Never been in a at speed crash Did drop Flick the first day I owned him didn't realize how much mph a at500 had over 250 slipped throttle  too hard and off he went into the grass. My second and most painful trying to push to gas station didn't put the kick stand down and lost balance due to uneven pavement . Tore 3 ligaments in my ankle. ATGATT for the win though!
Mary

Quote from: GSF500 on November 29, 2012, 02:13:14 PM
Great read...!! I have been riding for 15+ years both dirt and street and I'm really interested in LEARNING how to really ride a motorcycle and the GS is great for that... I like the fact that it's not super fast crotch rocket like my 750 ninja which was to much bike for me back in the day... but I had enough common sense to respect it. The GS is perfect for my commute and riding style today and I want to improve my skills to feel better about riding on the road. Thanks for the replies and drive safe   I almost forgot....I bought proper riding gear this year, A protected riding jacket with lots of pads and Bohn-armor-pants which are really nice. I also plan on buying Dragon jeans + shirt for X-mas. I Know leathers are best but this set up should work if I ever need it but I hope I never find out.

good mindset.

find a gymkhana event (not the stupid sliding mess!) or some moto cops that will open their course to you. you will be amazed how much you will learn in a few hours. and, just how addicting it is. i hope.

press play
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjKIxiGei6k

Quote from: Kiwingenuity on November 28, 2012, 04:46:18 PM


The near misses for me usually involve a) steel expansion joints on bridges b) that horrible tar seal they use to "temporarily" fix cracks in the road surface.. as soon as it rains... 

I have had the same near misses. A few times on the same bridge that curves down hill.  Road tar seals also have been a problem for me during the summer when they are warm and gooey.

First real crash was because I was being a squid and doing wheelies. on a gs500. looped it and watched my pride bounce down the road, destroying most of the bike. Had a fun time rebuilding it though. Lots of road rash, no gear but a helmet. Very, very stupid of me.

Second was a collision at a 4 way stop. was exercising my right of way, and this air head chick just ran me over. Not much damage to the bike, no damage to me.

Other than that, dropped it at 5 mph in some wet grass. Parked it on some hard dirt, it rained and my kickstand sunk in. And was backing it up once on wet, uneven pavement, foot slipped out and down she went.

Fell over at no speed (walking the bike with the engine off, actually) with the Maxim 650 first couple of days I had it. Loose stone driveway, lack of experience balancing heavy two-wheeled objects.

Crashed that one at about 35 miles per hour due to a combination of badly designed crash bars which came with it, and I did not like much but also did not understand that they were badly designed, but which I left on "in case I crashed." (Perhaps they should have been named "help you to crash" bars) - if I or you get bored enough, there's a (not that) long post I made when I first joined the board (or shortly thereafter) about that. Learned that jeans are not protection the hard way. Bent the handlebar, dented the tank, rode home. Here we are:

Quote from: DoD#i on June 05, 2008, 05:06:21 AM
Speaking from personal experience, you want to avoid having anything that's not hinged (like the footpeg) hitting the ground, and you want to make sure that the footpeg is the first thing that hits, and ease up when it does. The margin for error is not great.

Embarrassing personal anecdote: my very first motorcycle came with a set of highway bars/case guards. I did not like the look, but I figured I'd screw up and drop the bike, so I'd leave them on for a while. Rode for a while. Had not dropped the bike yet (I MSFed before I started riding). One day I'm out having a fine time on the delightful twists of NY 327, and then my front wheel is off the ground, I'm sliding along the road, and the bike is sliding away in front of me. The highway bar was lower than the footpeg - when it hit the ground, it pried the front wheel off the road.

Bike hit the far ditch, flipped, bent the handlebar, dented the tank. I rode it home, stripped off the handlebar, ordered a replacement, beat on the tank a bit and painted a patch, and took the $#!&*!! highway bar off. I've been warning people about the hidden dangers of poorly designed accessories ever since - after all, I could have had oncoming traffic and a very different outcome.

That would also be a fine example of "leather works" (my jacket, boots, gloves) and "Denim doesn't" (road-rash on my butt.) Helmet didn't even touch. I ordered a pair of leather pants as well as the new bar.

Dumped the Seca turbo avoiding a car that blew out of a stop sign on a night with a slightly slimy road surface. Even though the car was at fault, the fact that I didn't hit it meant he got away with being an ass. Minor plastic & metal scrapes, a few scuffs on the Aerostich, rode away. Managed to tip that one over on the center-stand (yes, the center-stand) from sinking into soft tar/ground a couple of times.

Haven't dumped the GS yet. And I do mean, yet. Odds are it will happen at some point. I dress for the odds, because accidents really don't schedule themselves around how happy you are to be wearing all the gear or not.

Take the MSF class (or something "equivalent" if you can't get the real thing where you are.) Don't maybe think about it - go do it.

I've never combined drinking (alcohol) and riding, and I stopped playing with "'safe' amounts and waiting times" for four-wheeled vehicles after I'd managed to get by just fine being strict about it on the bike. I like to have my wits about me on the road, I find. And I can be social just fine while drinking tonic water or root beer or ginger-ale or lemonade...

I forgot about the time I dropped the GS at 20 mph in the snow. Snow is fine on a motorcycle as long as you don't have to accelerate quickly, brake or turn 

You're right - did that to the Maxim, too. Roads had been cleared & salted, I was fine on the road.

Parking lot at work was the undoing of that day.

Need a sidehack for winter, I think.

