Sharing Safety "Moments"

[aschendel]

I concur with Brent's #4 and have a story about my brother doing this exact thing, plus an interesting group dynamic / group pass mixed in.

4. Many crashes are the result of the rider "giving up" and riding off the road, rather than the bike's tires losing their grip on the road surface and sliding off the road.

Up near Ely, MN, about 12 miles into our 2nd day of a 4 day trip (4 riders), heading south on Hwy 1 we got behind a normal-ish car (a Buick i think, white, older, digital speedo) driving the speed limit or below.  We followed him for awhile as there wasn't a good opportunity to pass and then we came to this stretch of road (way down at the other end of what you can see in the image, I'm standing near where he crashed):


Here's a shot facing "forward" from the same location as the image above:


I was leading and pulled out to pass, accelerating but not hammering it.  As I went to pass the guy he floored it and I remember not expecting that, looking down and seeing that I was going 85 so I got on it and drove by, moved back over (none too close to be sure, no way he was keeping up at that point) and eased off the gas and set up for the corner in the 2nd picture above, it was marked @ 25 and I drove right through it.  It wasn't anything at all to really even remember.  Well, my brother, riding behind me on his SV650 had tagged along and I believe came into the same corner with more speed and less time, and looking at the skid marks now I think he turned in too early and had a bad line.  He panicked, dropped anchor (if you know SV's you know this wasn't necessarily that effective) and ended up skidding off the outside corner, up near that 2nd arrow in the 2nd picture.  Here are some closer-up pics:







Here's some of the aftermath:














So what did I learn, pondering this over time?  People are jerks.  I was well in front of the fall but had FRS radio comm with the sweep rider and he got on the horn saying "somebody fell, somebody fell" so I pulled off; the car comes up next to me and rolls down his window (thus my recollection of the digital speedo), I was expecting an earful about the pass but he just said, "Your buddy crashed back there." and drove off... BFE, the middle of nowhere way up north, my brother or a friend could have been dying there for this guys action/reaction to our pass and he just drives off.

I also learned that group passing can be unpredictable.  We didn't have a "rule" about passing, it never came up.  I now make it clear that people behind me should only pass when they feel comfortable and be willing to wait if anything feels weird.

I learned that people who don't ride that often should be extra cautious on trips and group rides.  I don't think he'd ridden "twisties" much, had no official training or track days, and he wasn't prepared for this situation and was overconfident perhaps, and maybe "trying to keep up".  Before he rode off the side he was probably going 15-20 miles per hour, perhaps less even, before he crossed the center line he was maybe down to 50, or even 40 or less, had he not panicked and fixated on a single course of action (stopping) (trust me I get this, I've done it too, I will post that story next) he clearly could have made the turn - or specifically, his bike could have made the turn.  It probably could have made it without even slowing down at all.

I learned that you should bump up your insurance and make sure your paperwork is all set prior to trips.  The bike should have been totalled (but less than $400 to make it rideable, he had Liability only (IIRC) so that's what we did), and he should have had medical insurance that covered more than just his MRI in Duluth (a couple fractured vertebrae).  He was basically fine, you can see him up and talking to that person in the Ford Ranger, but that was chance or grace or whatever.  He ended up under / next to a pine tree a bit deeper into the woods than his bike, which hit that boulder belly first (can we talk about engineering flaws here for a second - why make that oil filter post heavy duty steel and the case rim fragile aluminum?  A break-away post would just be too easy I suppose).

Oh, I learned that road shoulders and ditches aren't nearly the runoff that I used to think they were.  I never once gave a single thought to ending up in the trees and rocks lining the roads up there (and down here isn't much better) but even when going a reasonable speed it doesn't take much to end up badly hurt.

In fairness to my brother, he did fall at a tricky corner it seems.  I was back up there a couple summers later and that tree had been smoked by an RV or something with a lot of plastic, the tree was pretty messed up and there was plastic everywhere.

a.s.

[gdawgs]

probably about 10 years ago, i was so excited to start riding again after a long winter and was a little too pumped

i was weaving in my lane going about 35 and had the wrong combination of throttle and compression of the suspension, and my body and head was turned just looking at the georgeous spring trees developing. 

next thing i know, i had a tankslapper at about 40mph.  sad but was lucky that i didn't go down.  even when going slow and what I thought was a casual and leisure pace enjoying the roses, bad combination of factors could have put me down. 

[Hope2Ride]

I guess the new safety section isn't such a hit???