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Thanks for the nice replies. I intentionally left out details of how it happened in the other post because I needed to focus on how I felt now.
The Ex, I'm long over, I've actually been remarried for 4 years tomorrow. And she enjoys the bike almost as much as I do. In fact, we spent three days of our honeymoon on a motorcycle trip in Scotland. Actually the Ex and I have managed a kind of casual aquaintence at this point. We still live in the same area, but do not see each other that often. Since we met in college and had all the same friends, there are connections still though.
Physically, I'm fine. my left shoulder is a bit bruised and my left elbow and knee feel a little tweaked, perhaps some strained tendons but nothing serious at all.
So what happened? I was actually taking a "Definsive Riding Course" on Sunday. This course is on a small track here in MN at one of the area Tech. Colleges. It was built and designed for teaching Semi-truck drivers and emergency vehicles. There are a few MC organizations that use it for training though. It's nice for that. It's not very long so you can't get to real high speeds and has lots of corners of various types.
Before I tell you more of what happened. I know that most books and experts say that you should go for the corner when in distress. You are most likely going to make it. Even if it is at higher spped than you think you can or should navigate said corner. I made another choice and it turned out badly.
We were in the 2nd session of the day and I had been following another rider and I was riding great. I could visualize completely how I could make each corner better and slightly faster than I was following this other guy. I decided it was time to pass him and up my speed level just a notch. Since this is a class and not racing at all, there is only passing on the straights of which there are two on this track with enough space to pass without difficulty. So I set up right behind the other bike and through the last sweeper before the straight I was in good position to flow right by him. As we came out of the corner, an instructor was a bit ahead of us and waving us (we both thought) past him. So instead of a nice early, clean pass, now we are both accelerating down the straight. I did a quick calculation and thought I could still make it. I did, but was coming into the next corner much faster than I was used to and in an entirely wrong position to take the corner. I was also thinking that even if I made the corner I would be WAY off for the quick chicane after it and knew that if I missed that the pavement to dirt transission would not be forgiving. So I thought that just running into the grass would be good. I had done it on other corners and everything had worked out just fine. (yes this really did all flash through my head in mili-seconds, it wasn't all in words but the ideas were all definately there) I entered the grass, felt I was going WAY too fast for conditions, especially since a straight line would lead to definate trouble of other varieties. I know to use just the rear brake but must have grabbed some front because the front wheel slid out and I went down hard on my left. After the initial hit I remember sliding through the grass with dust flying up all over and thinking "This isn't so bad, I've been worried about a crash like this and sliding isn't so bad" but then I saw the bike do a flip fop from the left to right and back to left side... That was more painful than anything else.
End result was very little damage to my leathers, a bruise in the outline of the shoulder armor on my left shoulder and other little twinges as I already mentioned. Not a touch to my helmet and just dirt on my gloves. The bike is a completely different story. All of the plastic fairing parts are at least scraped and many cracked and or broken. The front fairing stay took a hit and is shoved to the left and back. Hand break lever is broken off, right foot peg is gone and the gear shift is curled into a shape similar to a pigs tail. Both mirrors are shattered, the right one shoved it's bracket in (I'm guessing that's what shoved the fairing stay over). Three of the guage housings have dings and the wind screen (new Zero Gravity smoke, double bubble that looked great by the way) was broken in half. Two pieces of plastic survied in tact, the small piece at the rear that joins the two side rear halves and the center piece in front has no scratches. That's most of the damage... Oh, forgot the big scrapes in the engine cover on the right side (not deep enough to cause leaking). Sound totalled to you? Me too.
Yes, I know this was entirely my fault so no beating me up about wrong decissions. Next time I'll attempt the corner.
One final thought. In a situation like this, allmost all of the other riders were very nice and gave me nice help and support afterwards. A big thanks to my friend Dave who drove quite a ways to bring his trailer down and scoop up the remains and deliver them back to my house.
[ This message was edited by: davethebiker on 2006-07-26 13:15 ]
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