Yes yes, you were very lucky in your bad luck! No serious injuries and no death too as you are still writing here, so this is the good news!!

Ok, maybe I'm not well placed to give advise, almost same thing have happen to me in the first month I got my VTR last year. For myself, I've learn that the VTR is not a "real" sportbike as the other bikes as Fireblade, 600RR, R6/R1, GSX and ZX and others. So we have to be quite carefull on turn with the VTR, the asphalt on the street is not always clean and the suspension on the VTR are very poor and front brake just enough for "street" usage so these two doesn't give place to any "error" IMO. So now I must say that I had to change my riding method from my previous Fireblade to adapt it to the "reallity" of the FireStorm... less fun on agressive riding but more fun on city and low RPM, and you know... I love this too

Next time you got the idea to burn your remaining tire tread, do as mine:

1- find a brick wall or another solid wall
2- plug the front tire in this wall
3- clutch out and shift all the gear up
4- Enjoy the tire smoke...
5A- stay as long as you would or
5B- as long as the tire explode, at your taste...

( if you choose the option B, be sure to be not far away from your dealer to change the tire )

Cia and remember "Rubber side down" :wink:

 

man, something about this bike. I also crashed my superhawk shortly after I got it. (less than a week) and under the same circumstances. target fixated and went wide off the road. the bike has since been fixed, and although there were some residual trust issues, we are getting along pretty well now. when I finish her new look, I'll post pics.

 

Hey, swordfish, any injuries from your crash?

RC996: yeah, riding on that tire was dumb. Gotta file this lesson away - destructive testing on tires can destroy you.

Spooning on the new ones tonight though. Never have run 208s. Tread depth sure is shallow (7/32 F & 5/32 R).

 

Target fixation is a much bigger problem than I realized. It never happened to me on my dirt or other bikes I guess cause I didn't ride them anywhere near as fast. Since this is my first sport bike its happened to me about three times although I didn't crash.

It takes so much will power to tear your eyes away from impending doom and lean your bike past the comfort point I can't believe it.

 

Go buy your Guardian Angel a beer! Phew! Why is it that gravel can attract more attention than a great pair of ****? I tend to do the same thing. The only thing I do to avoid it is to remind myself of when I was a kid and skidding the bike out on gravel was fun - twisted, but it relaxes my sphincter and I ride through with only a slight knee slapper. Still leaves skid marks in my shorts though. Congrats on walking away from it. The good news is you can get all those fun replacement parts!

 

Yeah, I'm already thinkin' a black tank would look cool on the red bike.

A buddy & I put the new 208ZRs on last night over a few Newcastles. He's got the right equipment (manually operated) for putting them on. I've been spooning on the last couple sets by myself & that's not much fun.

They balanced up nicely w/ only 1/4oz. of weight on each. Before I had a wobble/mini-tankslapper thing goin' on at 50mph. That's GONE now. WOOhoo! Now i can go back to the hands-free stopping technique.

 

nothing serious. I went down on grass, so that helped some. I got a nice cut on my chin, some bruises, and a scuff on my wrist. it should have been much worse. thankfully I still had my old bike. so I still got to ride all weekend. now the SH is all fixed up but I still need to paint my new front fairing and slap on some decals I got for it. gonna have a retro fighterplane kinda theme. complete with nose art.

 

Hey swordfish,
Sounds like "cosmetic damage" as far as your injuries. Glad you came out ok.
Be sure & post pics when you finish the bodywork.

 

You guys have to stop this target fixation thing. This is the third post I've read when someone target fixated and crashed. If we keep this up there won't be any body left on this forum. Trust your superhawk, I just spent two days kneedraggin' on Jennings gp A motorcycle only track in north Florida. I still have stock suspension (for now but I'm working on inverted forks right now) and had no problem draggin my knee. Trust the hawk it can take pretty much whatever you can throw at it.