Want to share your crash stories?

[batboy]

Two of my more memorable crashes happened back in Zimbabwe.
At the time was riding an early 80's XT500 all set up with road tire on the back and knobbly on the front.
Was out on the open road, head down full noise, and felt something hit my let, looked down and backto see the side cover bouncing down the road behind me, so i think bugger, i look forward to see i have drifted of towards the side of the road, i think bugger, so i brake in an effort to scrub off speed before the enevitable happens, but having a drum brake rear and slightly wet road the back locks at about 130km/h (speed limit over there is 120km/h) i think oh bugger, the back starts swinging round as it does it hits a cats eye and flips the bike over me, so im sliding down the road tring to avoid the bus stop pole thats bearing down at a rate of knots towards me and the bike is doing sommersaults on the verge.
Came to a stop nothing broken neither me or the bike hit anything solid, i has less about 10m2 of skin the bike had bent bars and pegs, and shows how good they made the old thumpers i managed to ride it back home to mummy to get patched up haha, took all the skin off my ass and could not sit down for weeks

The second also in Zimbabwe involved me coming upon a police roadblock on the other side of a blind rise.
Now police roadblocks over there involve no warning, all the consist of is 40gallon drums painted black and white and poles on top blocking each lane, on the verge there are road spikes and hidden in the bushes is generally two cops with AK47's for the people who do runners.
So anyway bombing down the road come over rise to see said road block, once again wet road so on go the anchors, whichc leads to suprise suprise you guessed it locked rear, so i low side it and slide down the road into said 40 gallon drum, bike hit cop car, im bleeding like a stuck pig from my had where the brake lever had gone through my hand and from a massive graze on my leg and butt, as im trying to get up the cops run over to me bristling with weapons, i pull my helmet off and stand there dripping with blood as the cops starts yelling at me cause he thinks i have been drinking...i was so pissed off i through my helmet at him and promptly collapsed.
Thank god they did not take offence could have ended badly

[vgcspares]

so were they checking regos like the good old boys in blue here or were they actually doing something useful with their road-block ?

[batboy]

so were they checking regos like the good old boys in blue here or were they actually doing something useful with their road-block ?

haha the police in zimbabwe are very very different to cops anywhere else, lets just say i did not have a motorcylce license and did not get in trouble for it.
the roadblocks never had reasons, maybe the occasional search to find weapons, or anti goverment paraphinalia but yeah normally just a display of force

[LBD]

Zimbabwe gets a mention...And I know what the police are like in the 4th place ranked country..

Kyrgyzstan ranks 4th in the list of most corrupted countries by Forbes magazine, when Chad, Zimbabwe and Cambodia were estimated as three most corrupted countries. They are followed by Burundi, Gambia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan

Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand were named the corruption-free countries


But point of order...Mid 70's heading home from a gardening job along Papinui road I had target fixation that lead to a crash. The target was a group of SMC school girls...and I failed to see a Morris 1100 stopped right in front of me...with plenty of time for me to stop had I noticed and not been fixed on a target. I glanced the rear left corner, broke the tal light, and left a good gouge and gumboot mark down the side....

Beware of target fixation....around girls schools

[Skinnyninny]

Not much of a story but:

Was riding along, off to Browns Bay just after we had a storm so was taking it really easy. Come up to a blind corner where I see a large stick sitting in the road. Start to brake but realize that i'm riding over wet, muddy leaves and pine needles so needless to say I didn't slow down much. I then hit the stick and started to fish tail quite violently. This is when I realised that I was heading straight for the curb. Decided to pull the bike over before I high sided or before I took a bite out of the curb. Came down, kicked bike away, I went sliding almost 10meters down the road on my back while bike whent launching over the curb. Not much I could do really apart from hitting the kill switch and removing parts of the bike off the road. Wrote the bike off, ripped my jeans to shreds, almost cut my belt in half, sliced my knee and arm open and sprained my neck and back. All at 30 km/h, just goes to show really that you don't need to be going fast.

EDIT: I'm from Zimbabwe as well, Harare actually. Just thought id drop that in...

Dan

[Molly]

Accidents caused whilst commuting might be a theme here but I would imagine that's due to it being a statistical probability. Accidents caused by stupidity? Well, OK, that too... Accidents caused by blind or stupid car drivers don't feature as heavily as I thought they might.

I had a coach drive straight out in front of me at a roundabout in Lincoln last week and, during the same journey home, had some twat in a Hiace sail straight out of a junction with no attempt to slow down forcing me to throw the brakes on again (his plate spelled out something intended to read like 'INSTALLER', just in case you know the cock). Sometimes you just think everybody's out to kill you.

[slofox]

Beware of target fixation....around girls schools

You're a grubby little bugger, you know that?

[LBD]

You're a grubby little bugger, you know that?

17year old I was...hormones rumbling and all that....

[batboy]

EDIT: I'm from Zimbabwe as well, Harare actually. Just thought id drop that in...

