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Long Distance Reporter |
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August 2001 Volume 2, Number 4 =============
Get the Rollin' Dude Wallpaper
"I was in that, shall we say, 'sprightly, 'Exocet' kinda mood. Playing in the traffic on I-95 for a few miles at my customary 80 mph had the adrenaline coursing nicely through my veins"
"I stumbled over to the bike, grabbed the bars and with one seemingly effortless yank, pulled 550lbs of prone Exocet straight up"
"His eyes got as big as saucers as he homed in on my arm and he managed to tell me to call and let him know if I wouldn’t be in the next day. I guess all this wasn’t too big a surprise coming from his resident bike maniac."
"I stared at my Motoport riding suit hanging in the garage, thought for a minute and said to myself, 'Nah, hell, I’m just going about 5-7 miles away through putt-putt city traffic, no need to bother with all that mess' "
"I guess the FHP officer felt sorry for me and as I was the only party with any damage to person or property, he filled out no paperwork for me to take home with me"
"The ER folks took one look at me, checked my breathing and saw it was at 85% and admitted my dumb ass into Surgical ICU" |
If I Could Turn Back Time… by Bruce 'B2' Barge We’ve all heard the clichés before, “Monday morning Quarterbacking”, “Hindsight is 20/20”, “If I knew then what I know now”. We’ve all made motorcycling mistakes that given the chance, we’d go back and redo to a more satisfactory outcome. I’ve caught flack on numerous occasions over on the Long Distance Rider and Concours Owners Group email lists for asking some poster to delve more deeply into the grisly details of one of their “instances” only to have to explain that I wanted to know exactly what had happened to make sure I did not fall upon the same misfortune. I’d much rather read about an incident that occurred to someone else with sufficient gravity that I’d commit the lesson to memory for later use myself, without having to actually “feel their pain”. Luckily, (maybe “luck” being the operative word) Not keeping the shiny side up has been a fairly rare occurrence in my riding career, even if sometimes to the cajoling of my riding partners of “man, can’t you try a little harder to keep up with us”. (Or, “Hey Steve, what the hell was that?!”, “Dunno man, it was just a blur, butt it kinda looked like Phil and Mike!”) There are however, two little files labeled “Thou Shalt Learn From This” that are stained with my own blood and shredded tissue that have to rest atop the lessons I’ve learned from others because not only did they happened to me, thusly having me feel the pain instead of having the luxury to just read about it, butt it’s been 8 weeks now and I’m nowhere recovered from the latest one. So loyal Rollin’ Mag readers, sit back, bite the inside of your lip hard enough to taste some salty realism, pop yourself a cold one to rinse it out with and relive with me the two times that for damn sure, I Wish I Could Turn Back Time. Look! Up in the air!, it’s a bird!, it’s a plane… Six years ago, having resumed motorcycling about two years prior, I not only was younger (definitely), butt stupider, motorcyclically speaking than I am now. (some that know me now might argue that point) I had made myself aware of most of the theoretical points of riding butt no doubt, some of those lessons were not as well entrenched as they would later become. This became painfully apparent one beautiful April day. I had two bikes at the time, the “Sledgeamatic”, a ‘82 Suzuki GS1100GL for those days when a cruiser/standard pace would suffice and the “Exocet” a ’89 Katana 750 for those times when nothing short of sticking your tongue in a light socket would do. This delightful spring day, heading back to work from lunch, I was in that, shall we say, “sprightly”, “Exocet” kinda mood. Playing in the traffic on I-95 for a few miles at my customary 80 mph had the adrenaline coursing nicely through my veins when it became time to peel off onto Palm Bay Rd., calm down a bit and head back to the puzzle palace. It amazes me now as I type how crystal clear this all remains…As I peeled off onto the exit ramp at a somewhat elevated speed (it Is a nice, long, straight one after all) I snicked down through the gears, relishing in the bark of that Yoshimura pipe behind me. Riding the Exocet always had visions of me being Kevin Swantz dancing in my head and today was no different, as I approached what I didn’t recognize then to be a very stale green light. It was really too bad I was recalling way to much Kevin Swantz and not near enough Keith Code. About 100 yards before I would start the turn, the nightmare began as the light went yellow and about 35 cents disappeared from my “available attention bank”, I knew I had time to make the light butt also didn’t have time to play around and “Swantzed” the Kat over into a hefty 30 degree lean angle. Just before I got to it, I remembered the slight (gutter) dip in the road at the light and at least I kept off the brakes and steadied the throttle as I hit it and felt the front of the bike get a little squirrelly. There was no time to worry about that now, (subtract another 40 cents from the attention “cash register”) as I turned my head and looked up and through the turn-right at the overextended edge of the median about 25 yds. to my left. Though not one to make excuses, it Is a contributing factor that they made it 6-8 feet longer than it needed to be. I remember making a slight correction, lifting up the bike slightly, butt my eyes still kept a bit of my gaze focused on that median I so dearly did not want to hit. “Ker-ching!”, there went that last 25 cents