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So four months ago I was riding my motorcycle during my lunch break. I had just adjusted the carbs and was winding it out to see how it ran through the gears. Bad idea because Im a novice rider. I have no speedo on my bike but was obviously going to fast. I hit a patch of loose gravel in a corner and down I went. Busted up my left leg pretty bad and cut up my arm. It was two months before I could walk without crutches and I still have a prominent limp. I modified my bike with a hand shifter so I could ride again and my wife lost it. She had assumed I would be selling my "Two wheeled death trap" and couldnt believe that I had intended to ride again even though I had been telling her I was going to since the accident. I told her that everyone who rides crashes at some point. My question is what was the worst accident you've had and did you ride again after? If so, how long after the accident? Trying to prove to my wife that Im not insane.
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What is your age?
Did you have any experience before the accident episode? -
depends on how responsible you want to be, whether you ride or not.Comment
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"The future's uncertain and the end is always near"Comment
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I crashed, 10 years ago, with my soon-to-be wife trailing me after I'd just picked up my bike from some service and she saw the whole thing. A woman on her phone merged into my lane(she was in right hand lane of 3 lane road, I was in middle) and I locked up the bike and laid it down to avoid her. Broke my hand, got some road rash, fucked up my bike. All in all it wasn't that bad of a wreck, I was only going 40ish, but it certainly wasn't fun!
Like I said, my wife saw the whole thing from about 30 yards behind me. She's never flat out told me to stop, she thinks I'm crazy for riding in the first place, and I know she would prefer me not to ride. But she knows I really enjoy it and let's me be me. We have two young children. Every time I ride I pretty much assume everyone is out to kill me and since I want to come home, I just avoid them to the best of my ability. There is a part of me that sometimes thinks I should hang it up for awhile until my kids are older, but a larger part of me wants to show them how to live, to do what makes you happy, and that life is short so live every day like its your last. I always hug and kiss my kids and wife before I leave for a ride though, tell them I love them in case it's my last words.
At the end of the day, you gotta do you. You gotta do what makes you happy. Just be safe. I've lost friends and family from some stupid shit, like one of them fell down some stairs and slit their throat and died. My dad dropped dead of heart failure at 57. People die in car wrecks all the time. It's life, and the only thing we all have in common is that one day we all gonna die.Comment
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Leather and modern fabric jackets are your friends.and cut up my arm.
Take an MSF course. Riding is not intuitive. Very few riders are good instructors. Buy and read a copy of Proficient Motorcycling then leave it in your bathroom for periodic study.
How much do you actually PRACTICE cornering? Emergency braking? Swerving/obstacle avoidance? Obstacle surmounting? Controlling rear wheel skids?
Everyone crashes sooner or later. Now go be smart and learn the right way. Riding is a perishable skill so practice something useful on every ride. If systematic practice is good enough for racers it's good enough for everyone else.Last edited by farmall; 10-10-2019, 12:31 PM.Comment
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Riding obviously doesn't figure highly with your wife! Anyway-getting back on as soon as possible works best whether its horses or bikes- delaying doesn't help. I've has a number of big accidents over the years , but most were on the track, so i've never broken anything in 40+ years so could get back on and ride as soon as the bike was fixed.
Several of my friends have suffered the most horrifying injuries and have been within a inch of death , but still ride.Comment
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I've yet to have an accident on the street, but I ride horses for a living and I've come off them dozens of times. My last one snapped my collar bone, knocked me out on a rock and sent me to the hospital. I gave it a couple weeks, but I got back on that horse as soon as I could, sling on my arm and all. Delaying never helps - getting over the hump does. Don't ever give up riding. A life being scared of what you love is not life worth living.Comment
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I started riding at around 12 or 13, dirt bikes of course. Ended up racing a bit when I was 16 and then I went into the Army. When I got out I went through a couple of bikes, a wife, and a passel of girlfriends. Did several cross country trips including a 4 month coast to coast ordeal.
I think I was in my early 40s when I wrecked my '55 Panhead. I was doing 60+ on the superslab when a van decided he wanted to use my lane more then I did. I hit the shoulder and then went over the bars when the springer caught a deep pot hole. What saved my ass was muscle memory from all the falls I took on the dirt bikes. I rolled up, protected my head and luckily went into the grass rather than follow the Panhead into traffic.
My youngest was only a toddler at the time and my wife made me promise to not get another bike till she was in college. I agreed and the day she graduated high school I bought a brand new Ultra. ( turned out NOT to be my bag, lol ). I am now 63 years old and have a '56 Panhead and will most likely die with it.
More people die in the bathtub then on a motorcycle and I figure my body is per-disastered so I am good to go. Just remember EVERYONE IS TRYING TO KILL YOU when you ride and you will be fine.Comment
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1974 Summer - 4700 block of University Ave in San Diego. Dropped my wife off to work at the laundromat and drove on down to the market for some cigarettes. Heading back home got rear ended by a drunk in a pickup truck right in front of the laundromat... Wife did not see the wreck but she saw the aftermath. Impact knocked me off the front I hit the handlebars with my knees and the gas tank with my nuts. Bruised vertebrae and knees and nuts. I walked away but not very fast - nuts were the size of baseballs for several days and black and blue for several weeks. No broken bones and the wife was at work not on the back so we dodged a bullet. I expect she would have been seriously hurt or killed. Took awhile to rebuild but I was riding again in about 2 months.
