g_clarke_2008

I know I don't have my hawk anymore but I still lurk here all the time. Kinda like a family of sorts. I have been seeing a lot of post lately (both here and the ZX forum) about riders going down. Well, I rode from Calgary to Vancouver and back last week (put on about 3500 miles total) and in the last 1 1/2 hour of my journey I was one of the first on the scene of another rider who lost control and hit a guard rail at high speed. I won't go into details about what I saw but all he had on was a helmet, jeans, and T-shirt. Not much left for the paramedics to work on when they got there and he was declared D.O.A. The images are haunting me at night and I finished the ride home and parked the bike in the garage and haven't touched it since. My whole point of this is to remind everyone to please be careful, ride within your limits, and please wear your gear no matter how hot it is or how short your ride is! No one needs to see what I saw, your family doesn't need the phone call and we don't want to lose any more. I read in the paper this morning that another rider was killed today just east of town because of excessive speed and another on killed a few blocks from me rear ending a car while doing 200 km per hr. I know we can't control what others do but we can control what we do, again i beg you all to be careful!!!

chickenstrip

I hear ya.

Don't let the incident keep you from getting a kick out of riding, though. Use it to temper what you do on the bike. FWIW, everytime I go around a corner I imagine what obstacle might be at the exit.

Circuit_Burner

treat bikes like aircraft.
they will kill you good with quickness.
you have to keep the maintenence up and inspect critical components before each flight.
as with any moving vehicle, situational awareness is paramount.
deaths are going to happen, its statistical
if the pilot maintains his ride, and maintains situational awareness at all times (no day dreaming), the pilot stands the best chance of survival.
some people are going to end thier lives in a meatgrinder, no matter what vehicle.
tricycles and bigwheels are dangerous and life threatening modes of transportation too.
what we motorcyclists must watch is the freeking retard drunks and other mental midgets driving cars.
You have no other control of the car drivers, so its a function of avoidance and prevention.
In the air we have ATC, on the surface you have your eyes and ears thats it.
in most cases, if the downed rider didnt do something dumb or outside thier skill set, there is the influence of an irresponsible or daydreaming car driver.
If you dont believe in a higher power, then you only have your own equipment to rely on.
Use it wisely.

chickenstrip

360˚ awareness, as a veteran rider I know put it.

L8RGYZ

Thanks for the post. I've come upon a similar situation before. Very sobering.

Most bike crashes you walk away from if you don't hit anything. Guardrails, rock walls, and oncoming vehicles make for a very different ending.

RCVTR

I recently spoke with my friend Zach about my wreck. He had always made light of it in the past, but this time was different. He described in great detail, his slide in the sand and barely recoveing at the edge of the road, then watching Russel and I slide across his view in the mirror and bounce off the embankment after hitting the sand he pulled into the tire track. He described the seizures I was having, laying in the ditch, which I had not known about before. Luckily one of the riders, and a good friend is a paramedic.

He still seems to be haunted by it and has not ridden a sport bike since. Not interested in riding on the track either, which surprises me. He was/is a very talented rider, but always wanted to go faster. He is getting ready to buy an adventure bike and wants to ride from Argentina to Alaska in the next year or so.

We were all carried away that day. 6 of us caught up in each other's enthusiasm and laughing about it. I knew at the time, that it was time to slow it down, but just kept it going. I was extremely lucky to survive it without life-altering injuries.

I know I've talked about it several times on here. But I think it serves as a good reminder to keep it all in perspective. I've never liked the idea of hitting a guardrail post in a motorcycle crash. Riding gear would not necessarily help you. Best to avoid it.

Keep it safe, guys.