of available attention left to deal with this problem. It was sooo close, I almost made it, butt the front wheel did clip just the edge of that damn piece of concrete. What happened next gets a little blurry, butt I do remember the clip-ons jerking hard in my hands and all of a sudden I wasn’t riding a motorcycle anymore, I was making my first un-mechanically assisted solo flight through the air. Thank the good Lord for selective memory as this time, like the second part to come of this month's article, I really do not remember the actual impact with the roadway, butt impact it I did, a full 12’ further down the road in a full chest, face plant position. Yes, I went back later and stepped it out. This awful “SCREEEEETCH” made it through my helmet and I lifted my head from the “let’s all bow and pray to the god of pavement” position to see my beloved Exocet in a full horizontal position skittering her way up the overpass on her right side. I remember screaming “NO!” to myself under the helmet as my eyes focused on the bike moving around on the protrudance of the engine cover under glass, in a prayful attempt to keep the bike from catching on something and beginning a suicidal, parts exploding, slam dancing, rolling flip-a-thon of destruction. The bike mercifully came to a stop in one piece and I glanced to my right at a bazillion cars still at the light, which in my incoherency I assumed would just mow over me when the light did change to green for them. I remember focusing every bit of me into a scream of “GET UP!” and I jumped off the pavement, consciously moving everything to see if it still worked. I stumbled over to the bike, grabbed the bars and with one seemingly effortless yank, pulled 550lbs of prone Exocet straight up and rolled her over to the side of the road, at least I still had enough sense left to put down the sidestand. A couple of cars had pulled over and some of the drivers got out to check on me Thinking back several times over the years, it musta been one hell of a show! All I was wearing was a nearly new, very nice Hawaiian shirt a friend had brought back for me and a pair of jeans, and I glanced down to survey the damage as I peeled off my helmet and gloves. Just then, one of Palm Bay’s finest walked up and asked me if I was ok and did I need the paramedics. Feeling remarkably “ok”, I told him no, I thought I was fine butt thanks anyway. I really didn’t look that bad, both jeans knees were blown out and bloody and I had about a 2”x 6” spot of roadrash on my right arm. The small crowd began to disperse, the cop pulled away, and I sat against my poor Katana, and consciously smoked a few cigarettes knowing I needed to calm down before trying to start the bike and heading back to work. Just then, my eyes fell upon my Bel radar detector laying in the middle of the lane closest to me about 25 yds. away-I made it about 4 steps before that pick up ran over it with a “scrunch”. When the traffic cleared some, I walked over, picked up its crunched remains and placed them right above a nice black tire smudge at the edge of that median. That would give me something to think about for the next few days making the same turn again… Finishing that last smoke, I began to think, “what now” and decided to start the bike and head back to work. Doing a full walk around, I noticed that all the damage seemed to be limited to a wasted right body panel and both right turn signals, still thinking completely straight, J I figured, hell, the bike shop is on the way back to work, I might as well stop in, see Ken and order the new parts. Remarkably, the bike started up after just a couple starter pushes and soon I was a couple miles down the road pulling into Wheeler’s Motorcycles. Ken looked up from his sub sandwich and stammered a “holy s - - t! through a full mouth (Ken is Always eating!) “Man! You’re dripping blood all over the place! came next, and looking down, I guess I was leaving a little trail. We walked out to the bike and did some quick calcumalating. The side panels on the Kat are all one piece to the tune of about $425 each (then), add the two turn signals and we were looking at about $500 or so. I told him to go ahead and order the parts and then thought about what to do about me. Thankfully, the road rash I had was real clean, no gravel or dirt, butt I knew a trip to the hospital would have them scrubbing it all out with a plastic Teflon scouring pad and decided to take a raincheck on that bit of fun. We had some real skillful nurses back at the plant and since it was only a mile down the road, I figured I’d have someone check me out who actually knew me from Adam’s housecat. I pulled into the parking slot just as my boss was walking up behind me, “Jack”, I said holding out my arm dripping blood, “I’m gonna get the nurses to check me out and take the rest of the afternoon off if you don’t mind”. His eyes got as big as saucers as he homed in on my arm and he managed to tell me to call and let him know if I wouldn’t be in the next day. I guess all this wasn’t too big a surprise coming from his resident bike maniac. The nurses gave me a quick once over, carefully and very humanely cleaning my arm and knees, checked out my slightly sore ribs and pronounced me basically ok and not needing any further “real” medical attention. I rode back home, munched a few Advil, showered and laid down for a nap… Looking back on things that day, I was a very lucky guy. I think the full face/chest plant angle of attack on the road greatly dissipated the force of the impact or things could have been a lot worse on the ole’ body. I had some sore ribs for a couple weeks butt not bad enough to have me changing any daily routines and the medium roadrash healed pretty