Anesi
Junior Member
Hi everyone
Last friday, I learned an important lesson the hard way: Never look into The Dich Of Evilness.
Just picked up my almost new beautiful black FZ6-N S2 on wednesday last week, and have been riding around 500 km on it. Being a new rider, I do my best to alwasy ride within my limits, and not push it. However, this friday I learned that even so, the wrong turn may throw even a cautious rider off his feet (or in this case, his bike).
I was riding with my friend and girlfriend on friday after work. My girl was riding with my friend on his beutiful 03 Fireblade (the reason being more power and more experience to handle two persons). We do about 25 km of twists in a moderate pace. My friend was taking it easy, giving me plenty of room to stay within my comfortzone, and I was doing well I thought.
This one left turn came up, slightly down hill but nice and wide. My friend and girlfriend pulled through in great style, however as I approached the turn, I realized that there was alot of small rocks and gravel in the outer part of the turn. At the same time a learned that the road was banked slightly in the opposite direction as I had expected, outwards. At this time I basically lost it, and desided that there was no way I could make this turn. So what to do? Option A was to try and make the turn, with the very real possibillity of having the bike skit out from under me and we'd both hit the ditch (which was full of high grass) sideways... not really the ideal solution I thought. Option B was to pull the bike up and hit the brakes, with the possibility of running out of road and hit the ditch still rolling.
I ended up desiding on option B, and hit the brakes, both front and back as hard as I could - incredibly remembering my instructors warnings about tyre-lock, so gave it the most I thought I could without locking up the tires. As I hit the gravel part of the ditch approaching the long grass (probably going about 20-25 km pr. hour) I knew this was going to hurt my bike. I hit the gras, the bike made a few bounces, which threw me off. I got up as fast as I could, remembering something about bikes not being build to lay down, and picked it up.
What a mess. The round cover on the right of the engine (what's it called by the way?) was severely scratched, the tank had some slight scratches, the brake pedal was bent outwards and it had grass and dirt all over. The worst thing though was that the steering was messed up. The handlebar was slightly bent on the right side, and the forks had twisted a bit so the front wheel and forks was'nt aligned.
I was crushed. My pretty new bike with not a scratch or dent on it was a complete mess little over a week after I picked her up :spank: As for myself, I am completely fine. Besides ego and selfesteem scattered all over the place, all I suffered was small limp from when the footrest nailed my right lower leg, so will be walking funny for a few days.
Lucky for me, the steering was fixable. My instructor was able to fix the wheel alignment, after I had the bike towed to his shop. So now the only major thing is the handlebar being a little awkward, but should be usable till I can get it replaced. What remains are the nasty scratches and a severely bruised confidence. So, the next day I went out with my friend again, and we took a 150km ride. Got plenty of twists in and worked on building my confidence and practising my cornering and turn-evaluation skills. Having him laying the line really helped I think. It was a great ride. :thumbup:
So what to learn from this? Well, be sure to slow plenty down before the turn, and focus into the turn and not into the ditch whith all the evilness lurking. Im curious though to hear som thoughts on how I handled this. I suppose there were a chance that i could have made the turn, but what if I did not?
- Sorry for the wordy post, but really have given this a lot of thought.
(Seriously thought about posting this in Hall Of Shame, because of my first thread on the forum being a crashreport )
Last friday, I learned an important lesson the hard way: Never look into The Dich Of Evilness.
Just picked up my almost new beautiful black FZ6-N S2 on wednesday last week, and have been riding around 500 km on it. Being a new rider, I do my best to alwasy ride within my limits, and not push it. However, this friday I learned that even so, the wrong turn may throw even a cautious rider off his feet (or in this case, his bike).
I was riding with my friend and girlfriend on friday after work. My girl was riding with my friend on his beutiful 03 Fireblade (the reason being more power and more experience to handle two persons). We do about 25 km of twists in a moderate pace. My friend was taking it easy, giving me plenty of room to stay within my comfortzone, and I was doing well I thought.
This one left turn came up, slightly down hill but nice and wide. My friend and girlfriend pulled through in great style, however as I approached the turn, I realized that there was alot of small rocks and gravel in the outer part of the turn. At the same time a learned that the road was banked slightly in the opposite direction as I had expected, outwards. At this time I basically lost it, and desided that there was no way I could make this turn. So what to do? Option A was to try and make the turn, with the very real possibillity of having the bike skit out from under me and we'd both hit the ditch (which was full of high grass) sideways... not really the ideal solution I thought. Option B was to pull the bike up and hit the brakes, with the possibility of running out of road and hit the ditch still rolling.
I ended up desiding on option B, and hit the brakes, both front and back as hard as I could - incredibly remembering my instructors warnings about tyre-lock, so gave it the most I thought I could without locking up the tires. As I hit the gravel part of the ditch approaching the long grass (probably going about 20-25 km pr. hour) I knew this was going to hurt my bike. I hit the gras, the bike made a few bounces, which threw me off. I got up as fast as I could, remembering something about bikes not being build to lay down, and picked it up.
What a mess. The round cover on the right of the engine (what's it called by the way?) was severely scratched, the tank had some slight scratches, the brake pedal was bent outwards and it had grass and dirt all over. The worst thing though was that the steering was messed up. The handlebar was slightly bent on the right side, and the forks had twisted a bit so the front wheel and forks was'nt aligned.
I was crushed. My pretty new bike with not a scratch or dent on it was a complete mess little over a week after I picked her up :spank: As for myself, I am completely fine. Besides ego and selfesteem scattered all over the place, all I suffered was small limp from when the footrest nailed my right lower leg, so will be walking funny for a few days.
Lucky for me, the steering was fixable. My instructor was able to fix the wheel alignment, after I had the bike towed to his shop. So now the only major thing is the handlebar being a little awkward, but should be usable till I can get it replaced. What remains are the nasty scratches and a severely bruised confidence. So, the next day I went out with my friend again, and we took a 150km ride. Got plenty of twists in and worked on building my confidence and practising my cornering and turn-evaluation skills. Having him laying the line really helped I think. It was a great ride. :thumbup:
So what to learn from this? Well, be sure to slow plenty down before the turn, and focus into the turn and not into the ditch whith all the evilness lurking. Im curious though to hear som thoughts on how I handled this. I suppose there were a chance that i could have made the turn, but what if I did not?
- Sorry for the wordy post, but really have given this a lot of thought.
(Seriously thought about posting this in Hall Of Shame, because of my first thread on the forum being a crashreport
)
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