Tell me about your motorcycle wreck...

My brother is 14 months older than me and I called him this morning and I said guess what I did....

He immediately said you crashed your bike.

I might be a lot of things but I'm not a liar and I'll tell you this.... For being 14 months older than me he is a bit smarter than I am!

 

What you are describing is what they call engine braking.

Truck drivers call it Jake breaking.

But they also tell you not to "lug" the bike.... In other words to downshift while you're going too fast for the gear.

I do believe it's not very great for your engine but it's a lot better than going down.


Well anyhow I will have some time to think about it until my bike gets out of the shop.

 

I should actually do that and go practice threshold breaking.

Of course last night or the night before... There was absolutely no opportunity to do anything but lock up the brakes all together.

If I would have hit that barbed wire fence at a 90° angle....

I am still counting my blessings and licking my wounds. Dunce cap I should wear.....

But the important thing is I'm still alive and not in the hospital or jail!!!

 

And of course I have to go to work tonight at 10:00 p.m....

So I'll be limping around like the dumbass I am.

I should probably go and get this foot of mine x-rayed but what the hell can they do?

I don't want to go and spend my bike repair money on an X-ray!

I have done dumber things before like kick at a weed eater in my bare feet ( I still have the scars to prove it and yes alcohol was involved )but I'll be all right.


You know what John Wayne used to say..... Life is tough and it's even tougher if you're stupid!

 

Now that you mention it the front brake on my Kawasaki KLX 230 dual sport bike is much much less touchy....

Than the 500 Harley-Davidson Street that I took my motorcycle endorsement on.

You just barely touch that front brake and that bike was about ready to lock up in second gear at 20 mph.


The front brake on my bike is a lot more forgiving..... Unless you're going roughly 50 mph and there's a 90° curve in front of you and you have to lock them both up...

In which case it doesn't really matter what bike you're on.... Your dumbass is going for a ride and not the kind of ride you might want to go for.

 

And that's exactly how it happened.

 

I'm so glad you're okay ma'am.

That sounds like a tragic and a devastating accident.

As for me? I'm waiting on the dealership to call me back and tell me my bike is fixed!

But... but...... I did learn an important lesson.


They told me in my motorcycle class never "challenge the road".... And that's exactly what I did

 

Wow!!! You are lucky to be alive. People just don't realize how bad the odds are. I sure didn't.

The chances of a fatality in a motorcycle accident are approximately 30 times higher than in a car. Motorcycle accidents have a staggering 80% injury or death rate, while car accidents remain around 20%.
https://www.nadaguides.com/Motorcycles/shopping-guides/motorcycle-vs-car-accident-statistics#:~:text=and car accidents:-,Motorcycle Accidents,car accidents remain around 20%.

It's like playing Russian Roulette with 4 of the 6 chambers loaded.

 

40 some-odd years ago, I went for a midnight spin with a friend (I was passenger) on a motorcycle. Moderate turn in the road, but there was gravel in it.

I am thankful I was wearing a helmet and a Carhart jacket. The helmet shattered on one side, the jacket got shredded, along with my knee and road rash on my side.

I haven't been on one since, with no plans to do so.

 

I was riding the insanely busy freeways of Los Angeles. Lots of spills and oil and grease on the roads in busy areas. So I was especially careful. But as you learned, even leaves can do it.

LOL! I rode for 20 years. You are just ignoring what I said.

 

There is no shame for anyone in practicing your low speed maneuvers.

The entire motorcycle safety course consisted of such. Except for one exercise and second gear where you were supposed to gun the bike from here to there we never got over 20 miles an hour

 

Fortunately, I live in a fairly small cow and citrus redneck town... But traffic can be pretty stupid for a town of just over 8,000.

We have two major highways north south and east west and I try to avoid those highways if it's during peak traffic hours.

Through town the speed limit is 45 but everyone feels a need to do 60.

But there is a network or back roads I'm very familiar with and I usually take those.

I moved here in 2010 having spent 16 years in Tampa before that. If I still lived in Tampa I don't think I would have ever bought a motorcycle. That's like death wish.

 

What are you talking about? I was talking about high speed turns.

If you want to go left you turn right. If you don't know that you will eventually figure it out.

 

You were SO lucky.

My husband used to not wear a helmet until he rode under a viaduct at 70 mph and something fell from it. It glanced off his head but he almost blacked out and had a huge egg on his forehead. If it had hit lower down it could have been bad.

Saved his life though....a few months later he laid his bike down riding on the highway. He would have been seriously enjured or dead if he hadn't had his helmet on.

 

I'm going to the bank when I wake up tomorrow to put some money in my other account to get on Amazon and buy at least a half shell helmet.

Glad to hear that your husband is still on the green side of dirt.

 

It is difficult for me to wear a helmet when I don't have to. On our trip through Florida I did a lot of riding without one. But I would not be troubled by helmet laws anywhere. It could save your life.

 

I would never ride without a helmet. I broke one and went down more times than I can count on dirt bikes. I might have easily taken brain damage or at least serious head injuries a number of times if not wearing a helmet.

I don't support helmet or seat belt laws but I most certainly support wearing helmets and seat belts. But by all rights you should pay for that in insurance if you choose not to wear one. Get caught in fraud and your insurance won't cover anything in the event of an accident.

 

Dude, you need something more like this
https://www.amazon.com/1Storm-Motor...vlocphy=21137&hvtargid=pla-945135301151&psc=1

 

Worst one, one where I felt lucky to have survived, was way back in the mid 1980's. I was riding a 1982 Yamaha Maxim XJ650.

From the time I was 16 years old, until I was in my mid 20's, the only mode of transportation I owned was a motorcycle. I rode all 4 seasons, in all kinds of weather, because I had no other choice.

This particular night, I was riding home from band practice, and there was a dense layer of fog hanging about headlight-level. The road was wet; it had been raining earlier. The road had a long sweeping downhill right hand turn, across a railroad track, in the distance, I could see the glow of a familiar convenience store in the fog. I rode this road nearly every night.

Here is a google map link to the exact spot --> [MAP] It's much different now, but at the time, this was a dark 2 lane country road, with no signals at the railroad crossing, and nothing but farm fields on either side of the road. You can see the convenience store in the distance, apparently now a hotdog joint.

I noticed in the fog, the lights from the convenience store seemed to be flashing in a strange pattern. By the time I realized that there were empty flatbed rail cars going by on the railroad track, obscured by the layer of fog, it was too late to stop safely. I aimed for the ditch and laid it down, sliding to a stop against a fence post.

I was banged up, but nothing broken. My bike was bent up pretty bad on the left hand side. I was able to get it back on its wheels and ride it home. I remember sitting on the ground watching that train pass by thinking about how lucky I was to have survived that.

 

Helmet laws interfere with natural selection. I do not ride without mine.. ever.

 

That would be a terrifying experience...

 

My only serious accident on a bike was in 1968 on Guam while I was in the Navy. I was riding late at night, more like early morning, with an inexperienced buddy in back. It was raining hard, as it does about half the time during the rainy season, and the road gets very slippy when wet because of the ground coral and oil mixture pavement.

I leaned into a turn at speed, my inexperienced buddy didn't lean with me, he leaned against the turn, and down we went. We slid down that pavement about 100 feet, but we both managed to avoid being under the bike. Fortunately we were wearing helmets, but I got one hell of a scrapped up left forearm. That sucker took about three months to heal but it never did get infected.

We stayed good buds but I never had him on the back of my bike again.

 

Same here, but I still practice in a parking lot occasionally, especially when I get a new bike. Figure 8's, tight circles, panic braking, all that.