Dan

Good one, both my crashes happend on the Harare-Mazoe rd that road was the bane of my existance at that point, bike also continously crapped out on me on that strech of road

And as to corruption......only 4th? mmm closer to 2nd i think

[Conquiztador]

Apart from crashes on speedway track I have had 2 that is worth (?) to mention:

1. In the 80's I was the happy owner of a 750 Bonny. I was riding around in Italy. Those days in Italy you did not need a helmet and as long as you could stand up after a session with the booze you were allowed to ride/drive.

I had spent an evening with some other riders at a disco (as the places were called then) and we decided to go to another place at approx 2am. As we came out the roads were wet as there had been rain. My Bonny would be more temperamental then normally when in rain, so as all others took off I was left kicking. She started but all others were already far down the dark and wet road.

So I did what any clever guy w/o a helmet and after a 6 hour session on the turps would do: I gunned her. I was happily catching them all. Partly because I was doing 140 in a 50K zone, but also because they knew the road that suddenly turned 90 degrees to the left at the beach. They all went happily around the corner. Me, well...

I had two options: ride through a hole in the rock fence or lay her down and smash in to the mentioned fence. It was one of those split second decisions that makes it possible to sit here and type it. I smashed in to the wall with first front wheel and then back wheel. My leg was under bike. Forks bent, bunch of small damage. But the sliding on the side had taken some of the speed off. When I came to there was ambulance and all the other riders. In my state I felt no pain (booze and adrenalin is a top mix!) and I wanted to ride her away. Someone had stood her up. But of some reason my right leg just would not kick.

In the end I reluctlantly agreed that perhaps hospital was the right place for me. I had damaged my ligiments and other shit in my knee and for years wore a hinge thingy on that knee.

When I got out from hospital after a week I went to have a look at the crash site. I looked at the hole in the fence and found that there was a 5 meter drop down to the beach. When you walked through that hole there was a stone stairway that turned 90 degree to the right and went down to the beach. And around it was a steel railing that the Bonny would have hit leaving me to do a superman stunt in pitch black down on a beach with sand and rocks.

The bike was at the camping ground and I limped around it using tape and tools for a week. I straightened the forks using a long piece of steel bar and she was ready to go where pointed. The forks now rigid. And a front wheel with a jump. Rode her from Italy to Sweden like that. And kicked her in to life using my left leg. The technique was a delicate one as I could not carry any weight on my right leg: Stand on the kick with left leg while bike on sidestand, kick down by doin a small jump, then jump off the kick before it hits the bottom and land on left foot.

[Conquiztador]

Had two 250 cc dirtbikes. Me and my oldest took the small boys for a ride on the beach. One of the bikes would not start after a rest, so I decided to leave the boys there and shoot home to get tools and a spark plug.

When riding it started raining and I was thinking about my boys in the rain, so I opened her up. Probably managed 100k/h. The beach had a bend to the right and there was wet rocks. Last I remember for a while. Next memory is me walking around bike trying to pick her up but have no strength.

Got help from some tourists. They walked me and the bike to the local camping ground and from there I was taken home on a 4wd bike. My boys and the second bike was brought home on a tractor and trailer.

When they got home I was in bed: "Just let me sleep it off and I be fine..." Next day I could not get up from bed so my oldest, against my wishes, organised an ambulance for me. I ended up in hospital. Probably the best for me as even I can not sleep off 7 broken ribs and a punctured lunge.

[EJK]

I don't normally post up a photo of myself but since I see some good stories, I thought I'd post it up.

Just.... Yea... Picture worth a 1000 words

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/at...5&d=1196747766

[xwhatsit]

Funny?
A mate from way back riding through downtown Welly, spots a nice piece of tail, does a double take for a perv and smacks into the back of a big red bus! No excuse.

Beware of target fixation....around girls schools

Oh man... that one's a regular with me. Symonds St is a very dangerous place.

[frogamic]

Well I just had my first accident an hour ago. It had just started raining and I was coming home from Canterbury university down Ilam road on my hornet which I've had for a week. I entered the school zone and checked if the flashing school zone sign was going, which it wasn't, so I carry on at ~50-60kph. I get to the pedestrian crossing and see a primary school kid waiting to cross so I put on the brakes.

Next thing I know, bike is lying on its right side perpendicular to the road and I'm standing over it. Dented the tank, scraped the right engine casing (was just about to buy motivation frame sliders, too), bent the foot brake and right mirror and partially snapped off the front right hand indicator (although no indication it even hit the road). Strangely enough, my left knee has several minuscule grazes on it, from what I have no idea.

Primary school kid walks across crossing apparently oblivious to motorbike lying on ground and nice university student helps me lift bike up (which I probably couldn't do at the best of times, being not particularly strong, let alone when slightly shaken). Hopped back on bike and went home.

[Weta]

Riding home tonight just through Newmarket rush hour chaos, it starts to drizzle, great hasn't rained for a bit so lots of crap on the road I thinks, tyres still cold and my Gixer don't like commuting at the best of times. Turn down Ayr st (really really steep st) still in heavy traffic, when car in front puts on his windscreen washers which jet spectacularly over the top of his car and onto me, which pissed me off but I could see sort of looked funny. Funny till I felt how the soapy water that was bathing my cold, front rubber afected handling.
didn't bin it but made for an interesting 100m, I hate commuting.