CBRF3RIDER
Junior Member
Well, as the title implies my little brother laid his bike down last night. As some of you might know from some of my other posts hes 18 (well 19 tomorrow) and he got his first bike back in June, an HD 883 Iron.
Heres how it happened- I came home for the weekend yesterday on my bike with my girlfriend. My brother and I wanted to go on a ride, but he was busy all day so we had to settle on a quick night ride around 9:30 PM. So he met me at my parents house with his girlfriend (or friend im not sure lol) on the back and we take off. We pull up to a stoplight about 2 miles from my house to turn right onto a divided highway. I pull out and make my turn right, then in my mirror I see the taillights of my brothers bike and I knew he bit it. So im thinking F*** this isnt good and turn around about a half mile up the highway (remember its divided). I knew I had to get there quick so I split through traffic at a stoplight, horn blaring and flashing my brights and made an illegal turn to get to where he was. I did it safely but I probably looked insane. I didnt know how serious the situation was and I knew I couldnt waste any time if I had to call for an ambulance.
I get to him thinking it was going to be pretty bad, and it looked like he and his passenger were pinned under his bike, which had done a 180. To my surprise he was completely coherent and he was able to push the bike up with me lifting. It turns out when he was going down he was able to swing himself off the bike and catch it as it was falling, saving it from any real damage. In the process he kicked off his passenger so she wasn't really stuck under the bike. Its kind of hard to explain because to be honest I don't understand exactly how he did it. It was also dark and we were in a rush to get the bike up and out of traffic so I didnt get a good look at how he was holding the bike up. He had a little bit of rash on his shin but his jeans didnt even get torn up. He also melted some of his boot on the pipe. The only damage to the bike were some scrapes on the bottom of his pipes from sliding in the road (this was the worst of the damage), a tiny bit of rash on the passenger peg, a little spot of rash on the edge of the rear brake lever and another tiny spot on the front brake lever. I mean tiny like less then a fingernail. His passenger was uninjured.
This is a pretty easy mistake to avoid. He claimed he hit some gravel when he was turning causing the bike to lowside, but I checked the corner and there wasnt any. What I believe happened is when I turned, it caught him off guard and he wanted to catch up, so he gave it alot more throttle than he should have, loosing traction in the turn causing him to lowside. I talked it over with him and explained that he cant give it that much gas when turning onto a street. In a car when you lose traction you just make the wheels spin and its not a huge deal, but on a bike you will almost instantly lay it down.
He got really, really lucky this time. If there would have been traffic behind him going at speed I doubt a driver would react in time before hitting him and his passenger. Hell I almost got hit moving his bike out of the road and I had the four ways on and was moving the handlebars back and forth trying to get peoples attention. My girlfriend, who was on the back of my bike during this was kind of shook up by the whole incident too but I am trying to build her confidence back up. In the end nobody got hurt and he learned a valuable lesson.
EDIT: Here is a goofy pic my girlfriend took before we left. She took a couple more during the night too after the incident. My brother doesnt want me to post any pictures of the damage on his bike, I think he is pretty embarrassed by the whole thing.
Heres how it happened- I came home for the weekend yesterday on my bike with my girlfriend. My brother and I wanted to go on a ride, but he was busy all day so we had to settle on a quick night ride around 9:30 PM. So he met me at my parents house with his girlfriend (or friend im not sure lol) on the back and we take off. We pull up to a stoplight about 2 miles from my house to turn right onto a divided highway. I pull out and make my turn right, then in my mirror I see the taillights of my brothers bike and I knew he bit it. So im thinking F*** this isnt good and turn around about a half mile up the highway (remember its divided). I knew I had to get there quick so I split through traffic at a stoplight, horn blaring and flashing my brights and made an illegal turn to get to where he was. I did it safely but I probably looked insane. I didnt know how serious the situation was and I knew I couldnt waste any time if I had to call for an ambulance.
I get to him thinking it was going to be pretty bad, and it looked like he and his passenger were pinned under his bike, which had done a 180. To my surprise he was completely coherent and he was able to push the bike up with me lifting. It turns out when he was going down he was able to swing himself off the bike and catch it as it was falling, saving it from any real damage. In the process he kicked off his passenger so she wasn't really stuck under the bike. Its kind of hard to explain because to be honest I don't understand exactly how he did it. It was also dark and we were in a rush to get the bike up and out of traffic so I didnt get a good look at how he was holding the bike up. He had a little bit of rash on his shin but his jeans didnt even get torn up. He also melted some of his boot on the pipe. The only damage to the bike were some scrapes on the bottom of his pipes from sliding in the road (this was the worst of the damage), a tiny bit of rash on the passenger peg, a little spot of rash on the edge of the rear brake lever and another tiny spot on the front brake lever. I mean tiny like less then a fingernail. His passenger was uninjured.
This is a pretty easy mistake to avoid. He claimed he hit some gravel when he was turning causing the bike to lowside, but I checked the corner and there wasnt any. What I believe happened is when I turned, it caught him off guard and he wanted to catch up, so he gave it alot more throttle than he should have, loosing traction in the turn causing him to lowside. I talked it over with him and explained that he cant give it that much gas when turning onto a street. In a car when you lose traction you just make the wheels spin and its not a huge deal, but on a bike you will almost instantly lay it down.
He got really, really lucky this time. If there would have been traffic behind him going at speed I doubt a driver would react in time before hitting him and his passenger. Hell I almost got hit moving his bike out of the road and I had the four ways on and was moving the handlebars back and forth trying to get peoples attention. My girlfriend, who was on the back of my bike during this was kind of shook up by the whole incident too but I am trying to build her confidence back up. In the end nobody got hurt and he learned a valuable lesson.
EDIT: Here is a goofy pic my girlfriend took before we left. She took a couple more during the night too after the incident. My brother doesnt want me to post any pictures of the damage on his bike, I think he is pretty embarrassed by the whole thing.
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