It had to Happen….

June 22nd, 2007

I knew it had to happen… i expected it to happen…but not within the first 1000 miles of the trip! 

I figured that at some point the bike would be going down.  Preferably, with me not on it and/or the bike not in motion.  I screwed up on both accounts.

To be honest, this little accident would probably be a non-issue if it hadn’t been for the fact that i was face down in the intersection with my leg pinned under the bike.  I guess i’m writing to remind MYSELF of the lesson learned and to remember that it doesn’t have to be one big thing to go wrong — it can be several small things.

  

Here’s the deal (and none of these by themselves would have caused me to go down.  it was a proportion of each).  I was at a busy intersection in Halifax — There was a slight incline in the road, there was a small patch of gravel in the intersection but the biggest problem was that  I misread the traffic signal (delayed green turn signal), I misread the traffic flow and I did the wrong thing trying to stop the bike.  You see, I had started to take the left-hand turn before i realized that there was oncoming traffic moving through the intersection.  I locked the front brake (while in the turn) – i was going slow enough so that on a normal day i would have just have a heavy tilt to the left — but today, my tire and foot lost traction on the gravel.  The bike fell over — fortunately, i didn’t fight the fall but rather twisted my leg around so that i ended up face down.  The first thing i did was reach over and turn off the ignition. While i was doing this, i saw my reflection looking back at me in the rearview mirror (it wasn’t a proud moment).  The bike was off me in literally seconds and i was up on my feet.  I was actually very surprised that nothing happend to my ankle – it felt like it twisted pretty bad – and the side peg was right on top of it… the BMW Savannah boots paid for themselves that day.

Anyway… my bike go a battle scar — i got a 2×4 to the head kind of reminder to STAY FOCUSED.  Life is good.