insider

Hi,
I'm quite new here (i WAS a fresh owner of a VTR)...

I got it in late autumn 2009 and ran in october/november/a bit in december and I was just waiting for the spring....got it out in February...

But on 23rd of March disaster struck. Happened in town...

I had a bit of speed and was catching up to a group of cars who slowed down. I noticed too late that the 3rd car in front of me was trying to make a left, and having no time to break, I decided to open the throttle and dodge it through left ,to cut it of...

Seems that my calculations were 'incorrect' and i've hit it hard in the front left wheel, parachuted over its bonnet with the whole bike, and after I finally let go of the bike, i remember getting smashed against the asphalt and rolled over a couple of times.

It's a shame when you can't even blame yourself for such stupidity degree....

I've been waiting for years to get my first bike, and now have managed to f**k up my dreams, health and finances...

I've been told NOT to get a 1000cc bike as first bike (especially V-twin).
I can sincerelly say that what happened had nothing to do with 996cc of the VTR and so on...

This was bound to happen to me on a GS500 as well as on ZX10R....

I never came close to a scenario where I might say that the VTR 'overwhelmed' me..... It was my own stupidity that 'overwhelmed' me in the end...

The bike is pretty much wrecked...there's no point in repairing it (due to high costs) and I won't be riding anytime soon (due to health & legal reasons).
I will try to sell it out part by part...

But If I will get another bike in the near future , it will be another VTR for sure... It packs the exact package that I need, i felt as if it was tailored for me....

Tweety

As for stupidity, you said most of it already so I won't add much more... One thing though, something you will learn with more time on a bike... I'm just saying because this was your first bike and with that amount of experience you can't judge that properly... Unless you where carrying more than "a bit of speed" there is always time to brake... On a sport bike the rule is simple, if you have time to turn you have time to brake...

You won't get that much money back from parting a bike... I'd have a look at the frame around the steering head... If it's busted, part it... If it's OK (it's a fifty-fifty chance or so...) Then I'd say the dream isn't dead, rebuild it... You won't be riding for a while, but it takes about the same time to heal the rider as it takes to rebuild the bike (it's self regulating)

And since there are lots of stock stuff lying around from people swapping fronts it can be really cheap... All you need is basic tools and knowing which end of them to hold, a pair of workstands (or rafters and rope) in a decently heated place...

The main point... Yeah health might be "fucked", and finances are bad... But the dream never dies... And selling the parts will probably not recoup enough to make to much of a difference... But rebuild it and you loose less, not needing to buy a new bike later... Plus it's motivation for the physical therapy...

nath981

stupidity can kill you for sure. I've been riding for 45 years and slid through a stop sign a couple weeks ago and was lucky enough to make it. The point it that we all make mistakes, we all fail on some level, but the important thing is to analyze your errors objectively and then discipline yourself to comply with/live what you learned. Make a rule and abide by it religiously.

insider

Tweety: Believe me, there was no chance of braking. let me break it down to you.

Two days prior to my accident I fell into an intersection after a moron cut me off (although I had green). fault was 110% his. I panicked and locked the brakes, went down on the right side (same side that is wrecked now).
The imbecil didn't even stop to see whether I was alive or dead, he drove of and I was up on my feet in 5 seconds, but didn't get a chance to get his plate....nor did the witnesses (they were worried about me).

After having locked the brakes then, when I was faced with accident situation,in a split second I remembered what happened the last time when I had braked hard....so I decided to try and dodge it..

As far as rebuilding the bike,that is out of the question...

My insurance ran out on the 22nd (I thought it was valid until 23rd).
But it was valid from 23-09-2009 until 22-03-2009...
So due to an error of judgement, I got f**ed all the way...

Now I'm looking at a couple thousands of euros to pay the damage I did to that VW Golf VI...

Anyways, I wouldn't feel safe on this same bike again....so rebuilding it is out of the question,not to mention I lack the mechanical skills & tools needed to do that...( I can barely change the oil).

mikstr

more of a case of errors in judgement, happens to all of us.

BTW, if your subject line were correct, there'd be a WHOLE LOT of people on this planet with wrecked lives, what with stupidity being in no way in danger of extinction....

8541Hawk

Well I hope I don't come off wrong but 2 crashes in 3 days and you don't think or feel that you might have been the cause of both of them?

