normal or perhaps is it indicative of other failures about to occur. In other words is this just working as normal or is it something else. Is it an optical illusion?
Picture of screen captures as the event occurs.
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