And another wounded ST.....

[bwolfe@xxxxxxxxx]

Had a pretty bad accident on Saturday that could have been a lot worse.....

Was coming up Hwy 9 on Saturday morning with fellow STer Bruce McCurdy and some
of his riding buddies. This  is one of the famed motorcycling roads of the San
Francisco bay area and, as such, attracts a huge number of riders of every skill
level, squids included.

Well, I was having the best ride of my life that morning and had even scraped a
peg for the first time about two miles down the mountain. Was feeling smooth, in
control, and generally was having a blast. All that came to an abrupt end on a
third gear left-hander. Was cranked over about midway through the turn when a
group of three to five riders came the opposite direction. I was concentrating
on my line (I was in the middle of my lane) and the other riders were just blurs
coming towards me. What happened next occured very fast.

The rider who was in the back of this oncoming pack appeared to be riding over
his head as he was drifting over the double yellows. He came very close to
hiting the rider ahead of me and then actually came in contact with my bike at
the worst possible place, (except for maybe between my headlights), my bars. The
contact was just enough to create a sharp steering input which forced my bars to
the left and instantly started my front wheel sliding, then got traction again,
highsiding me and the bike to the right side. I was thrown violently to the
ground and the bike behind and to the right of me.

I was extremely fortunate that I'm not writing this from a hospital bed. I
wearing a full set of armored leathers, boots, gloves and an Arai helmet. My
elbow and shoulder were the heaviest contact points and the armor worked
perfectly. I had a nice big graveled shoulder to slide into and the bike and I
were completely off the road so as not to get run over by trailing cages.

The squid who hit me didn't go down and never stopped. My group tried to chase
him down, but no luck.

The damage to me: almost nothing. A bit of a scrape on the elbow and a little
bruised and stiff shoulder. AMAZING! The leathers are in good shape, too. Shop
who makes them here locally, Johnson's Leathers, does incredible work and they
are extremely into armor technology. If you're ever in town, check 'em out!
<advert mode off>

The bike, again, pretty amazingly, had no structural damage as far as we could
tell. The right side of the bike is heavily scraped but like the Deerhunter, the
hard luggage saved the delicate pieces from serious damage. I was able to ride
the bike home without a rear brake lever and only a nubbin of the right peg
left.

Now I guess I get to see how good my insurance company is. <sigh>

Brian W.



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