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The following is some light reading about some crashes I’ve participated in or witnessed.
I haven't crashed since 1981, except for that time in 2000 when I forgot to take the disc lock off of my VMax (but we won't be discussing that, now will we).
I’m on my first bike. I’m in my first rain. Bad combination! I’m going downhill and the signal ahead turns red. I’ve heard bad things about rain so I figure I’ll give myself plenty of time to slow down and stop. I apply the rear brake gently. The rear wheel locks up! I let off the brake. "Well, that doesn’t work" I say to myself. I apply the front brake gently. I don’t really know if the front brake locked. I don’t know if the handle bars turned to full lock. But I think I’ve discovered a way to halt time because one moment I was straight up and the very next moment I’m sliding along on my hands and knees wondering if I’ll stop before I enter the upcoming intersection. I’m thinking "Where’s my bike? Oh, there it is behind me. Looks like I’m going faster that it so maybe it won’t hit me". After straightening the foot pegs and levers, I decide I should just go home. I turn right and go 1 block down the hill to the stop sign. So far so good. I turn right at the stop sign and while leaned over the bike falls down. After some more straightening of things I’m on my way again. A block latter I come to railroad tracks. I’ve hear bad things about these things so I go very slow and very straight. And very down. All right, enough is enough! I walk the bike home. At least my feet still work. Lesson: If at all possible don’t ever be a high school student and don’t ever live off of an allowance. Just get a full time job right after birth so you can afford good quality tires, not cheep Taiwanese junk.
I have a friend that I’ve ridden with for years. I think his first bike was a Suzuki 425 twin. After a couple of years he sold the 425 to a neighbor and replaced it with a 650cc 4 cyl bike. One evening soon after getting the 650 he said he had just found a really great twisty road we should try and since there was still daylight enough for a quick ride we went. We were moving pretty fast and I saw him cross the double yellow center line a couple of times and was thinking that he was going too fast. I knew because I ride very fast and I was at 9/10’s and he was pulling away from me. As I came around a turn, he was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t believe that he could have been going so fast as to get down the short straight and around the next turn and be out of sight but it sure looked that way. Until I noticed an eirry glow coming from down the cliff on the left. Naw, it couldn’t be. Could it? I slowed. Stopped. Yep, sure enough he had missed the turn and gone wide; wide enough to go over the cliff and down about 20 ft. So here I see in the early evening twilight this glowing headlight pointing back up the cliff from under a bush, looking like something out of a Sci Fi movie and here comes what looks like a space alien up the mountain side complete with helmet, suit, gloves, and boots. He wasn’t hurt and after bending the shift and brake levers and some other things back into place we went back to his house. His first comment was "Boy, this new 650 4 cylinder bike just doesn’t handle like the old 425 twin did". Yep. Just remember, light weight = great handling.
One time while heading up Mulhuland drive to go to the Rock Store, my riding buddies and I were passed by a group of bikes. Why did we get passed when me and at least one other of my group could have outrun everyone in this other group? Because we were riding at the pace of our slowest riders, like friends do. Anyway, as the pack went for the right hander, the guy at the back (and I guess this is why he was at the back) missed the turn and went straight for the cliff on the left side of the road. Lucky for him he didn’t get center punched by any cars coming the other way and there just happened to be a 20ft wide turnout at that corner for him to run off into. We watched to be sure that he stopped OK and then proceeded on to park at the Rock Store. We saw his riding buddies and walked over to them. They where taking off their helmets and were just noticing that something was missing. With big grins on our faces we nonchalantly mentioned "You looking for your buddy. Oh, he ran off the road a couple of miles back". We waited till after their jaws dropped, then we let them know that he was OK. But we had to have our fun first. Message: ride at your own pace, don’t try to keep up with others if they are faster than you.