In the first incident, you said you got cut off and then panicked, yet it was 110% the other guys fault. First you got cut off, which means you were not paying enough attention to what was going on around you. Always expect a car to try and run you down. Second, you stated you panicked, when that happened, you were no longer riding the bike, you were just along for the ride. Which lead to you locking the brakes (which could also be looked at as your 3rd error) and down you went. IMHO your actions were 50-75% the cause of the first bail.

Then 3 days later, once again you were not paying attention. Sorry but you did state you "had a bit of speed", which really means you were going to fast for the situation you were in. You did not possess the skill set needed to deal with the car turning. Once again panic set in and you made a poor choice and paid the price.

Sorry if I sound like am asshat but this hobby\sport will kill you very quickly if you don't give it the respect it deserves. Both of these incidents were very easy to avoid and the fact that you take no personal responsibility for crashing twice makes me wonder if you have learned anything from it.

To be more than blunt, get yourself so instruction on riding, either at a track day or find a good mentor for your street riding if you ever get on a bike again. Other wise you might not be so lucky the next time.

Glad to hear you made it through both incidents unharmed. Sorry about the bike and I do hope you have learned something from this experience.

Cheers,
Mike

insider

8541Hawk: "Well I hope I don't come off wrong but 2 crashes in 3 days and you don't think or feel that you might have been the cause of both of them?"


Why do you people tend to judge so easily,especially people or situations you know nothing about?

Haven't I been clear enough that the first "crasH" was 100% the driver's fault.

If some idiot cuts you off, you need to tell me that you can ALWAYS avoid him? and if that you crash down it's your fault? I was doing 40 km/h when the motherf***er cut me off all of the sudden. I'm sick of moralists judging everything behind the monitor..
And that didn't happen because I'm a beginner or I'm some **** who doesn't know how to handle his bike or how to brake.

BELIEVE me when I tell you that the first situation was impossible to avoid.

Everybody's been in a situation , I'm sure, which simply cannot be avoided.

sometimes you might say "ok, if I was doing 50 instead of 70 I could' have avoided that dog/ that car", "ok if I hadn't lock the brakes perhaps I could have dodged that etc"...

This was not the case.


The second crash was 150% my fault and I cannot even begin to point the finger at me...there's no argue about that.... I was a lunatic..

I had about 70-75 km/h when I made the ever-smart decision to twist the throttle and try to avoid him....so...at the time of the impact I pretty much had well over 100km/h...

PS: from the first one I made it unharmed,from the second, not.

Second crash was a near fatality.

I'm pinned to my bed for 30 days, i fractured a bone in my torso (I don't know the english term for the bones that sustain the butt/legs)

Doctors said i'm lucky i had no injuries to the spine/neck etc..

To make things more odd, the jacket hasn't got a SINGLE SCRATCH on it.
Neither does the helmet,except for a small 8mm scratch...

I've banged my right leg a bit(from the knee down, no fractures, fortunately)...

Where I live there are no tracks, there are no instructors, it's a fu*ed up country with severely fu**d roads...

if it hadn't been my lunacy that got me,the roads would eventually 'made my day'...


Sorry if I seem a bit 'violent (verbally) in some statements...but I've just raped my 2 wheel dream...

Little_Horse

so in the first crash had you not locked up the wheels could you have kept the bike up?

Seems like in both cases braking is a serious issue for you and before I would get on another bike I would take it to a parking lot and practice hard stops for a while until your instincts about braking are better. Or get a bike with antilock.

Cheers

comedo

+1 to mikstr. Your bike is trashed, your body is broken and your burden of debt is increased. The only "good" news is that it could have been worse. You will heal, you will pay the debt and there are lots of motorcycles out there.
People that have ridden for a while spend a lot of time thinking about how to avoid these situations. It's part of our nature to ask ourselves what we would have done so that what happened to you won't happen to us. Everyone who commented is concerned for your welfare. I hope things improve soon.

Tweety

You are missing the point here... There never ever is a crash that is 100% the other guys fault... Not happened yet, never will... Edit: Unless you are stationary... Then you are blameless... (Like VTRsurfer at the red light)

The situation might be that the other driver was in error... I'm not disputing that, neither was 8541hawk... But if you are cut of, which happens to all of us and go down when doing a dead stop from ~40 kmh... Then the crash was on you... The stoping was his "fault"... The crash yours... As you said, you panicked and locked the brakes... Had you had more experience and trained yourself to stop hard, you probably wouldn't have gone down... I'm saying probably... Not certainly...

Then you said you "re-lived" that before going full throttle the second time... Understandable, but a sure sign that you should not be on a bike that powerful unless you start thinking in another way...

