According to my status update from earlier today, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists: Those who have crashed, and those who are going to. (Personally, I think that saying is kind of stupid, because you can make impressive-sounding dichotomies out of anything. Need an example? There are only two kinds of people: Those have died, and those who are going to die. See?)
Anyway, this morning was apparently my day to crash, and crash is exactly what I did. I was coming down Campbell at about 5:45 a.m., and I was in the middle of the first left turn (the big one). I had started in the outside of the lane, as I should have, except that I ran into a small problem about halfway through the turn. The recent storms must have washed dirt and sand onto the road, and then cars went and pushed that stuff towards the inside and outside of the lane.
Well, my front tire ate up some sand, and then I don’t quite remember what happened next. Either the loss of traction flicked me, or else I tried to adjust and nudged the handlebars, but at any rate, I started heading off-road. Since the shoulder of Campbell is all dirt and tiny rocks right there, it was pretty much over for me at that point.
The bike slid out in front of me, and I followed shortly after it once it managed to shake me off (a low-side crash, as it’s known). After about 30-40 feet of sliding, bike and rider came to a stop in the dirt off to the side of the road. At that point, I did what any motorcyclist would do: I picked up the left turn signal, put it into my backpack, picked up the bike, and rode home.
The damage report is as follows:
- Decapitated left blinker
- Scraped left mirror
- Bent shift lever
- Torn-up left foot peg
- Cracked left fairing
- Scraped engine case
- Scraped left handlebar grip
All in all, there was relatively little damage to me because my protective gear did its job. Except for the dirt and dust, you can’t even tell my jacket was in a wreck. Gloves are a little scraped, but fine. Boots are scraped, but fine. Helmet is undamaged and didn’t get touched. Jeans have a couple holes in the left knee, but those are cheap to replace. I’m missing some skin off my left hip, so if you happen to come across it, I’d like that back.
I guess I’m just really thankful for the circumstances of the spill, and for the fact that I’m able to write about the whole ordeal just 14 hours later. I mean, there were no other cars on the road, I wasn’t seriously injured, the bike wasn’t seriously hurt (only about $300 hurt), and I was able to ride the thing home and park it just fine. So, thanks for watching out for me, Lord.
People have been asking me if I’m going to keep riding. I think you can tell from my tone in this post that I’m going to keep riding. I’m repairing the bike as soon as possible, and then I’m gonna ride it until the odometer stops turning. Stuff like this happens. It’s just a matter of whether you pick the bike up and keep going or whether you give up and refuse to learn from your mistakes. After all, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists…
I’ve got a cute picture for you below. It makes me hungry for dinner. How about you?
Hey Matt. Glad you’re still among the living. That injury looks like it smarts, but it could have been a lot worse. I don’t ride motorcycles – I had a spill when I was 14 where I rode a wheely into/over a hedge (I went INTO it, and the bike went OVER it…heh). I wasn’t hurt, and neither was the bike, but it ended my motorcycle career. My bro-in-law had a nasty wreck about 10 years ago and it almost killed him. He sold his bike the next week. He wanted to be around for his kids’ graduations, etc. I’m glad you and your bike are ok. Just be careful, ok?
Another view might be that God tried to provide a (relatively) non-dangerous lesson about riding motorcycles. This was about a best case scenario (no other cars, no serious injuries); the next might be “sub-optimal”. Just saying.