The place: Topanga Canyon Blvd. at Highway 1 heading from Santa Monica toward The Valley. The weather: it’s raining. Light stuff now but the road is completely soaked. The bikes: My buddy, Jack, is on a modified Yamaha FZ600. You know the kind; pipe, clipons, rearsets, KN filters, jet kit, etc. The kind of bike that gives me fits even on my modified FJ1100. And it’s looking good. Jack’s the kind of guy who takes pride in how his bike looks. Me, I’m on my modified Yamaha 550 Vision. Opened airbox, rejeted carbs, gutted mufflers, Works Performance shock, clipons, 1/4 fairing, race compound tires, steering damper, and on and on and on. Man these things can soak up the money! The purpose: To haul ass, what else. Why? Because. Although, if asked, we’d say we’re just practicing for the racing team we’re thinking of putting together. We’re only in to the run by 2 turns and already I’m not liking it. I know what it’s like to ride at 9/10s. Now I think I’m at 9.99/10s and I keep telling myself "I’m going to go down any second". But Jack’s still up! How does he do it!? How can he be soooooo fast when I know I’m fast and I’m about to crash. 5th turn. Through the rain drops on my visor I see Jack go off the road to the right on a sharp left hand turn. Into the mud and up against the canyon wall. I think to myself "Jack’s down! And I’m going just as fast as he is! That means I’m going to go down! This is not good!". Well, that split second warning I got by seeing him crash gave me what I needed to slow down just enough to allow me to make it through the turn and stop 20 yards down the road. I walk back to find his bike steaming and buried in mud and Jack steaming, throwing inanimate objects, and swearing something about how he’d just finished detailing the bike this morning. The only consolation I can give is that if he hadn’t sacrificed himself so I could see how bad the turn was, I would have crashed there too. Is there a morale here somewhere. Probably. But I don’t think I’m qualified to be the one to give it. Unless, of course, it’s: Don’t bother to clean and wax the bike before the run, maybe you should wait and see what happens.
Coming around the 25mph curve at 60mph I don’t have much warning. But it’s on the other side of the 2 lane road pointing the opposite direction from me. A van... Stopped... Burnt to a crisp!... With a motorcycle laying under it between the front and rear wheels! I slow. This is very sobering. I go slower through the next 2 turns. Lucky for us canyon racers, human memory is short. And all things are forgotten in time.
Ear plugs. Great little things. They can make you oblivious to your surroundings and let you ride faster than you’ve ever ridden before. "How much faster?" I’m wondering as I make a run on a road I’ve ridden for years. "Oh, that much faster" I’m thinking as I inspect the RD400 for damage from the crash.
When I was young and resilient (and so was my best friend) I had read in a motorcycle magazine that before you go running up a hill that you’ve never been on before you should check it out first. Or at the very least ride up it and then slow as you approach the top so you can see what’s up there and over the other side. Why bother? Well, it goes something like this: I’m on my Yamaha 80 trail bike. My best friend is on his Honda S90. We’re in a huge housing construction area riding in the dirt, up and down the different levels and having a blast. On one level we see a beautiful, wide, 15 foot high mound of dirt. We head for it. I remember what I had read. My friend didn’t read motorcycle magazines in those days. He went charging up at full speed (on a Honda 90??? Ya call that speed?). I went around to the left. "You’ve got to be kidding!" I’ve never seen anything mobile this big, this yellow, this close before. Caterpillar. Bulldozer. Big Trouble! Yep, the Thing had plowed a swath 20 feet wide out of the middle of our beautiful mound of dirt. And my friend? Oh, he had learned to fly. At least for 20 feet, until he hit head on into the vertical wall that awaited him on the other side of the missing center of the hill. My friend was OK (and still my best friend over 40 years later). In fact, we’ll be riding to Laguna Seca soon to watch the next SuperBike race. And we both understand the true meaning of "look before you leap". (All distances have be enhanced for your reading pleasure - or maybe it’s just because my memory isn’t what it used to be?
