Mar 10

“I swear there was a lady, standing by the road”

adventure, chaos, motorcycle Add Comment (3)

I have found, repeatedly (unfortunately, maybe), that when you are in intense crisis, you have this moment of perfect clarity, where everything else just kind of melts away, leaving you and your calamity, raw and uncut. Sometimes this serves to help you manage to steer clear of complete failure; sometimes it just gives you a minute to reflect on what you have done wrong before failure sets in.

Well, today, I had a moment of complete clarity.

I was invited to go on a motorcycle ride with Chrissy and Sam, who ride a Honda CBR 650 and a Yamaha R1 respectively. These are true sport bikes. My V-Strom thinks it is a sport bike, which it mostly is, but it is more correctly classed as a ‘sport touring’, which means you sit upright and don’t go as fast. I had not ridden with these guys before, but I accepted the offer and headed to Albuquerque (which I was headed to anyway for a hockey game). The ride was to go down the ‘isle of man road’, which is up in the Sandias (the mountains near Abq), and which I had never been on.

Things started out pretty well, I was in the back, with Sam leading. Trying to keep up was interesting. My bike got quite the work out. Did you know that with the restrictor plates out, you can hit 130mph in 5th gear on a V-Strom? It’s what I’ve heard from a reliable source anyway… We head up the interstate, and go to get off at Tijeras. Of course, a pickup cuts us off. What is it with drivers sometimes? Head on up the road, staying with the speed limit through the town.

We get to the other side of the town, and Sam opens it up. I have a hard time keeping up here. I glance down at the triple digits on the clock, but the bike is doing alright. Passing cars, zipping along, and then we get to the ‘deadly’ switch backs. We had been warned about the hazards here, so we enter cautiously.

We cleared them rather cleanly, no real issues. The road was in good shape, and the corners felt fine. Get on the other side, and the road opens up. Speed ensues again, although well under the triple digit mark. Sam slowly disappears.

A turn ahead. We start into it about 60mph I suppose, and as we enter, come to find out, we have two big problems: 1) there is some gravel in the corner and 2) it is the dreaded ‘decreasing radius’ corner that you invariably come into too hotly. Chrissy slows back, but not enough, and doesn’t commit to really leaning, and starts to cross the double yellow. I cut off the throttle here myself. Chrissy goes over the double yellow, and hits the dirt shoulder. Next thing I knew I was in for a show: she comes off the bike in something of a ‘superman’ pose, as her bike digs into the ground, and begins flipping end for end. I’ve now spent too much time watching this and not enough looking at the corner. Crap.

Oh god, here we go. I had vowed to say this phrase less, but, well…

I didn’t think I had the lean angle to get around this curve. I probably did, but I didn’t feel the line was right, so I stood up the bike and laid into the brakes. Probably doing 35-40, I passed the double yellow and came off into the dirt. The forces on the front tire were very interesting, wrestling with my hands. Looking ahead, I saw the road crosses a little arroyo, which I was now headed for. Please let me stop. Eyes fixed on this final failure, I had a moment of perfect clarity. The handle bars bucking, balance of the bike changing, headed closer to failure. I knew what had to be done. Holding the clutch in, I found I was already applying gentle pressure to the back and front brakes, enough to slow, but not enough to lock up tires. Slowing now. About 15-20 foot from failure, I came to a halt, feet down, standing up. I was utterly and completely alright. Bike still running. Go me!

I turned around and gave it gas, engine died. Start back up, die again. Realize I am in 3rd gear still, shift down, try again, zip up the dirt, down the pavement, back to Chrissy.

Chrissy is sitting up on the dirt embankment, legs out in front, yelling and crying. One pant leg is rolled up, one shoe is off. Her bike was laying on its side about 20 foot way, a spray of plastic out in front. She had a skinned up knee, some road rash on her stomach, and her helmet was done for, but she was otherwise OK. Just yelling and crying about the demise of her bike.

Sam joined us a minute or two later. We stood her bike up and looked at the damage. Core parts of it seemed OK, but with a broken brake lever (both of them) and the throttle stuck, it was not rideable. We made some calls to get a van out to pick it up.

Story short, everyone made out OK. But it did, again, stress a few points:

1) Wear your gear if you are going to be out. She would not have walked away if she was lacking gear, and her knee would probably have been ok if she would have been wearing riding pants.

2) Take it easy on roads you are uncertain about, surprises are everywhere. Yeah, it was probably dumb to be out riding fast, but I’m not going to apologize for it.

3) I once again feel that the money I spent on a motorcycle class was a good idea. They tried to drill into us what to do when things go pear shaped, and so far, I have been spot on in my reactions: stand the bike up, step on the brakes, keep it upright, don’t lock up the tires, and above all, stay cool. I’ve come off the road before, never like this, but it has always worked out for me.

In case you were wondering about the post title: Chrissy says she blacked out for a moment when she hit, but before that, she said she could have sworn there was a lady standing by the roadway. She knew this to not be true, however. Interesting what your mind comes up with sometimes, no?

Anyway, it was a fun ride over all. I’ll probably ride with them again. But I’ll probably stay further back, haha.

Remember…. “Rubber Side Down”