tbuck46 Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 As the title suggests, I went down on the bike yesterday. I went for a nice long ride yesterday morning, all excited because it was my first long ride on the 07 for the year due to the weather and other priorities. On the way back home about 20 minutes from the house on a road that I know. I'm not 100% sure if it was my fault getting too much front brake or if a vehicle behind me tagged my rear tire. It was a straight section of road going uphill and at the crest of the hill is a large gas station. There were cars in front of me and behind me and the speed limit was 50 MPH. At the crest of the hill everyone was slamming on their brakes trying to stop. I don't know if it was a car that pulled out of the gas station in front of everyone, or traffic backed up and surprised everyone cresting the hill from a Harley dealer that is located at the bottom of the hill on the opposite side of the hill who was having some event going on. Anyhow, I got on the brakes to quick slow down and all that I remember is about 2 seconds after getting on the brakes the whole bike went wild and down to the left I went. The only thing that went through my mind as I was sliding down the road was "please don't let an oncoming car hit me" as my body was in the opposing traffic lane. I quickly jumped up after I stopped sliding and ran over to my bike that was still in the proper lane, to get out of the oncoming traffic lane. I picked up my bike and rolled it into nearest driveway of the gas station where a bunch of people gathered around me to see if I was OK. No one that stopped to check on me saw what caused me to go down, they just saw me and my bike sliding across the asphalt. A young guy (maybe 18 yrs. old) in the car in front of me was apologizing thinking it was his fault, that he should have swerved to the right side to give me more room to stop. I assured him that it wasn't his fault, he had no way to know and had no responsibility to swerve out of the lane. Apparently he lost a family member in a motorcycle accident and he was genuinely concerned. He was also the last person to leave me when it was all said and done. One of the people who stopped was a nurse and she looked me over with my permission. I survived the incident with mostly just a sore body from the impact. The only thing visibly bruised is my left big toe that got jammed onto the road when I went down. Might lose my toenail, just have to see. No road rash because I was wearing full gear. So the gear damage.... 1. Helmet saved my life and my face. Impact and damage is on the chin and face shield and I found secondary damage along both sides along the top from the helmet shell flexing from the impact. Was a Shoei GT Air. Highly recommend this helmet for fit and comfort and for saving my life. 2. Jacket was a AGV Sport Canyon perforated leather. Slid on left arm and shoulder. Marks all along sleeve and tore left shoulder logo patch halfway off, but not ground through. Had the shoulder and elbow armor in it that came with the jacket. Just bought it the beginning of the month to upgrade from textile. Saved my upper body from road rash. Recommend as a low cost leather jacket. 3. Rev 'it! Athos Air 2 ventilated hi viz vest. Ground through the upper shoulder area. Disposable but can recommend for a good, simple high vis option. 4. Alpinestars Ablaze Kevlar lined jeans. Ground through the left pocket but not the cloth pocket liner where my wallet was. Left knee ground through the knee, the kevlar, and the mesh pocket that would hold the knee armor that came with the jeans when I bought them 2 years ago, but was not using at the time. Not really recommending, nor bashing the jeans because I'm sure the kevlar helped, but a lot of these jeans sold with kevlar lining do not use very thick kevlar in them and still wear through. Leather pants would have been better. 5. Dainese Armored underpants. Full length spandex style underpants worn under the jeans that have CE rated armor in the knees, hips and tailbone. Very small, almost hard to see spot on the left knee that got abraded from where the jeans ground through. Highly recommended as my knee is not sore at all but my left hip is the sorest spot as it must have taken the hardest impact, so without armor there it would have been worse. The armor stayed in place as well and one of the reasons that I wore this instead of the non CE rated armor that came with the jeans is that the armor mounted in the pockets of the jeans allow it to shift out of place. 6. TCX Explorer EVO Gore-tex boots. Left toe box abraded but not worn through and the sole stayed attached along the front where it attaches to the toe box area. Right boot just scuffed. I can recommend these but would like to see a stiffer toe box area. 7. RS Taichi ventilated armored leather gloves. Abraded on palms and armored knuckles scrapped up. Held up well. Recommend. Earlier I made a reference as to the possibility of the vehicle behind me tagging my rear wheel. The only reason I wonder about that is because all the damage to the bike is the left side, except the rear wheel rim and tire are damaged on the right hand side and there is nothing on the right side damaged or able to make contact with the rear wheel. The vehicle behind me kept going after I moved my bike from the road and I didn't look at the vehicle because I was just trying to get clear of the road. So who knows what really happened, but the whole thing has me thinking hard about things. Well, it has been a long post so I will post the damage to the bike later if anyone wants to know. Stay safe out there and wear all the gear all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddog Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 Glad you're alright! Good thing you dressed for the slide, not for the ride. Now I'm wondering if I should keep a reward-facing camera on at all times. I have a helmet mounted gopro, but a large number of motorcycle collisions are rear ends. Have you tried getting security footage from any of the surrounding businesses? Were any of them close enough for that to be a remote possibility? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbuck46 Posted May 30, 2016 Author Share Posted May 30, 2016 I am also glad that I was wearing all the gear that I was because otherwise things would have been much worse. I honestly didn't even think about security footage. The only place possible would have been the gas station, but it is actually fairly hard to get security footage from private businesses around here. What sucks is that I also use a Drift Ghost-S mounted on my helmet , but for some reason it was malfunctioning and only recorded for about ten minutes of footage when I left my house and then again when I changed the battery when I had turned around to come home. I had thought that the first battery was dead when I changed it because the camera was off. I was hoping that I was going to review the footage at the time of the accident and see if I could tell exactly what happened. No such luck. I had also thought a few times before about getting a second camera to record rear facing footage just in case someone ever rear ended me or was being an ass and road raging on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kawinight Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Thanks for posting about the gear, good info to have. Glad you turned out ok atgatt! I recently went down on Monday on my panigale. So I sympathize. Had the same kinda wreck happen but at a lower speed maybe 15-20mph person locked down the brakes in from of me and I jabbed the brake "maybe too hard" lost the front. But had I not I feel I would of ended up in the vehicles rear hatch. I was wearing Sidi boots, couldn't find a scuff on them that I hadn't noticed before and I had recently cleaned them. I had a Daninese textile jacket on "can't remember name" it held up well. Main impact was on my right side/shoulder. Jacket did ride up on my right side so I have a small amount of rash on my hip 1x2 inches. Draco jeans which held up really well. Pretty impressed. Didn't even lose my wallet in my back pocket. Worst thing was I just left the dealer for apraisal to trade on a FZ-07. Glad your ok! Sorry about your bike and gear. It did its job though. Time to move forward right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator sorkyah Posted May 30, 2016 Global Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2016 I am also glad that I was wearing all the gear that I was because otherwise things would have been much worse. I honestly didn't even think about security footage. The only place possible would have been the gas station, but it is actually fairly hard to get security footage from private businesses around here. What sucks is that I also use a Drift Ghost-S mounted on my helmet , but for some reason it was malfunctioning and only recorded for about ten minutes of footage when I left my house and then again when I changed the battery when I had turned around to come home. I had thought that the first battery was dead when I changed it because the camera was off. I was hoping that I was going to review the footage at the time of the accident and see if I could tell exactly what happened. No such luck. I had also thought a few times before about getting a second camera to record rear facing footage just in case someone ever rear ended me or was being an ass and road raging on me. Glad you're alright dude looking into those dainese pants because i dont want roadrash again... Also when you replace your gear.... remember to contact shoei, im pretty sure they still have a crash replacement discount ATGATT... ATTATT, two acronyms I live by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator mjh937 Posted May 30, 2016 Global Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2016 Thanks for the report on how the gear held up. I am glad to hear you are okay. Let us know if you need any parts for your bike. A lot of us have stock parts sitting in the garage after we have upgraded and I am sure many of us would be happy to send stuff for the cost of shipping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simbadc650 Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Take a breath and keep walking, live another day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member i28 Posted May 30, 2016 Premium Member Share Posted May 30, 2016 Glad you're okay. Hope you have a speedy recovery from the minor injuries! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member biggaudi Posted May 30, 2016 Premium Member Share Posted May 30, 2016 Thanks for sharing your experience, as frustrating and frightening as it may be. We can all learn from each other. Wishing you quick recoveries and that you are back on two wheels soon enough! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Eastern Kayaker Posted May 30, 2016 Premium Member Share Posted May 30, 2016 Sorry to hear about your accident. Your gear saved you from more serious injuries. I hope your insurance claim is processed smoothly and your back on the road after you heal up. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beemer Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Glad to hear you're still here and only got minor injuries. What kind of injuries did the bike sustain? Beemer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator Guru Posted May 30, 2016 Global Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2016 I'm so sorry to hear this but I'm also very happy to see you posting. Good point on the reason why you went down. A vehicle touching your rear wheel would cause a violent reaction like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbuck46 Posted May 31, 2016 Author Share Posted May 31, 2016 Thanks for all the positive thoughts guys. As far as parts, a few damaged parts are aftermarket and I still have the factory parts that I removed. The frame was protected with Woodcraft frame sliders and helped a lot in preventing more damage. My Left lower fork tube is lightly scrapped up and the left engine cover has a few scrapes as well. The left side plastics including the tail section plastics are junk but are fairly low cost. The side stand, rider foot peg, passenger foot peg and bracket are junk. The spool of my Gilles Tooling chain adjusters saved the swing arm from any damage so that is good. I will replace the handlebars and put the factory mirrors, levers and bar ends back on for now. I will pull the fork tubes out and check to make sure they aren't bent, as something did seem funky about the handlebars and front tire alignment. Left side factory turn signals will need replaced as well. The only high dollar part to replace is the rear wheel rim which is over $300. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member piebald Posted May 31, 2016 Premium Member Share Posted May 31, 2016 ... or if a vehicle behind me tagged my rear tire. ... The vehicle behind me kept going after I moved my bike from the road ... Glad you're OK. Thanks for the ATGATT reminder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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