We’ve decided to time our runs up a section of Mulhuland Drive and we’ve situated ourselves at a scenic turnout where we have a good view of the road below. "We’ll start timing each rider as he passes that landmark after that curve down there and stop as he comes around this last curve just before the turnout." It’s my turn. I’m not a road racer, I’m a dragracer. I just corner fast. I come around the left hand curve before the start. Holding a fairly good speed so as to get a good running start. After the second left there’s a 500 foot uphill straight. I open the throttle wide. The 130 hp modified FJ1100 surges ahead at a fantastic rate, reaching 1g as it nears it’s 65mph top speed in 1st gear, making beautiful music through its 4-1-2 Kerker exhaust. Overwhelming music to my ears. You see I’ve been dragracing for decades and I’ve become addicted to acceleration. The feel of the bike tugging on my arms and relentlessly pushing me forward. The sweet music of a multi cylinder engine as it strives for it’s highest pitch at 500 rpm over redline. A 500 foot straight? No, not at my level of addiction. I need a Full Dose. A full 1320 feet. A full 1/4 mile. My eyes see the right hander coming up. But my right hand won’t let go of the throttle. My left hand and foot automatically upshift, without conscious effort on my part. My eyes keep sending weird messages. Things like "there’s a wall coming at us really, really fast!" Nonsense, who ever heard of a wall 500 feet out on a dragstrip. Another automatic upshift. My eyes are screaming "STOP!!!" My ears are saying "No, don’t stop, I need more". "Don’t stop". "I NEED THIS". I don’t know, maybe the acceleration fell off enough to allow some extra blood to flow into my brain. But I finally "see" the canyon wall. And it’s coming mighty fast. Time for some brakes. I slam them on hard. The rear end starts bouncing and chattering like nobodies business. The front brakes are all mushy and not doing much ("I thought I had put steel braided lines on and removed the anti dive mechanism from the system to firm things up?!?") "I’m not going to make the turn!". I cross the double yellow, cross the opposing lane, cross the dirt on the side of the road, and stop just inches from the mountain side. Sorry, for those of you looking for blood and gore, this wasn’t actually a crash. I inspect the front brake system. The fancy steel braided brake lines have a pin hole in the Teflon liner and leak. And the front discs? What’s all this bubble gum doing all over the place? This is worse than when I get it on the bottom of my shoes. In my normal riding I never put myself in a situation where I need to use the breaks at their maximum. Even when blasting through a canyon. I didn’t know they didn’t work! After a short rest I do the run again. This time I just go my normal fast riding pace. No pushing to any limits, leaving lots of room for the unknowns. And my time? I match the fasted run of the day. Ya see, to go fast you don’t ride fast, you ride smooth and within your limits. Well, lucky there where no cars coming when I went off the road. Lucky that group of bicyclists was still 100 feet up the hill. Lucky there was some room on the shoulder at that turn for me to use. And they say "dog’s mans best friend". Luck. What would we do without it. As for my addiction? Well I just have to be careful when I’m around straight-aways when I’m running through the canyons.
Christmas Eve. It’s raining. I’m going north through Topanga Canyon to a friends house from work on my Peugeot moped. Something to do with too many tickets on my RD400. Talked them into letting me ride a moped because it can only go 25mph. "How can I speed on that?" was my argument. It worked. Needless to say, after porting the 2-stroke to the max, modifying the exhaust, shaving the head, and changing the variable speed drive to allow taller gearing the thing had a top speed of 50mph. But that’s on the level and this is up a hill so steep I usually get off my bicycle and walk, so I’m only going 15mph. As the road starts to level out on a right hand curve I’m not giving much thought to the motorcycle hand grips I glued onto the mopeds handlebars a few weeks ago. Not much thought, at least until the left one comes off in my hand around the turn and I’m doing a perfect imitation of a cowboy at the rodeo riding the bucking bronco. The handle bars have gone into a 1 handed high speed (15mph!) tank slapper. I head straight off the road and into the mud. I’ve crashed at speeds over 50mph before and never been hurt but this 15mph stuff sucks. I feel like I’ve broken some ribs. Some passing motorists stop to help me get up and back on the road. Nothing’s broken (on me or the bike), I guess I just had the wind knocked out of me, so I continue on my way. I was a bit late for Christmas diner that night. Morale: If the hand grips don’t fit tight (the moped’s handlebars were just a bit smaller in diameter than the standard for motorcycles) don’t use a water soluble glue to hold them on!
It’s night and I’m coming home from the grocery store on my Yamaha RD400. Just put a new 1/4 faring on it this morning. I slow and then stop at a signal that just turned red and put my right foot down. My regular cut Blue Jeans pant leg slips neatly over the kick starter lever that has some how come out of it normal docking position. My foot never hits the ground. At least not till after my bike has fallen over on its right side, breaking the 1/4 faring. Lesson: when the spring pressing the ball bearing into the detent that keeps the kickstarter lever out of the way becomes week and doesn’t do it’s job, replace it.
I’ve just pulled into the station to fill up with gas. "Hmmm, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be". Observation: bikes are just plain lazy. If you leave one alone with out putting the sidestand down they tend to fall over and rest.
My world: Hard steel, black rubber, odors of petroleum products, chrome, heat - thousands of degrees, internal combustion, ribbons of artificial black asphalt winding over the landscape, and speed. Sometimes too much speed for the situation. Even though the road and I are in the sun, I realize as I come around the corner that I’m not going to make this left hander because of the rain that’s being blown onto the road from that cloud a few miles away. I’m going to hit against the hill side at the junction of where the hill rises above the road and where it sinks below the road. The bike hits the hill where it’s about 4 feet above the road surface and sticks in an upright position. I fly over the bars, doing a flip, and land on the hill where it’s a few feet below the road. I land absolutely, perfectly flat on my back on a soft grassy surface as gently as can be. I lay there reflecting. So this is how the other half lives. Soft grass beneath my body. Butterflies fluttering around. The gentle breeze feels good. I watch a few puffy white clouds float by in the blue sky and think of picnics in the fresh air. A guy could get used to this natural stuff. Hold on there; reality check! It’s time to get up and assess the damage to the 500cc twin cafe racer. Once a gear head, always a gear head.
