[SVagueFighter]

The Story?

Two weeks ago today, went out riding with a few buddies on a decently sunny day here in Iowa. Things went well until they went bad. Long story turned short it was just too soon to be out on the roads we were on and riding the way we were, I got too far to the outside of the lane on a twistie and the back tire gobbled up some road salt/sand and next thing I knew I was sliding down the road bikeless.

When it was all over and I'd accounted for all of the proper apendages, I started looking for my bike. (Buddies were ahead of me on their gsxr's and didn't see the fall, and I lucked out that there was no traffic on the corner besides me at the time) Bike ended up in a deep ditch, so I trotted down there and picked it up. By this time someone had stopped on the side of the road and the owner of the property my bike ended up on came out to check on me.

As far as I could tell I was fine (I'm a medic in the Army, though at the time with all the adrenaline in my system i don't think my judgement was really sound) but I started to do circles around the bike examining the damage. Headlight/Turnsignal assembly looked like someone taped a grenade to it and blew it all to pieces. Lost the left side mirror, and the shifter/rear set was unrecognizable. Some denting to the tank as well.

Man who owned the house let me leave the bike in his driveway, other man who stopped gave me a lift home. Had the ex gf talk to her coworkers (she works at the local harley/suzuki dealership) and they went out the next day with a trailer to collect my SV. Their shop gave it a lookover, told me my forks were damaged as well.

Gear wise, was wearing the Shark RSR(i think thats the one i have) It now has a 5 inch rash from right above my left eye raking backwards instead of my face being crushed. Had a non-armor leather jacket that held up rather well, some rash and a few holes in the left forearm. Heat from the skid melted a section of my underarmor which tried its darndest to fuse with the flesh of my elbow and my icon riding jeans got some holes all down the left leg. Standard issue combat boots did the trick for my feet and the power-trip gloves stood up well.

Health wise i'm all but ok. Bruising on left elbow and thigh is almost gone now, the under armor wound is healing up nicely. I torqued my right ankle something fierce when halfway through my skid down the street i pulled an idiot move and thought "hey self, you've been skidding for awhile, surely its about over and you've def slowed down plenty. you should probably stand up." :angry2::BangHead: wrong answer. boot caught on the pavement and twisted the ankle around nicely. Wearing a brace on that now after some compression and heavy icing for the first week or so.

All that being said... I'm still here and thats a blessing.

So, those of you who have laid them down, or helped someone else who has, What can i expect/should be looking for?

I've ordered all the stuff for my gsxr front end swap, got some new rearsets... mirrors... decided since i was swapping out the front that i might as well toss on the gsxr rear shock and an F3 rear wheel conversion as well...

But, i'm sure there are still some surprises waiting for me... Gremlin style. Any help would be great,
Thanks!!

 

[Keywork]

dont know how fast you were going but not that it matters. **** glad to hear you made it through that in as good of shape as you did!

 

[SVagueFighter]

I can't say speed wasn't a factor. Was definitely above the posted limit. Fuzzy on the details but I'm sure I was ~60mph when it all went down.

 

[Zach]

Standard issue combat boots did the trick for my feet...

I torqued my right ankle something fierce...

Good motorcycle boots would have helped protect your ankles and feet.

Hopefully you take this opportunity to analyze your gear choices (ie a real jacket) because it sounds like you could have been hurt a lot worse given the circumstances.

Good luck on the rebuild, these bikes are more fun modified anyways ;D

 

[SVagueFighter]

Aye. I do have a CE approved armored riding jacket, lapse in judgement that i wasn't wearing it that day. its textile and i made the mistake of trading the comfort of having the leather stop the wind as opposed to having the armor protect my body. :angry7:

 

[branski]

good to hear you made it through relatively unscathed.

its interesting that you tried to stand up before you stopped sliding. from what i hear thats somewhat of a common thing, trying to pop up as soon as you can. human instinct probably. ive always been told (never crashed myself knock on wood) you should make absolutely sure you have stopped moving before you get up. but under the circumstances with the adrenaline rush and whatnot its got to be a tricky thing to manage. did it seem like you were sliding very slowly when you tried to get up, like you were almost stopped? do you have a guess as to how fast you were actually still sliding?

 

[SVagueFighter]

did it seem like you were sliding very slowly when you tried to get up, like you were almost stopped? do you have a guess as to how fast you were actually still sliding?

Thats exactly what it seemed like. I can remember clearly thinking to myself, "well, this isn't so bad." as i was sliding, and then it felt as if i wasn't even moving anymore (I can only assume my eyes were closed, else i'm sure i would have seen that i was still moving).

