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Let's hear your story of your first bike laydown/fall/tipover!

  • Thread starter Thread starter DacMaddy
  • Start date Start date
D

DacMaddy

Guest
I'll start!

It is a pretty crazy story actually.

So I decided to go up to this pond with my girlfriend and her family in Graeagle, CA. It's about an hour away from Reno. She had the day off so she was going to spend the day there, and I had work at 3:30 that day, so we took separate vehicles. It was a good excuse to take my bike for a nice long ride :cool:

So I'm riding behind them cruising at about 55-60, about 5 minutes from our destination. All of a sudden I see this thing fly out of their window, and at first I thought it was my girlfriend's little sister's bear. Upon closer inspection, I saw the pointy ears and realized my dog just fell out of a car going 60 mph and tumbling on the side of the road :eek:

I stopped on the side of the road as fast as I could and ran for my dog. Halfway there I realized I had just gently laid my bike down instead of parking it. So I ran to him and he was pretty shaken up. Turns out he was just sticking his head out the window sniffing the breeze when he put his paw on the button that rolls the window down and he fell over. We went straight back to town because it was a Saturday so all of the normal vets were closed. We were probably going around 80ish the whole way! I was pretty tired from riding almost two hours straight. Anyway we got to the vet and he got some xrays and everything. Fortunately he had no fractures, broken bones, or a ruptured bladder! Only a couple abrasions here and there (now he'll look like a real scrapper!) The vet was amazed he was relatively unscathed. When I saw him tumbling along the road I thought he was dead for sure. I am very grateful only his pride was hurt! Maybe he was a stunt dog in his past life:rolleyes:

So what's your story of your first time you laid your bike down?
 
I was 19 riding my gs850g. I was showing out like a jack arse and I was going to fast for the road (85-90mph). There is an s curve and a treeline I'm coming up on way to damn fast and I knew I couldn't make the curve and didn't wanna hit a tree. So I laid her down. Fractured left knee was all I got lol I was lucky... The bike heeded a headlight assembly, gauges, handlebars, mirrors, crash bars, and pegs. So yes I'll admit it was my own ignorance that caused it.
 
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Lot's of close calls, but they don't count.
I had to think awhile to recall this. I was riding with a passenger through a subdivision, I was getting ready to make a left turn and was waiting on this volkswagen to go by before I started making my turn, and there it was amongst the pea gravel, a short piece of a broomstick lying there in my path. As my rear tire went over it, out from underneath me the bike went. I must've been doing all of 2 mph. Laid the bike down on the left side, slight crack and resulting oil leak from the stator cover, I put some JB weld on it and was done with it.
 
Late fall of my first season at age 50. I'm all dressed up in leathers head to toe. I had been out in the country cruising around on a lovely sunny but cool Sunday. I get back to the homestead and get off the ride and suddenly the side stand retracts and over goes the bike as I'm trying to hold the left handlebar. No strength in my arms. I couldn't even lift up the bike (400 Yammie) and had to call the wife and daughter to help.

Felt like a putz but didn't realize that the wind chill must have sapped all my strength until much later. Hypothermia can set in quickly when you combine air temps and the speed of the bike and leather isn't the warmest.

Ride safely friends.
 
Well, I can't remember the 1st dirt crash, so many.

On the street, I'll NEVER forget. Sept 1977, Gregory Michigan, ON A 77 gs750(wasn't I a slick 19 yr old?), storming onto my favorite chicane on M-36 coming into Gregory from Pickney. 4th gear, on power aproxx 80 mph into the 35 mph esses.

And then,.............. I'm slidingm oh oh, I high side, oh oh! I'm looking down the road like a wounded cockbird, in a tuck, hoping not to hit anything(like a car or telephone pole). I didn't, just the ROAD. I went 100 yds, the bike 150 yds. I still have the key & part of the IP.

The culprit you ask? 2 fricking rubber traffic counting hoses for crying out loud.

btw, even back then I had a leather jacket, full face, boots, & gloves.

I have crashed 3 times on the road. None my fault.
 
Was 19, stopped alongside two cute girls stopped at a red light in a convertible and waved and smiled. Forgot to put my feet down and fell over. heh
 
Throttle stuck, jumped the curb into a wire fence at a golf course.
 
Come off a triple with my YZ250 only to see my buddy sitting on the landing ramp with his fourwheeler. Broke both collar bones, (left one in 6 different spots) right one just snapped right in the middle. Dislocated 6 discs in my neck/upper back, tore some HCL or something like in right shoulder, and found out right rotator cuff was bad too. Whether the rotator was related to the crash I dont know... Wish I could find my copy of my Xray showing the 13 plates and 19 screws holding my right shoulder together. Looks neat, like small lag bolts, but sure doesnt agree with me on damp, cooler days. I know its not street bike related but was my first real crash beside tipping over while trying to mount my 125 when I was too short to touch the ground believe it or not.
 