quickly too. The lesson learned that day was three fold, one a very “cemented” “look where you Want to Go and Don’t Look where you Don’t Want to Go” second, a very sure reinforcement of Keith Code’s principles of Brain Overload-when the going gets to be too much, just “stop the madness”, don’t just continue onward allowing yourself to get fully into a situation where you have no mental faculties left over to get yourself out of it and three, it sure would have been nicer if I’d been wearing the rest of my protective gear. (ie; riding suit) And now, for what I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for… “Down for the Count” After the above incident, I managed to ride the next 6 years and about 150K miles with postal efficiency; neither rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog, locusts storms or dust tornadoes (Thanks Jack!) really had me in any situation where I thought I was in over my head. There were certainly some times when things got a little hairy, butt in those, I decided that discretion being the better part of valor, I’d just slow down or in some of the worse cases (can you say Gulf Coast FOG?, shurngh, I knew you could), get the hell off the road altogether. I think I finally had the target fixation lesson down pat as the “Look where you Want to Go, Don’t Look where you Don’t Want to Go” method has saved my bacon on several occasions. Probably the most dangerous scenario here for me is that first day in the mountain twisties after riding most all my time on the “flats” of Florida. I think it is fair to say that most of us recognize motorcycling to be a somewhat inherently dangerous sport or pastime and we feel we take all the necessary measures to try and minimize those risks. I also feel that most of the time, we feel we have all the “major bases” covered in that respect. About 7 weeks ago, I learned the very hard way that sometimes, that’s just not good enough. Sometimes it’s the little things, or more precisely a combination of a few of the little things that can reach up and slap you down when you least expect it. In a situation where no one small problem would cause you any difficulty, a few of those “poisoned chips” stacked atop each other can have that riding roulette wheel stopping on the wrong number and your time has come, your fanny is cooked. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll offer up some cleverly hidden clues for you to scope out, and they’ll be a test afterwards so pay attention! J The Tuesday after Memorial Day, I had started Commercial Driver Training with MTA Schools in Orlando, Fl. I would be staying in O-town during the week and would only have Sat/ Sun in Melbourne before heading back to school. As I had already taken my CDL written test before even starting class, I was released late that Friday morning while the others headed to the DMV to take their written test. Great, finally a chance to get those much needed front brake pads on the Barfrocket! They were actually a little thin when I had left for the Waltz at the beginning of the month and for the past week, riding around town, I had shifted my braking bias a little more towards the rear until I could get them switched out as to not take any chances on damaging those precious Kawasaki rotors. About and hour before I was to head to the bike shop, it started raining and I decided to wait it out and let the roads dry a bit. Finally, the road in front of my house looked dry and as I fired up to head out, I stared at my Motoport riding suit hanging in the garage, thought for a minute and said to myself, “nah, hell, I’m just going about 5-7 miles away through putt-putt city traffic, no need to bother with all that mess”. I headed down Harlock Rd. and made the turn onto John Rodes Blvd. through the nice set of twisties heading for the bike shop. Barely two miles away, I remember noticing that this part of John Rodes had not dried out nearly as well as the road in front of my house, there was no standing water, butt the road was still damp. I wasn’t going more than about 35 mph so I really didn’t have any conscious thought process of this situation. As I neared a intersection, riding in my customary left 1/3 of my lane track, I noticed a car in front of me, not really that close, butt close enough to begin to act on, hit its brakes apparently in preparation for a left hand turn even though he did not have his signal on. I remember applying what I thought was light to medium rear brakes, butt I guess it wasn’t light to medium enough and the rear of the Barfrocket began to slide around to the right. Remembering what I thought to be the proper corrective action, I counter-steered to the right slightly and just somewhat lessoned pressure on the rear brake, I’d seen way too may vicious racing highsides to allow myself the natural tendency to let off the brakes altogether. I do remember this corrective action(s) taking me a bit more towards the oilier center of my lane, where I knew not to ride especially when it was damp, butt keeping the bike under control was my major goal at this time, not lane placement. Before I even knew what had happened, it had, and I went down hard. Again, thank the Good Lord for selective memory that was much more selective this time than ever before. Basically, I don’t remember squatola of the actual impact, I remember nothing at all until I was standing back up, looking up ahead at the bike laying on it’s right side and unbuckling my helmet and taking off my gloves. A quick glance showed some minor roadrash on my right forearm (Again!) two blown out jeans knees, (Again!) and ouch, ouch, ouch, some very sore ribs. I walked over to the bike and tried to lift her up. Dear God!, Mother of Jesus on