The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

That's bad but not horrible.
 
Crashed on 635 today. Didn't break anything and no internal injuries, but ow. Bike survived too, but more scratches and some destroyed parts. :p
 
Sorry to hear that. What happened?



And where is the video :p
 
Oh noes! Glad you and bike are mostly alright. Give us the details, mon!
 
Glad you are okay.
 
The joys of ATGATT.
Glad to hear you're OK.
 
?Okay? might be questionable, but the x-rays say I don?t have any broken bones, no internal injuries - just contusions all down the left side of my torso where I landed and one spot on the top of my shoulder about two inches in from the edge. That last one was from sliding into the tow hitch of the Honda Odyssey I wound up partially under. Basically, those were the only two places where my armor was questionable or non-existent. The only other personal damage was a couple of friction burns from where the armor pads took the impact and slid under pressure. Modern gear is so much more protective than the stuff I started out with 25 years ago, it?s not even funny; no skin hit the ?high speed 4 grit belt sander," so no ?fun? in the wound debridement area of the nearest hospital. Thank God for that. I've done that once in my life and I never want to do that again. Which may have something to do with why I wear ATGATT.

Third damn time I?ve had a bike crash and had a bike end up on top of me; the second time for this particular bike, though this time I didn?t mind - it was protecting me from oncoming traffic. Many people stopped and got out to assist. Thank God I live in Texas; I've been places where people wouldn't have voluntarily stopped their home commute traffic (as in, average people shut down several lanes of the freeway), got out in significant numbers to help and made sure I was okay.

Survived again through the grace of God and modern riding armor. And the bike was even left in good enough shape to ride home - slowly, carefully and painfully. :p That last was *probably* not the smartest thing I ever did, but oh well. I have, however, just redefined ?sore?. Ow.

- - - Updated - - -

RdKetchup said:
And where is the video :p
Click to expand...

I had been riding earlier in the day (my 919 is actually used to run me around to work sites in the city, so I can spend a lot of time in the saddle) and the camera's battery had finally run down. I'd left it home to recharge and was out running a quick pickup without it... The ONE damn time I do that, of course this happens.
 
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As for the post-mortem of the accident itself - it was actually mostly my own damn fault.

Primary causes: Following too closely (though not tailgating), failure to leave or create an escape route at all times.
Secondary causes: Vehicle attempting to merge into lane, idiot rubbernecker at head of line of traffic in lane decided to hammer his brakes to gawk at a prior accident already cleared to the side of the road causing everyone behind him to panic stop, shitty pavement.

I was riding on Interstate 635 during the early part of the evening rush hour, about 1630 local time. I'm in the fast or left-most main lane in the usual bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go traffic, doing about 45 and going with the flow of cars. I was behind a first-gen Honda Odyssey at the time, with an adequate space cushion and an empty HOV lane to my left. I crested a hill and traffic starts slowing down a bit, so I let off the throttle and let the space cushion decrease a little, figuring I'd be able to make the cushion back up in a moment.

Just at that moment, some dumbass in a black Chevy Silverado in the lane to my right decides to start merging into me without looking. I see this in my peripheral vision, glance over for a split second to note that he's stopped his merge, notice something coming up fast in front of me in my peripheral vision, look back forward to see the Honda Odyssey and all the cars in front of it have panic stopped because some idiot ten cars up in the lane had slammed on his brakes hard because they wanted to gawk at a previous accident already cleared to the side of the road. I couldn't see through the Honda so at the time so I had no idea why everyone had stopped - I was told this afterwards.

At this point, I instantly realized several things.
1. I'd fucked up and not maintained my space cushion.
2. There was a Prius and the divider barriers to the HOV lane to my left/left front and the Silverado to my right. I didn't have a good escape route any more.
3. This was going to suck. And probably hurt. A lot.

I decided to try to thread the needle and split the difference (and lane space) between the Odyssey and the Silverado. I hammered both brakes and aimed to the right of the Odyssey. Unfortunately, I then crossed one of the basically polished grooved pavement slabs that sometimes makes up part of the surface of I-635 and completely lost traction. Once the tires crossed the slab and got on a surface with traction again, the front end tucked and the bike went down on its left side, slamming itself and (since I was still on it) me into the pavement with a forward velocity of about 30-35mph. Yup, highside onto pavement.

