yep, today it was my turn. I'm off from work, it was a beautiful day in LA, a bit windy, but nothing too bad. I decide, I want to take a ride, all the way down Mullholland Hwy to the PCH. That should be nice.
The ride is going great, a bit more wind in the canyons than I would like, so I'm keeping the pace down, enjoying the ride. I'm in a tight right hander leaned over a fair amount, by no means scraping pegs or anything...
I come around the bend and there is a huge gust of wind that either pushed a bunch of sand on the road, or just moved it, but I started to slide a bit...it's ok, I've slid a bit before, I've got room to straighten the bike up and brake...but no, my slide slides me into the little reflectors that line the center divider, and the bike hops...OH SH*&. we're wobbling, but I haven't gone down and theres a big turn out of dirt right in front of me..ok, good, i've got the bike straight up, we're braking....BAM, come of the pavement, hit a HUGE rut, and I high side right over the bike, it goes down on it's right side.
I sat for a moment, checking myself out (i'm in full gear) and I'm bruised pretty bad up my right side, and I've got some road rash on my side where the jacket rose up from the pants. A cute park ranger chica stops to check on me, and we get the bike back up on two wheels...man, I scraped the V&H, there are some dents in the pipe, of course scraped the Suzuki side cover, bent the headlight brackets so the entire headlight is about an inch to the right of where it should be. So, I switch the bike to PRI, let it sit a bit, and after a bit of cranking it starts up...I take a few more moments to check things out, and I rode very slowly to the nearest gas station ...I decided the bike was a bit too wobbly to ride all the way home on the freeway, so I called the gf, and now as I'm writing this I just got back from trailering it back to the house...
I keep going over what happened, and I think it was just bad luck...sand, but the techniques I learned from the MSF course I think helped me not end up worse....straighten the bike before you brake, etc...instead of sliding under the bike on pavement in a nasty lowside, I got the bike off the road and did a "light" high side...
I may take some pics later to show if I can round up my buddies camera...just wanted to share...hopefullly, now that I got this out of the way, once the bikes fixed, I can be on my way...i gotta go put some more goopy antibiotic crap on my wounds, take some advil, put on an ice pack, and pop a cold one open....ride safe all!
glad you're ok. bike can be repaired with no pain. join the club ? :dunno:
now you have a new asperation, there are those of us with scars and those of us without.
Pick the scab! Pick the scab!!!! :lol:
Quote from: DomPick the scab! Pick the scab!!!! :lol:
hell yeah
back in the day i picked this huge piece off and it looked like a small slab of beef jerky :mrgreen:
chicks dig scars :thumb:
just curious
how did you land after your highside
Glad you're ok. I hope fixing the bike will be too. I got hit by a car on the highway 4 weeks ago. I was on the "never fallen with a bike" side for 4,5 years, now I'm on the other side too. Welcome :).
You came out very lucky. Where were you looking? Into the turn? How about when you started sliding? Which way was the wind blowing? The wind musta got under the way you were leaning and picked you up, lightening the load of traction off of the cornering tread of your tires.
Heal up and wellwishes to you.
Mentioning scabs and beef jerkey in the same sentence is sacreligious.
Quotehow did you land after your highside
actually, it's funny, my left ankle is slightly bruised (good boots protected them) but where I landed is all on my right side, my thigh is bruised, and the road rash on my stomach, and my chest is bruised (I had an imprint from the garage door opener on my chest-ha)
yeah, I'm thinking I probably caught the gust of wind in addition to the sand on the road..all in all just bad luck on the turn, cause I was looking into the turn, and I wasn't really pushing the limits too much anyway...again, good techniques learned in MSF
the front wheel caught a HUGE rut in the dirt off the highway, I think thats how the wheel twisted in my hands and tossed me....as I expected I am much more sore today than yesterday, but luckily the scab has formed and is healing nicely...no picking[/quote]
Glad your ok....now you can pick up cute park rangers with motorcycle crash stories... :cheers: :cheers:
Quote from: juggernaughtGlad your ok....now you can pick up cute park rangers with motorcycle crash stories... :cheers: :cheers:
aye, specially if you have the scars to show them. girls like that stuff :cheers:
yeah i would never go close to the speed of sliding around a corner. Last year was ripping my dirtbike around this wide right turn, came close to comming out of what i thought was the end of the turn so i cranked it and was going FAST started sliding alot went right off to the side smoked a tree and somehow snapped the front end off my rm80. Lucky i didn't hit the tree went off to the side but still broke my arm and 3 ribs. SHITTY thing is, I was currently 3rd place in a poker run. :dunno:
btw good to hear your alright :)
Welcome. You're now a member - we are an elite group of limping, pizza skinned speed freaks who spend our spare time finely honing our ESP skills so we can tell which way a car is going by the movement of the driver's eyelids in their rear view mirror as viewed at 100feet distant.
:cheers:
If you had your gear on, you know have battle wounds on it and you can calmly reply to the nice looking girl at the check stand "oh that? That's where I wrecked my street bike" to which she'll reply "didn't that hurt?????" to which you will reply "ahhh..." and calmly swagger off.
Well, ok.. Maybe go easy on the swagger part :bs:
But you've gotten it out of the way now - We are all very glad you are ok.
Scars are the coolest, dude...
Glad you're ok. Welcome to the club! :thumb:
Happy to hear that you are OK. Scars=Bad Judgement; Bad judgement = Experience; Experience = Good Judgement; QED Scars = Good Judgement ...I think...
Happy holiday! Ride safe.
:cheers:
Gene