Lowsided the GS :,(

[rscottlow]

My brother and I rode about 120 miles to the Rabbit Hash historical district in Boone County, Kentucky yesterday afternoon. The weather was great, and we had a pretty good ride. The roads in northern Kentucky are much better maintained than the roads that I typically ride in Indiana. Plus there are a lot more twisties than the mostly straight farm roads I often ride. Rabbit Hash was cool...easily 50+ bikes, plus at least a dozen cars. People just hanging out, taking advantage of the weather. Anyway, on the way home we were on US338, and I misjudged a corner and lowsided off the edge of the road. On the approach, it looked like a 90 degree left...



Much to my dismay, it was not.



I apexed way too early, and then when I realized I had to turn more, I made the fatal mistake of looking up in the direction of the right shoulder, and by the time I leaned back into it, I was already on my way off the edge of the road. My left bar end hit the road and has a bit of rash, but thankfully my body and most of my GS hit the soft ground beside the road. My gear did its job. I've got a couple bumps and bruises, but I'm fine. My tank has two dents. One of which I can't get a good pic of, the other is shown below. I'm pretty sure that my foot is somehow responsible because there were scuffs from my shoes on the tank.



I also busted the cover on the left front turn signal (that I just finally got wired up). So I'll be replacing the front signals with another cheap LED pair. It still works, so no huge hurry on that. And I bent the clutch lever. It was bent enough that it wouldn't engage, but I was able to bend it back enough to ride home. I doubt I'll be able to get it just right, so I'm strongly considering replacing them. I've been considering shorty levers for a while, so this'll probably result in me ordering them.

My other issue, unrelated to the crash, is that my turn signal indicator no longer works. I did the diode mod, and the turn signals work fine now. The indicator was also working properly until about half way through my ride. I guess it's possible that the bulb blew. That's probably the easiest thing to check before I go undoing all the wiring I just did. My brother (who is vaguely familiar with the wiring diagram, and knows about the diode mod) suggested that the original bulbs may have acted as a resistor, and by removing that, too much current could've blown the indicator bulb. Anyone else have  this issue?


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[Watcher]

Glad you are OK.

Been there, done that, literally.  Except it was in the rain, a right hand turn, and I'm convinced I hit an oil patch or a loose tar-snake or something.

My gear also did its job.  I went down on my hands and knees, slid a few feet, then tumbled across the roadway and came to a stop in a ditch.  Sprained wrist, bruised shoulder.
No rash on the tank or any plastics, my bars, brake lever, and ignition cover all bit asphalt but that was it.  Rode it home.


You'll be back on in no time, but DO take it easy for a few days and thoroughly inspect the vehicle for any hidden damage and for proper alignment.

I'd loosen the triple clamps and "reset" the forks, even if it looks straight.

[rscottlow]

Thanks. I'm definitely more sore today than I expected.

I was still pretty far from home...rode probably 40 miles after the wreck. Part of that was highway. I took it easy on the way home though. Luckily enough there was no drop off or ditch on the side of the road, so I think everything is still straight. It felt fine, but I'm going to give it another thorough overview before I ride again.


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[Watcher]

One of the biggest things we teach in the MSF is looking where you need to go.
Before you enter a turn you're looking as far up the road as you can see to judge your entry speed, and all the while you are turning you're looking for that exit.
Being that you'll naturally ride in the direction your nose is pointed, if you're looking at that exit you'll go at that exit.  Looking out of the turn is a sure way to ride out of the turn.  Sounds like that's just what happened to you.


In every crash there is a lesson.  When I low-sided for days I was going over in my head what the causes might have been and what I might have done differently to avoid the result.  It was a little difficult because I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was exactly that happened, and I even walked back out after the weather cleared up and looked for evidence of where my Moto hit the road and where I ended up to look for a cause on the road surface and couldn't find anything conclusive.  It felt like Bruce Lee kicked the cycle out from under me because the motorcycle lost the front wheel, went sliding left under me, and I landed on all fours.

So what should I do?  Scan more?  Ride slower?  Not ride in the rain?
I can't not ride in the rain, all I do is ride.  Ride slower, maybe, but I had ridden that corner many times, even in the rain, and the posted speed of 30 both seemed appropriate and comfortable even in the wet.
Scan more?  Sure.  It's harder to see in the rain, getting complacent isn't a good thing.
But it could just as well have been an oil patch from a truck riding the road seconds before me or something.  I hate using this word to describe a crash, but it may have been the 1 out of 1000 that I would say was "unavoidable."
So my biggest takeaway was not so much to change my behavior, but to reaffirm my current practices.  My gear worked, and a full face helmet kept me from literally eating pavement.  So I'm just going to keep gearing up and wearing my full face helmets.

[SirHansford]

ouch! Really glad to hear you're okay man. From the looks of the pic, that curve would be hard to judge unless you've been through it before.  I'm usually pretty gun shy when it comes to back roads that i've never been on but no one can predict every scenario out there even in the best of situations.  Just glad you're not injured.  Insurance? Full coverage?  It's so cheap on these GSs that I don't think it's ever a bad idea to carry comp and collision. Think I pay about 22 bucks a month that covers everything from theft to wind and everything in between.  Don't take much in value to total out a GS either so if you do have full coverage insurance,  ya could start a claim and then buy the bike back from them for a fraction of its value and put the little things right again and stuff the rest of the cash in your pocket or save it for ANOTHER GS and have 2! lol.  Hope your soreness goes away fast bud,  take care!

[rscottlow]

Yeah, I can't put the blame for this one on anything except for being a rookie mistake. I had ridden the same road the opposite way to get to where we were going, but my brother had been leading at the time and we were riding quite a bit slower. I was leading on the way home, and trying to push our pace a little bit. This was the third consecutive 15 MPH corner that had a nice straight run up to it, so my entry speed was probably a bit faster than it should've been. Funny thing is, we had just been talking about how some of the marked 15 MPH corners in the area probably should've been 25's. Not so much the case for this one haha.

My brother had been riding far enough behind me that he was able to see everything that happened, and had more than enough time to react. I pretty much knew what I had done as soon as I stood up and looked at the corner, but we talked through it when he pulled over, and again after he helped me get my bike up and cleaned off. I just didn't think it through quickly enough when I saw the degree of the turn, and made the mistake of looking in the direction I didn't want to go. I keep running it through my head though. It's a tough one, because entering the corner you're actually going uphill a bit, and the corner is graded in your favor. But as you go through the corner it levels out, and it's not really until that point that you can actually see how sharp the turn is. It was at that point, where I was already apexing my turn...my brother said my head was over the center line at that point, but that led to a way early exit of the turn, and by that point it was too late for me to correct. I actually think that if there was traffic coming the other way, I may have been better off, because I probably would've slowed down even more since I would've been able to see the angle of the corner earlier. It's hard to say.

I've only got liability on the GS. I knew when I bought it that it wouldn't stay perfect, so I'm okay with the fact that there's a bit of damage. I'll fix what I can, and still probably be able to get my money back out of it (or close to it) when I'm ready to get something new.

[the_63]

Glad you're safe dude. Sucks when a learning opportunity comes at the cost of the bike, but parts are replaceable, our gstwin community is not 

Chris

[Big Rich]

Wow Scott, sorry to hear about this....

Glad you're ok, and the bike sustained (hopefully) minimal damages.

[rscottlow]

Thanks guys. The weather looks nice tomorrow, and I'm taking the day off work to finish up our kitchen remodel. I think I'm going to try to go out for a short ride in the afternoon.