Years ago when I was in the Army, I had an old, crusty First Sergeant who rode a dresser. One morning he came in all skinned up and he related how he had laid down his ride to avoid someone who turned right in front of him. Then he said, "Lieutenant, there's two kinds of motorcycle riders. . . those that have been down and those that are going down." I had hoped that I might remain in the latter group for a long time, but this past weekend I joined the former.
My brother-in-law Rolly's church organized a ride last Saturday to benefit a crisis pregnancy center. There were probably 30 bikes and the plan was to ride country roads between Colorado Springs and Castlerock, stopping at various points for refreshment and instructions for the next leg. We would finish up back at the church and then have lunch together. It was a nice day, not too hot, the bugs weren't too bad, and we were putting along at fairly low speeds due to the narrow country roads and the fact that most of the bikes were Harley Big Twins which aren't particularly fast through curves.
We had completed about three-fourths of the ride and were entering a tight S-curve just outside Palmer Lake. As we entered a curve to the left, I grabbed the front brake lever to keep from riding up the tailpipe of the Hog in front of me. I think my thumb must have inadvertently rolled on some throttle as I grabbed the brake, so rather than slowing down, I sped up, the back end broke away, and down I went.
I was up before the dust settled, more or less in one piece, although I could tell that my left elbow was skinned up, my left knee had a big lump on the inside, and my right ankle was sore. The bike was lying on it's left side just off the narrow shoulder, point back the way we had come. By this time, several other riders were gathering, and a couple of them helped me get the bike up on the road. At first look, the shifter lever was broken, the left handlebar appeared to be bent, the left rear view mirror was cracked, the left side of the tank was scraped, the left rear turn signal was snapped off, and the license tag was mangled. But since we were in the middle of a narrow road in the middle of a blind curve, I thought I'd best move the bike. It started right up, and once I cleaned some dirt out of the clutch lever, I rode it down to a wider place on a straightaway where I could check it more closely. I found that I could still shift gears by hooking the edge of my boot sole under the stub of the shift lever. So I thought I'd give a try at riding it home. Rolly followed me and it ran fine the 20 or so miles to my house.
Once at home, I took the following pictures of the damage to the bike.
I finally took off my leather jacket to look at my elbow and found that, although my jacket sleeve wasn't penetrated, my elbow was split open pretty badly. It was definitely going to need some stitches. My wife took me to the emergency room downtown where they checked me over and X-rayed my elbow. Mostly bumps, bruises, and sprains except for my elbow. The elbow bone (whatever it's called) was chipped, and the wound over it was pretty ragged. Somehow, some dirt and gravel had gotten up my jacket sleeve and into the wound. So the doctor had to trim the wound and pick out the junk that he could get to. Finally, he sewed it up, leaving a drain tube to prevent infection. A week later, this is what it looks like.
I've replaced or repaired most of the mechanical issues on the bike but will have to wait on the cosmetics such as the tank and rear fender scrapes. I'll have it rideable hopefully by the Fourth. The ironic thing in all of this is that the Friday before this happened, I started coming down with a toothache. So in and amongst the various medical appointments that I had this past week to repair the damage to my person there were also a couple of dental appointments including a root canal. At the worst of all of this, my tooth hurt worse than my other booboos.
I'm a true believer in the value of protective gear. The leather jacket protected my torso and arms from direct scrapes and scratches, my helmet had a couple of skobs and scratches that would otherwise have been to my head and face, both gloves had scuffs on the palms and knuckles, and the old jump boots that I was wearing potentially kept my ankle sprains from being breaks. A lot of the other riders were wearing tee shirts and bandanas. I wouldn't have walked away from this if I had been dressed like that.