Thanks again for the post....I am more educated on things to look for and not to do :icon_mrgreen:I prefere not to learn the hard way so thanks for sharing your experiance, I believe it can help all of us be safer. I will be looking to take a MSF class in the spring. Drinking and Driving

When I got my first bike my insurance agent made me come in for a  meeting with him before he would give me insurance.  I was 17 and had just purchased a Katana 750.  He told me there was a 99% probability I would lay down my bike in less then a year.  Here I am 13 years and roughly 20,000 miles later, haven't crashed yet.  But I know it's coming, eventually.  I've certainly had more close calls then I can remember.  Most of them on that Katana, which is why I sold it 2 years later and bought a much slower bike, my '75 XS-650, which is what got me into turning wrenches, and got me into parallel twins.

When I rode dirt, crashing was part of the game...if you where pushing yourself. I went 3 years without laying down my last dirt bike because I figured out a pace that I could ride all day, leave most in the dust and make it back to work on Monday. On the street I went down in a corner from too much front brake while riding a grit covered road. That was in 1977, 25 bikes later and 36 years since my last crash, it can be done....find your limit and watch out for the other guy, zero room for error on a street bike.

In 28 years and 400,000 miles of riding on 6 bikes I've had a few drops.  Doubt I can remember them all but I'll mention a few.     A week after I got my CB400T 1st bike I touched the front brake while making a slow speed u-turn and down it went.  Lesson learned and never repeated.

Don't remember my CB750K 2nd bike ever going down while in motion but it went down twice.  Once I parked it at the mall in a place without enough lean and heard it go over behind me as I walked away and another time I parked it and a man started talking to me before I put the stand down and after a long talk I got off without putting it down.   

I had my CM400T 3rd bike a long time and can only remember a couple.  Once while making a slow careful right turn I hit the throttle and went down, was on gravel on blacktop and another time I was passing a stopped car on a rough berm to right turn and my front tire hit a large round stone and just rolled out from under me.

Can only remember my CB650SC 4th bike going down once while parked, at Headlands Beach a sudden 50 mph wind gust came in off the lake and hit it from behind and it did a slam dunk with the big Plexi 2 shield on it catching the wind.

I hit the excellent rear disk brake on my GS500E 5th bike the first month I had it when a car started to pull out in front of me and low sided it.  I learnd my lesson well and mastered that brake and when a deer suddenly appeared in front of me from behind an on coming truck my covered rear brake slowed me instantly just missing the deer before my right hand hit uncovered front brake.

Only accident I ever had on a bike involving contacting another vehicle was 9 years ago with my GS500 6th bike.  I was slowing and just starting to turn from a highway onto a side road when I was hit from behind by a kid in a S-10 pickup.  I high sided thru the air across the road and landed my 240# on my left shoulder and rolled a few turns.  Got a broken left collarbone that never healed properly, missed 2 weeks riding after that one.

Oh yea, I forgot about 2 other drops. BEWARE OF NON RIDING FRIENDS WHO THINK BIKES ARE COOL.

One was my dipshit roommate who decided to try and move it so he could get a better parking spot, and instantly dropped it.

One was just sitting on it, put the kickstand down but didnt lean the bike enough and it fell right over. On grass luckily, but still bent my brand new shiny clutch lever and broke my bar end mirror.

Near Misses....

1 - was riding along and wanted to make a right hand turn (we ride/drive on the left in Aust). There was a truck wanting to come out of the side street and he was half way across the oncoming lane. This forced me to take the bend later than I otherwise would have. That is when I discovered that Every intersection has what I call a Debris Zone where bits of gravel and stuff collect. Bike started sliding out, but before I had registered it my foot was down on the ground helping me make the corner - I put that down to years of dirt bike riding and plenty of crashes because of that.

2 - Riding around a round-about in mid winter. Very early in the morning. About half way around bike started sliding out. Again, foot was down to keep me up and I rode away. It was either some diesel on the road or a small patch of black ice. My money is on the black ice.

3 - Approaching round-about in the wet. Slowing down, everything going nice. Car on round-about not signalling to come in front of me so must be going straight, right? Nope. Last second decides in front of me it is. Brakes applied a little harder, front locks up ever so briefly as I let it off. Foot had also gone down to better stability and kept me upright.

4 - Lady merging onto busy road. Talking on cell phone. Merging right into me. I'm beeping the horn. Nothing. Didn't slow or speed up, didn't even fuking look to see if all was clear. Forced me to ride between the flowing lanes of traffic until I found a gap I could slot back in to.

5 - Not a near miss but I'll class it as one anyway. I'm at a set of traffic lights. The sequence from my POV is, left right get a go then stop, across from me gets a go, then I get a go. So I am sitting. Left and right have their go then stop. Across from me has its go then stop. I get the green. And like I always do before moving off, I look left and right to make sure noone is coming. As I look to my right I watch as a car sails right through the intersection, didn't slow, just full speed. Light had been red for almost a minute at that stage.

Last road bike crash, long before the GS: Unfamiliar road. With a group. Road is foggy as, corners have water running across them mid apex, leaf debris everywhere. Guy in front of me had a few near misses. I'm thinking, "I hate this road I hate this road, it's so bad someone will probably crash". Five minutes later I'm a little too hot in a corner. In the dry, not an issue. But with wet leaves a good 1 to 1.5 meters in from the road edge. I'm drifting wide, wider, almost around, wet leaves, Forgedaboudit. In the muddy ditch I am. Bent handle bar and clutch. Hope back on and continue riding.

Michael