Out for an very early Sunday morning "test" ride on my 130hp modified Yamaha FJ1100, I’m blasting up a onramp of the Ventura freeway heading east. I see a new GSXR (750R? 1100R? who can tell? Does it matter??). He’s speeding on the otherwise empty road. Looks to me like a excellent opportunity to do some Suzuki bashing when I pass him! The FJ was bought used and I’ve noticed some wiggles and wobbles that, even though I’ve replaced the rear tire, I’m beginning to think are caused by the tires. But I’m not really worrying about it as I top 100 mph, besides the only time the front end wobbled bad was when I ran over a small piece of tailpipe that appeared from under a car at legal speeds last month. Today the road is empty for miles and there are no obstacles to be a problem (except, of course, that Suzuki rider I’m chasing down). Just after I shift to 4th (just over 115 mph) I hit one of the many expansion joints on the So.Cal. freeway system. Remember that wobble at 65mph when running over that piece of pipe? I do. Now. Because I’m now experiencing a 120 mph tankslapper! Now, I pride myself on being a fast thinker and in an instant I can think thoughts like: "This really hurts", as my thumbs smash into the gas tank about 5 times every second and are making beautifully matched indentations in it. Thoughts like: "Even if I had the strength, I don’t have the leverage to stop this most violent of oscillations in the front end". Or: "I think I’ll grip the tank with my knees for all I’m worth so I don’t get thrown off of this thing at this speed". Even: "I wonder how far I’ll slide when I go down". And of course: "I am going down, right? How can I not". I even have time for: "Boy, I hope that Suzuki rider isn’t looking in his mirrors. This is embarrassing". I have never felt such impending doom, I know what’s to come is going to hurt. And hurt in a big way. The Suzuki rider fades into the distance. The trees bordering the freeway fade away. The dashed lines on the freeway fade from my view. Silence encroaches. Soon the world consists only of my knees tightly gripping the gas tank, my arms and shoulders which are sore from the beating their taking, my thumbs which have finally ceased their incessant screaming now that they’ve made big enough dents in the gas tank to prevent them from being squished. And now my only thoughts are: "Keep it straight! Keep it up!" No, not that straight and up! (sheesh, you guys have dirty minds). I didn’t apply any brakes. Couldn’t, even if I thought it was the right thing to do. My knees are gripping the tank so hard I can’t move my feet into position to put on the rear brake. And the front? It’s just a blur of motion. Who could find the lever? I loosen my grip on the handlebars, gripping tight isn’t doing anything anyway, this allows the throttle to slowly close. My speed begins to reduce. And to my amazement so does the tankslapper. Soon (at least I assume is was soon, time wasn’t exactly moving in it’s normal fashion) the tankslapper was but a memory, an awful one but still just a memory. But it had left it’s mark, not just on me, but on the bike as I discovered 10 miles later when I went for the front brakes to slow for the transition road to the San Diego fwy. I went for the front brakes, but they weren’t there. The lever came all the way to the handgrip with no effect. Frantically I pumped them and luckily they soon worked just fine. You see, the tankslapper was so violent that the brake pads and pistons had forced all of the fluid back into the brake fluid reservoir and left themselves as far from the brake disc as possible. Any lessons here? No, just a reminder: that humans are small, week, little creatures on this earth when compared to the raw forces of nature like earthquakes, tornadoes, and The Tankslapper. You see if The Tankslapper wants to dump you, it will. If it just wants to shake you up some, well it can certainly do that. It’s The Tankslappers’ choice, not yours, your just along for the ride.
The street is not a race track with turn marshals and yellow flags to warn you of new dangers. If you come through a turn that’s changed since the last time you drove on it and it’s slick and you’re going too fast for it’s present condition, you are going to crash. If you’re going 100mph around a turn on a race track and 10 seconds earlier some guy blew his engine and laid oil all over the place, a turn marshal is going to be sticking a bright yellow flag in your face that says "Hey, slow down, the track ahead has a new danger that wasn’t here the last time you came through". You don’t get that kind of warning on the street.