The bike and I slid forward about five meters and my head and torso ended up under the van. Didn't lose consciousness, didn't actually hit my head though I did abrade a bit off the helmet getting out from under. I had actually stayed with the bike until the very end of the slide when I partially separated from it and got rolled by friction onto my back and right side. End result was my left leg from the knee down was still under the bike, I'd gotten a really good look at the Draw-Tite hitch installation on the Odyssey and (as it turned out) nothing hard actually made contact with the van. Pulled myself out from under the van, pushed my torso up and waited for my diaphragm to relax so I could catch a breath. The rest is as related above - people stopped, shut down traffic, helped me right the bike, checked that I was okay, etc. Once we got the bike righted and it cranked back up, several people gave me cover with their vehicles while I slowly rode it off the freeway to the nearest exit.

Moral of story: ALWAYS enforce your space cushion even if the party behind you gets mad and honks at you. ALWAYS try to make sure you have an escape route. As I have recently been forcibly reminded, pavement is very hard and hurts a lot when you get body slammed into it at speed. You may wish to avoid having your own personal experience of this. :p

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention. The personnel at the hospital emergency room were shocked when I walked in later on that evening. Usually, the bike crash victims they see come in unconscious on a gurney and resemble hamburger or calamari. Not some guy who calmly walks in, is in good humor if some pain and is cracking jokes. The looks on their faces when they learned that I hadn't done something like fall off a ladder but instead had crashed a motorcycle were priceless. :D
 
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Well, I'm glad to hear you're doing (mostly) OK Spectre.
 
Add me to that list. It is not often that one gets to learn from a potentially fatal incident. Listen to Spectre so you can have the same chance (ie, wear good gear), and maintaining space and and a potential exit is a good strategy no matter what you are driving.
 
You can always get new parts or a new bike, at least nobody got seriously hurt. I wouldn't put any of that on a fictional deity, more like proper gear and a handful of luck. ;)
 
Yikes, Spectre. Still, I never want to get that close to a tow hitch on a freeway. Out of curiosity, were you in your textile jacket or leather? I'm curious because I know friction burns happen all the time with textile jackets during crashes. Still, I'll take that rather than pavement grinding.

Also, duly noted on enforcing a space cushion. I always forget that.
 
Kiki said:
Yikes, Spectre. Still, I never want to get that close to a tow hitch on a freeway. Out of curiosity, were you in your textile jacket or leather? I'm curious because I know friction burns happen all the time with textile jackets during crashes. Still, I'll take that rather than pavement grinding.

Also, duly noted on enforcing a space cushion. I always forget that.
Click to expand...

I was wearing mesh and textile gear, actually - though due to where I was going I had left my Sidi boots at home in favor of some heavy work boots. Here's the damage assessment pictures. First the bike (with the really ugly temporary tank while I wait for my proper replacement):






Tank was untouched and the bike was ridable. My brand new HJC CL-17 Victory didn't do badly at all - but yes, I am replacing it with another one. Helmets are one event only. :p Since these are on closeout at motorcyclegear.com for $60 right now, it's a no brainer.



My Fieldsheer Prodigy took significant damage. There was total friction burn through of the mesh at my left vest pocket (where my iPhone 5s was riding in an Otterbox Defender) and the outside hand pockets (where my wallet was on one side and my hard sunglasses case was on the other):



You can see the outline where my phone was.


Left outer pocket:


Right outer pocket:




Right elbow armor pocket:


Left shoulder armor pocket:


Left elbow armor pocket:


Left rear side, above the hip and kidney belt:


And miscellaneous other rub spots.

No appreciable damage to my Fieldsheer mesh pants. My work boots were thick leather with steel toes - and once you see how the left one fared, you'll appreciate that it was impressive how well the mesh actually managed to hold up.


And the gloves. Oddly most of the damage was to the right glove - the left is all but untouched except for some scuffing on the back. I suspect the right palm caught on something on my way off the bike during the slide.



Right:


Left:






 
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Cool flames, brah!
 
Redliner said:
Cool flames, brah!
Click to expand...

Yup. However, that was a tank I scored for $40 shipped a year or so ago to work up a design for tank sliders on. I never intended to actually put it on my bike, but I happened to have it still around when my original tank leaked. The local dealers want, oh, $700+ for a new correct tank (potential 2 week wait even with local dealerships as they have to order it in) and there are still no good used tanks in Dallas.

I mail ordered the correct tank from a Honda dealer that was giving 50% parts discounts and they ordered it in to forward to me. That one should be here shortly. In the meantime, being able to ride (albeit with some embarrassment) for no additional cost sure beats the hell out of not riding or shelling out $700+ and having to wait anyway.

The sad part is that while the person who commissioned the flamed tank paint job obviously had shit tastes but they found a very good artist to execute the work. Der Stig and CrazyJeeper agree that it's ugly, but you could tell that the painter was very, very good at his job.
 
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Jokes aside, the flames could be A LOT worse.
 
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