If you had the lenght of road to do 70 -> 100 before you hit the car, you also had the road to do 70 -> 30 if you had hit the brakes instead or more likely even 70 -> 0... That's how fast a bike stops... And even if you only get the speed down to 30 it's less painful to hit things at that speed... Also then you could probably have dodged right instead...

And you might think you know how to handle your bike and brake... But believe me, you do not... After riding a year, you have no idea... I have been riding for far longer than that and I'm still training to get better...

My instinct and training tells me to squeeze the brakes and stare directly to the right of the car (you go where you look) hoping that either I can bring the speed down to a stop or at least enough so that either the car has moved into the turn when I would hit it or I hit it at the lowest possible speed... There is no guarantee that that is what I had done, but it's likely since I have been in not to dissimilar situations (a lot of us have)...

offroad_rider2008

Like everyone else I too am glad u will be ok and sorry that your bike was tore up so bad, but being a recent owner of a 996 SH, I am literally scared shitless that I will wreck my baby, and me too of course, but mostly my baby, i have put 45 miles on her just driving down my driveway and around the yard, i get in about 5-10 miles for every nice day I get here, But all I am interested in is getting as familiar with how she reacts, and how I react with her before I get out there with all those crazy ppl.

VTRsurfer

Sorry to hear of your mishap. Do they have any kind of motorcycle safety courses where you live? I'm a defensive rider with close to 200,000 miles on the street since 1981, and I was rear ended at a red light on 3/21. I've ridden motorcycles since 1964, but didn't own one until 1981. I was lucky enough to have a good friend with tons of experience to mentor me after buying my first bike.

There are many hazards out there, and the most important thing is to be aware of everything that is happening around you, anticipating driver's actions. And never ride at a speed that does not give you enough time to avoid an unexpected hazard. Whether it's the cager's fault or yours, you can end up just as dead. I've dodged at least a couple of "left hand Larry's" in the past, even while locking up both brakes, and avoided going down.

Hope you heal soon.

nath981

I must be missing something here. you have 3 bikes and 2 fourwheelers and you're ridin up and down your driveway. Scared shitless: get over it. Scared doesn't help anything. Lighten up. It's an object for your enjoyment, not to create anxiety. Get out of your f*#king driveway and ride that sumbitch. Life is too short to get wrapped up in this ****. get out there and put some miles on it and you'll lose your apprehension.

CANADAVTR

Hi Insider,
The guys on the forum are real experienced bikers and are simply trying to give you good advice. Trying to ride around the car was probably not a good idea.

There are old bikers, and there are brave bikers, but, funnily enough, there are very few old and brave bikers. The brave ones are no longer with us....

At least you're still here...

nath981

Insider, don't get pissed off, don't take it personal, don't try to defend your actions, just learn and faithfully employ what you learn. When you ride a motorcycle, you are responsible for everything that everyone does or is going to do for one reason, because it's your *** that's at stake. I've been down at least 10 times and they were all my fault. I'm lucky to be here as many of us including you.

If you need to ride in town, it a whole new ballgame with rules of it's own, and is by far the most hazardous. There are strategies like high beams during daylight, positioning to make yourself visable to sidestreet traffic, covering your brakes and knowing when and how to use each, checking mirrors/flicking brake lights/in gear at stops, eye contact and other anticipatory signals and many other strategies to lower the probabilities of death and destruction. Take your defensive attitude and turn it into humility and take advice in a constructive manner and grow stronger from it. we love you brother and want you to have every advantage that we have gathered and continue to over many years and many tears.

mhaisten

After 27 years of of riding on the roads, I still pay attention to everything around me. I have been cut off, doors opened on me in traffic and just about any other F88ked up thing that cagers can do. I have never been down. (knock on wood). My driving record says I don't ride around like a grandma either. Somehow riding is relaxing to me, but I never relax. We ride machines that can out accelerate, turn, and brake than any of the cars around us.

Bottom line pay attention and stay alive.

VTRsurfer

+1 on the high beam in daylight hours! I've been doing that for at least 25 years...AND I'VE STILL HAD CAGERS TURN IN FRONT OF ME... but I'm sure it would have happened many more times if I was less visible.

Check out "Sport Riding Techniques" by Nick Ienatsch. My wife says that aside from me, Nick is her best teacher. And she still reads it after over 33,000 miles of safe riding.

ranchomice

+1,000

hondavtr1000sp2