As far as speed of the slide, I couldn't really guess at all. No clue about the physics of it all. I figure i had to be moving pretty quick though, as I know thats what caused me to go end over end and what resulted in the rash on my helmet.

 

[eclark53520]

Good motorcycle boots would have helped protect your ankles and feet.

Hopefully you take this opportunity to analyze your gear choices (ie a real jacket) because it sounds like you could have been hurt a lot worse given the circumstances.

Good luck on the rebuild, these bikes are more fun modified anyways ;D

Man, at least he was wearing something protective...

it seems that even when peopel are wearing gear(albeit not great riding gear) they still get razzed about it...

I say any wreck you walk away from is a good one...glad you made it out without any major injuries.

Expect to start finding gremlins like you said...hopefully no wires in the harness got rubbed through or cut, those are a motherb to find and/or diagnose...

I dont have anythign specific to look for but, good luck on the rebuild!

 

[Zach]

Man, at least he was wearing something protective...

it seems that even when peopel are wearing gear(albeit not great riding gear) they still get razzed about it...

no razzing. people need to think about how well what they choose to wear is going to protect them. Maybe someone reading this thread will take a second to think about their gear choices and make some changes.

 

[branski]

one more question- do you have motosliders? if yes, did they help at all?

 

[SVagueFighter]

I haven't actually seen my bike since it happened. But I did have framesliders (at the moment i can't remmeber the brand I used... maybe someone else has them too they were black and had SV engraved on them...) At any rate I can only assume the left side one did its job because the only damage done to the left side of the bike was the mirror and shifter. *small shrug* might have been a different story but as i try to re-imagine the wreck i'm pretty sure the bike didn't spend much time on the road after it left me.

 

[SVagueFighter]

I think i'm going to pick it up from the shop today and bring it home, so there may be a chance for pics tonight. Depends on how the day at work goes.

And Zach makes a perfectly good point, one I'd feel decent about if my mistake led to someone else thinking harder about safety gear down the line and ended up saving them a lot of hurt.

No offense was taken by it. I know perfectly well that I was underdressed, hopefully that will be a lesson in the dangers of complacency to others here on the boards. It doesn't matter how long you've been riding or how many times you've ridden without crashing, every single next time you go out could be the one.

 

[Lynchy803]

**** good thing you made it out okay, that sounds like one heck of a crash

 

[SVagueFighter]

Yeah, saying i was lucky doesn't really begin to cover it I think. Story of my life though, i can never half-ass anything. Even when its a bad thing its always all or nothing, one side of the extreme or another.

My friends were kind enough to point that out to me after I made it home and patched myself up.

 

[r3t1awr3yd]

Glad to hear you're alright.

Rebuilding is pie man. Make sure to get a nice healthy check from your insurance company

Everyone will say since your forks are busted to get gsxr or R6 forks instead of the stockers (even with springs/emus in some cases).

Everything else is a cinch to put together. Buy a used tank if you wanna save money. New tanks for genII are around $550 the last time I looked. (in stock colors mind you).

 

[SVagueFighter]

So... went and picked up the bike today... Here are the promised pics...

Damage to the tank... not really as bad as the shop made it seem... *small shrug*

Frame slider...

Damaged Shifter

Copious amounts of dirt

That's all for now... Maybe start putting up pics of the new parts as I start working on it.

 

[r3t1awr3yd]

Ew man-teal. Don't forget to paint the bike... lol.

I mean! Glad to see you're okay! lol.

 

[svhanc]

It actually doesn't look too bad.
The tank is fully functional, so you can wait on a deal on Ebay/Craigslist.
The shifter is easily fixed by drilling the arm and putting a bolt through it with tubing around it.
Before you replace the front suspension, you may want to take the forks off and check whether they are really bent.
Actually the painted parts end up being the most expensive to fix, and it doesn't look like yours were too abused. If you can live with a few scratches for a while, sooner or later some will show up on Ebay.
The headlight and signals shouldn't be hard to find either.

Good Luck

 

[Papapoi]

I have that exact same bike ;D

 

[aschendel]

What's your insurance situation?

I'd check the steering stop, a little tab on very front of the frame and a corresponding one on the triple... that can give you an idea about how hard the front twisted.

Also, can you post up some pics that kinda show the whole front end, back end, and a broadside shot of each side, maybe after you clean it up?

I agree that it doesn't look that bad, and if you can live with the scratches you should be on the road pretty quick / cheap.

(can't believe you didn't break either hand lever, and your chain might be loose).

Glad you made it through alright.

a.s.