high!, there’s just not any way in hell that’s gonna happen as pain shoots through my chest. Luckily, there was a guy standing there by now and I said, “Please try and get my bike off the road, there’s no way I can do it myself, he did, and began to roll the Barfrocket to the side and off into the grass. Soon the Florida Highway Patrol and Paramedics rolled up and began to check out me and my paperwork. The med squad checked my vitals, ask me how I was doing and I said “ok, butt my ribs are really sore.” I told them I didn’t think I needed to go to the hospital (having danced this rib dance before) and they buttoned things up and headed to more important duties. I guess the FHP officer felt sorry for me and as I was the only party with any damage to person or property, he filled out no paperwork for me to take home with me. He did however, note that the right riders footpeg was busted off (Big surprise to you Connie riders eh?) and due to that, would not let me ride the bike home, even though I was sure I could have gotten it there with no problem. The right saddlebag antler was also trashed so after placing the detached bag beside the bike and grabbing the key, I got in the Crown Vic for a short ride up to a 7-11 were I could call my Harley riding buddy Jeff to come and get me. (My initial plan then was to let Mr. Trooperboy vacate the scene and get Jeff to take me back to get the bike and have him follow me back to my house.) While I was waiting for Jeff at the 7-11, the Adrenaline began to wear off and I started to ache more so I bought a few Advil and a Big Gulp to wash it down with. Some Jeff arrived and we headed back to my dear bike and pulled up just in time to see Terry Brown, a good buddy, member of the “Mebun” gang and staff photog for Rollin’ Mag striping off the electronics from the Barfrocket, he had been driving by, saw the bike and didn’t want anything to happen to my “bananas™”. (Reminder, “banana™” is Moronese for “farkle”) Terry drove Jeff’s truck with me inside back to my house with Jeff in front of us on the Barfrocket-it was kinda cute watching this dyed in the wool Harley Fatboy rider riding the Connie home with no right footpeg. J Author’s note; Jeff has a real nice ’92 Fatboy, what isn’t factory paint or chrome is powdercoated. I jokingly tell Jeff he’d have the tires powdercoated if there was a way to do it! We deposited my bike in the garage, I said my good-byes and much thanks to my friends and went in for a quick shower, a cold beer to take the edge off and a nap to rest my newly rearranged and much older feeling bones. Postscript; I lay around the house for 2 more days and could tell things were much worse than I originally thought. I should have listened to Terry and Jeff on Friday telling me to get my ass to the hospital. I was only either able to stand or sit in the recliner, little did I know it would be almost 8 more weeks before I would be able to lay down fully horizontal. I was munching Advil like Sweetarts to no avail and finally, Sunday afternoon, I called Jeff and begged him to take me to the Hospital. The ER folks took one look at me, checked my breathing and saw it was at 85% and admitted my dumb ass into Surgical ICU where I stayed for one week, then for another week in a regular room. When I first saw the chest x-ray it looked like you had opened a can of pick-em-up-sticks and poured them out on a table, the diagnosis was 5 broken ribs, all on the right side, 2 of them broken in two places, and a collapsed right lung. In later discussions with various medical folks there, I was admonished to the fact that I was real lucky to have come in there when I did. I had plenty of time in the next weeks to relive and analyze the situation. What were the causes and what would I do different if I could turn back time. Let’s see how well y'all paid attention in class. 1) I should have never left the garage without at least my riding jacket. As I said on the LDR e-list, we all paid good money for our protective gear and it ain’t doing us any good if we don’t wear it. The whole right side of my helmet was wasted out, I think I landed “knife-edged” on my right side. Would the extensive chest armor of my Motoport have prevented all the rib injuries? I really doubt it. Would it have negated the SICU, the insertion of a chest tube (y'all just haven’t lived until you’ve had one) and the catheter? It sure might have. 2) I should have never drastically changed the way I normally operated the bike due to it needing any maintenance. Grabbing those front brakes (figuratively speaking) until the damn rotors broke in half would have been a better idea than what I did. Incorrect braking on my part was most likely the totally preventable cause of this mishap. With balanced braking, I probably would have been able to steer right out of the skid if it had even happened in the first place. Last and certainly not least. If you find yourself involved in a motorcycle accident, have yourself fully checked out ASAP by medical personnel no matter what the cost. You will be in a shocked condition and will be no judge as to your true injuries. There have been recent reports on the LDR list of riders involved in relatively minor incidents that were shown later to have developed some serious life and/or limb threatening blood clots that were not at all initially apparent. Folks, seriously, please take it from someone who learned some very important lessons here. Your life is nothing to gamble on. Second guessing your true injuries is not worth dying for. Yall be careful out there and if just for me, keep the shiny side up! B2 Out And Thanking All Of His Friends For Their Kind And Fervent Support…
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