But, to me it looks like something sticking down from the right side of the bike grounded out. As he approaches the camera, there is s small black spike or something sticking straight down that looks like it is on the right side of the bike. If you look at the road surface just as he crossed the yellow line, and sort of jerked upright, there is a straight black line, like something on the bike cut the surface of the road.
I analyzed each frame. Being a crappy animated GIF, there aren't many frames, making it much less useful than it could be. From what I could tell, there is nothing on the road and nothing sticking out on the bike. He simply was distracted, tried to lean/turn too late too hard, discovered that cruisers can't lean much, bottomed out, pulled it back out of scraping and thought he could probably brake to a stop, and discovered that he didn't have enough braking power and/or time, and ran into the car. During the final braking, the bike was very straight, so it appears neither wheel locked. It also looked like there was not as much weight transfer forward as I would expect and should be, so I suspect he didn't brake hard enough, or his front brakes are just crap. I think his brake light is also modulated (blinks).
The original is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2R4D1vBOM8It wasn't a video- the photographer was taking some high-speed stills and knitted it together into a video. The cyclist ended up with only a radial fracture of the forearm/wrist.
Or not. Still, your machine shouldn't sit so low that it won't lean enough to make a decent turn.
Exactly. I can't know for sure, but had he quickly returned to leaning (but not abruptly), he MIGHT have been able to make it through, especially if the car moved over to give him more room (which it did). It also would have been preferable to do a low-side than to plow straight into the car. Of course, it is easy to hind-sight something like this.