I've been riding on the street for 50 years this year and 48 have been on a Harley. I've been down a couple of times on the freeway, hit a deer, hit a dog, been hit by a car, and a couple of other crashes. I've lived where I can ride year round for most of that time, I am a daily rider still. If you ride you will probably go down. You can get back on or not. I can't imagine not riding and I never hesitated to ride again after a crash.
Met my wife in high school and was riding a Sportster then - she has never known me to not ride. She rides with me still and we stiil love it. We are both 66 We ride.
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Hunter Thompson put it like this:
“Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…”Last edited by 69Glide; 10-10-2019, 3:17 PM.Comment
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In my misspent youth I crashed a lot due to drugs, alcohol and stupidity or a combination of the three. Kids came along so I became more cautious as a rider. 15 years ago when I was 52 I was riding in the Sierras in California towards dusk when a large mule deer doe bounded off the side of a hill directly into the path of me and my Sportster. I was doing between 45-50 at the time. I saw one and a half jumps before my entire field of vision was a reddish brown and felt the impact from my abdomen to my face. Next thing I knew I was sliding down the road for about 20 feet before the bike dug into the road and I went flying over the handle bars. I landed on my hands and knees and got a good dose of road rash. My wife who was my passenger went flying over me and bounced around like a rag doll. She landed flat on her back and I was sure she was dead when she sat up and asked me what the hell happened; she'd been looking at the moonrise and didn't know I'd hit the deer. She was hurt more than me although neither one of us had any broken bones. She eventually ended up losing a finger that got mangled.
Surprisingly I think I had a harder time getting back on the bike once it was repaired than she did. I live in Colorado now and deer, elk, pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep are regularly seen along our roads. I don't ride in the mountains near dawn or dusk and I constantly scan both sides of the road when I ride. Everybody dies of something. If you use your head and develop good riding skills you have a good chance of making it to the old folks home someday.Comment
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Yes, Still riding, But screwed up. (Brain injury and assorted other issues) Am lucky to be alive. They used me as a teaching case at the trauma center. No one could believe I lived.
ME: minding my own business doing 45 mph on the way home from work and thinking I should change the oil
Stupid 20 something girl, drunk, texting and supposedly 3 hrs sleep before she joined her drinking team with a softball problem and drank 8-10 beers. (She was around 120 pounds): She was doing according to the police 75 MPH + or -. Never hit the brakes. Then accused me of "He came out of nowhere and hit ME!".
Fat man bounces good. Impacted the windshield so hard the back window popped out of her Audi S4 and front end was caved in so bad it totalled the car. I was also covered in oil I assumed was from my Scoot. It was power steering fluid the resevoir vaporized during the wreck.
Its a long story,, but short version was I never saw it coming and thought I was back overseas and got blown up by a IED. It was slow motion and I actually thought about this a lot while free falling and tumbling but ultimately decided that was illogical but said to myself.........."Oh well, We can sort this out when I land"
What else do you want to know? I bought the bike back from insurance which I always recomend. Her insurance paid out a surprising sum for a beater 86 Evo sporty and I got it back for $800. Future chopper styling by Audi. But she was chronically under insured. She had a $25k policy and my visit to the trauma center was $980 for the ambulance (Call an UBER! Cheaper!)
and I would have to check for the exact number but was $19,000 and change at the trauma center and they didnt gift me a robe, slippers or a voucher for a spa treatment or massage. (Fukkers) At least leave me with a happy ending! I was cracking jokes and my wife said If I didnt STFU they would never let me out.
I hate cell phones and stupid drivers. I go off on people, have extreme rage, Anxiety and busted since for road rage. I cant remember shit and my wife is worried I am going to burn the house down since I will wander off and forget I left the stove on or boiling water. I also have all kinds of health issues. Lost my govt job and good health care because I became a hostile menacing a-hole, and get crappy health care from the VA since I am partially disabled from the military. But I used to at least be a functioning Ahole.
I still work on bikes but takes 5x as long, will never work in aviation again, and every time I go to the VA they ask me about firearms. (Why do you ask?,, Do want to sell some? Do you really thing this is an appropriate place to sell guns? Do you think its a good idea to sell firearms to a brain damaged veteran with anger issues? )
EDIT: I almost forgot, NEVER hire these scam lawyers for AIM or other motorcycle gimmick lawyers, Mine quit on me and dealing with that, Asshat.
And NEVER EVER EVER USE GEICO INSURANCE! THEY SUCK! Why?? I didnt realize how bad they are, but I thought I should up my insurance and actually raised my policy limits and renewed. IF I knew then what I know now??? NEVER EVER BUY GEICO! Lawyers call them the Evil lizard for a reason. I am disabled for life but they have done every dirty trick in the book to avoid paying out. I am still fighting them. FUCK GEICO INSURANCE
Last edited by Dougtheinternetannoyance123; 10-10-2019, 4:25 PM.Comment
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That's an old bikers myth, and given the rate per 100K users tubs are even further from being close to MC fatalities.More people die in the bathtub then on a motorcycle
Riding is dangerous so get skilled and ride often to maintain that skill. Riders who survive the noob stage have far fewer accidents.Comment
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