Back in 1998 if I remember right, was riding my CX500 ratbike "Betsy" down a country lane I was`nt familiar with and probably a bit too quick, on a very wet day. A right hander came up and seemed quite a gentle sweeping bend at first, but soon tightened right up. Going too fast into it, in the wrong gear plus some gravel washout on the road, next thing I know I`m surfing the tarmac. When I came to a stop I was on my back, the bike about twenty feet away on its side in a hedge, engine still running. Well, I lay there wondering if I had broken anything, then realised where I was, lying on the road in the middle of a tight blind bend. I got up pretty quick then !. Just as well as a car came round a few seconds after. The guy stopped and asked if I was ok, I said yep, fine, although I did`nt know yet really. He helped me get Betsy out the hedge and upright, then drove off. I checked myself over, no broken bones, back torn out of my waterproofs, leathers scuffed up a bit, some deep scratches on my helmet and a few bruises. Betsy was ok too, bent peg on the right hand side, forks twisted out of line and some paint gone, but thats all. Taught me a few important lessons though, forward observation, importance of wearing protective clothing and the great thing about owning a ratbike, does`nt take much to repair and re-paint, rattlecan matt black and as good as new !!:)
 
I was learning to ride on a Suzuki 80cc Hillbilly. I had successfully let out the clutch and I was attempting to circle the front yard. My older brother grabbed hold and attempted to jump onto the rack on the back, and pulled me over. That was about 47 years ago.
 
I was trying to kick Suki over in the driveway for the first time. I didn't know that it wasn't supposed to be in neutral.

as the kick went down, the bike rolled forward right off of the sidestand.
 
First time on my older brothers Chibi mini bike, maybe 12 years old, straight into the grape vine, no damage just embarrased.

First time on the road, Honda 1973 CB175, chasing some mate on a windy road, those ribbed tires were not so good, and I lost the rear coming out of a big right hander.
I lost a bit of skin off my knees, and wrecked a pair of jeans, nothing broken.

First racing crash, 1977 RD 400, leading the novice race at Manfield, crashed on 2nd last corner of the last lap and still manged to get back on and finish 2nd, wore down my finger and lost most of the nail, nothing some black tape wouldn't fix.

Biggest racing crash, 1980 GSX1100, Teratonga South island NZ. missed my braking marker as I clipped handle bars with some other rider on the front straight and went off the end of the big sweeper, probably 200KM as I left the track and I jumped off soon after, as there was a big embankment coming up fast.
I got a concussion but nothing broken, bike got a bent frame and the backend was pretty trashed. I had it straightened and raced it a few weeks later but it was never quite right.

Most dramatic crash, 1982 BMW R100, travelling in Southern Sudan and my forks were losing oil, eventually they went down and didn't come back up, the left fork broke just under the triple clamp.
I went down and got a pretty good bit of road rash even though I was on a dirt road, took 3 weeks of hitching rides on trucks to get to Nairobi in Kenya were BMW replaced both forks under warranty.
 
I got highsided from my Honda CB 77 after grounding my exhaust pipe at 120 km/h:(
The result was a broken foot when I hit the curb!
38c3f064.jpg

The worst crash was while racing my Norton Manx equipped with a 750 Atlas engine at the Zolder track in Belgium.
Oil was seeping from the revcounter pick-up back to the rear tire and as I negociated a very fast ( 180 km/h) downhill right hand turn the bike tried to escape me...
I managed to save it but I went straight off the track in deep sand:eek:
I was unconscious for a few minutes but escaped with a serious commotion!
Jacques Villeneuve was not so happy a few years later when he lost his life in the previous bend while practicing his Ferrari Formula 1:(
 
John Kat said:
I got highsided from my Honda CB 77 after grounding my exhaust pipe at 120 km/h:(
The result was a broken foot when I hit the curb!
38c3f064.jpg

The worst crash was while racing my Norton Manx equipped with a 750 Atlas engine at the Zolder track in Belgium.
Oil was seeping from the revcounter pick-up back to the rear tire and as I negociated a very fast ( 180 km/h) downhill right hand turn the bike tried to escape me...
I managed to save it but I went straight off the track in deep sand:eek:
I was unconscious for a few minutes but escaped with a serious commotion!
Jacques Villeneuve was not so happy a few years later when he lost his life in the previous bend while practicing his Ferrari Formula 1:(
Click to expand...

What a fantastic photo!
The bars look like they're pointing straight but the wheel is hard right or is it just me?
 
Mine was after my first ride, I bought a 98' cbr 650 (in 2007) trailered it home. I took it out that day. first time I was on a full size bike. Up till that moment I had only ridden a little 3 speed mini bike. The ride went fine think it was all of 4 miles. I got to my driveway and I couldn't get the bike into neutral. I didn't know I needed to just move it slightly and it would go right in. After several minutes I finally got it in to neutral. The entire time I'm thinking what did I buy? Well after all that stress I for got to put the side stand down and as I step off the bike the bike falls right over. No damage but the neighbor loves to remind me about my first ride.
 
My first was when I was 6 years old. My dad had gotten my brother and my self mini bikes for x-mas. well we rode the heck out of them. We lived way out in the state forest on a dirt road. About in the middle of a 7 mile stretch.Well one day my father was working on his 67 BSA Gold Star and was going to take it for a ride down the road. So I asked if I could follow him on my mini bike. Sure he say's . So of we go , well I'm following him and he's going along pretty fast , and I'm trying to keep up then I hit this huge rock that is buried in the middle of the road, it acts as a ramp and I must of flew like 30 feet off the side of the road. Me and the mini bike both landed in the bows of a pine tree. I don't know how fast I was going felt like 100 as a kid but probably only about 25 or 30. I had my helmet and boots on. That was all we had for gear back then.I didn't get hurt , but had to wait a few minutes for Pop's to come back and pull the bike out of the tree. Wow that was a flash back.:eek: WOW the day's of invincibility.
 
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