THUNK
Folks, it's finally happened. My first crash. I didn't get around to posting until now as it's been a hectic couple of days, but I went down on the freeway Tuesday morning on the way to work. Here's my sport-touring.net forum post about it.
The rainy season is just starting in Seattle, and so we're lucky enough to have the roads covered in that nice oil-and-grease-and-assorted-crap slime that wreaks havoc on traction. Traffic was heavy coming in to work on I5 this morning, stop-and-go with a top speed of around 30mph. I'm still not 100% certain of what happened to take me down, but there weren't any other vehicles involved. I was a fair distance back from the car in front of me, on the far left edge of the far left lane, slowing from about 25-30mph, and I lost the front end completely. I was braking only very lightly, so I can only assume that I managed to find a hidden patch of oil or whatever.
Anyway, the front wheel locked and slid out, and I went over the side. The Strom came down on its left side and the engine cut out immediately. I came down a few feet from it, on the palms of my hands and on my left knee. My left foot was actually in contact with the bike when it came down; not trapped underneath it, per se, but definitely between the bike and the road.
The driver behind me was luckily paying attention and stopped. I was on my feet almost immediately; a passing motorist stopped to help me get the Strom back upright and wheel it off to the shoulder where I inspected the damage - fairing rash on the left side, cracked left mirror, broken left turn signal, rashed left handguard and broken left bar-end weight. As for me, my gear did its job - my hands are a little bit sore and my left knee is protesting, but no skin scrapes or any apparent damage. I expect a very impressive bruise on my knee by tomorrow. I do feel a little tension through my back and shoulders, I assume from the shock, but it doesn't feel like anything serious. My jacket and helmet never touched, and my pants/gloves/boots are also fine. I didn't slide at all, just hit and stopped.
I am wondering what I could have done any differently here - other than replace my aging front tire, a lesson which has now been beaten quite completely into my brain. I have experienced front-wheel skids before and always been able to recover; today, I was down before I even realized what had happened - I had no feedback at all. I am pleased that my gear prevented serious injury; I am convinced that in shorts or even jeans, terrible things would have happened to my knee. I am pleased that my generous following distance from the car ahea of me allowed me time to brake gently; if I had been close to him and had to brake hard, I would have been at a higher speed on that patch, and things might have been quite a bit worse. And I'm pleased that my lane position kept me at a safe distance from any other traffic, specifically the lane to the right.
I am not pleased that my shiny new Strom will require a ton of repair work, but mostly I'm not pleased by how little it seems there was for me to do differently. I'm open to any suggestions.
...and I'm hoping that I'll be over the shock of the whole thing by the time I have to ride home today.
Now, two days later, I'm feeling totally fine except for my left foot, which either has the world's most severe strain or the world's most minor break. I've an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow about it. Kaylee has been in her shed unridden and I've been in the car. There are new tires somewhere in the mail, and when they show up I'll think about getting back on. At the moment, justified or not, I've no confidence in the current tires and really don't feel comfortable riding on them.
Further updates as my mind gets around all this. I know it won't be the end of my riding career, but I suspect I still have some thinking to do to put all of this in its place.
Crappy cameraphone pic of broken turn signal and fairing rash:
Crappy cameraphone pic of broken mirror and bar end:
