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That Easy Ride Home; watch out for Trolls! |
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Rollin' eZine Volume 1, Number 12 April 2001 =============
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...Somedays, You're The Windshield by Steve Mate I hadn't ridden the Rat in about 10 days (since Bike Week) and decided to ride to work on Friday. My new Joe Rocket Ballistics pants had arrived on Thursday but since I was "just" going to work I just wore the JR jacket and jeans. All went well on the 20 mile ride to work and the ride to get out at lunch for an hour. I finished up work right at 5:00 (hey, it's Friday and it was all I could do to stay at my desk this long!) and headed home. But thinking of a diversion, I decided to take a short little backroad through an industrial area behind the office. This is one of those roads that you've been through hundreds of times so I was just enjoying the ride and the easy turns. As I approached the last turn at about 25 MPH, I noticed a line of about 50lb of sand along my intended track. So I cut inside the sand and that's when my right foot peg touched down. So I straightened up the bike with a little bit of throttle and the front wheel rolled into the sand and lost it's grip. She laid down and started making horrible noises as I got away from her. It
Was Raatha Graceful I landed on my wallet and then on the right elbow of that wonderful, beautiful and beloved Joe Rocket Ballistics jacket (thank God for Kevlar pads). I steadied myself with my palms (thank God for studded palms & Kevlar gloves). We slid along for about 30 feet and then she slowed faster than me so I gained my feet and ran about 20 more feet past her. Rat ended up on the left side of the road and I standing in the grass. WHEW! Things got quiet real quick. I stood her up and assessed the damage. I hunkered down backwards (ala the Skert method) with my butt on the seat but when I tried to lift my chest hurt. So I turned around and picked her up the "old fashioned" way. As I was doing that, a lady in white drove by in her Escort and asked, "Are you okay?" She's obviously a nurse (and one of only about five people who passed during the fifteen minutes that I was there) and is concerned for me. I told her I was okay but she just moved about 10 feet up the road and sat there watching me. My right knee had a silver-dollar sized rub on it, not too deep but bleeding a bit. I cleaned and patched that with items from my first aid kit. Other than that I didn't feel any other problems. Just a bit tight in the chest was all, seems my right hand came around and I punched myself square in the middle of the chest with my thumb. Ouch. That turned out to be the most painful thing over that first weekend and still hurts a bit a week later. And I didn't even touch my brand new, silver Shoei RF900 helmet!
The brake lever bent away a bit but there was a designed-in little tab on the attachment end of the lever that snapped off and stopped any further damage to the brake cylinder or other vital parts. The lever now can swing fully forward until it hits the fairing so I've fixed that with a high tech elastic band (from the broccoli, of course). So, a couple of smokes later I'm feeling my oats again and fire her up. I rode slowly down the industrial street checking for straight and true and listening for any odd noises. She seemed okay so we made our way over to I-95 and the regular ride home route. After a while of 65-70, hangin' out behind truck we got a little bored and it was feeling like time for the real test. So got to know each other again while finding the ton. PS: She's for sale, ya know, but for some odd reason I want to keep her now. |
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