It's where full face helmets come into their ownOriginally Posted by lolliver
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23-12-11, 10:18 AM
It's where full face helmets come into their own
23-12-11, 10:59 AM
OK how long have we got? I’ve scoured the memory archives and recalled them all (it’s pretty quiet in the office this morning!) and the total is 19 on the roads and 11 on track. I haven’t gone through the off-road ones as it kinda comes with the territory and I probably can’t remember all of them!
Of the 19 on-road stacks, only two have been since 1990, so things are a little less dramatic than they used to be. Most were due to a combination of feeling immortal, inexperience, an excess of youthful exuberance, and the rubbish ground clearance of the bikes of yore (TFF basically :)... on my GS550 and Z650 from 1980-82, if I wasn’t scraping the crash bars, exhaust, footpegs and centre stand round every corner, then I simply wasn’t trying. In hindsight, the poor ground clearance is quite alarming (though you still had to be leant over at 45º to touch them down), but at least modern bikes are better in that respect, with the exception of cruisers. >
I guess that the most comical stack was the one on my GS550 outside the Harbour Lights pub in Northampton in early summer 1981. In those days the Lights was a proper bikers pub in the old style, 7 days a week, all year round, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were the busiest nights, wall to wall leather and denim and you couldn’t move outside for all the bikes parked up all over the pavement, up both edges of the side road and in the Freezer Centre car park. Any townies inadvertently straying into the place didn’t stay long, and even those looking for trouble normally thought the better of it! The pub’s on the left of a short stretch of urban dual carriageway (in the direction that I was approaching) and on a balmy April evening I was heading down with a couple of mates, and seeing the pavement outside the pub thronging with a potentially appreciative audience I thought I’d make a stylish entrance... not slowing down too much, I took a nice wide sweeping line into the left turn by the pub... and gracefully slid off on the sheen of fine gravel that covered the apex of the corner... Fortunately the bike stopped sliding before reaching any of the others parked along the road otherwise elements of my audience may have been considerably less appreciative than they were. I picked the bike up with applause and laughter ringing in my ears and hurried into the car park to park up. The crash bars picked up another scuff and the left footpeg was slightly bent (the next model had folding footpegs!) and I’d collected a bit more gravel rash and another hole in my jeans, but no real damage was done, even to my pride after the next hour or so...
:-[ :-[ :-[
23-12-11, 11:26 AM
It's where full face helmets come into their own
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;D ;D Definitely!
23-12-11, 11:46 AM
Back in 1980 one week after my 16th birthday I was riding my lovely little DT50 down Castle st in trogtown came to the roundabout and saw all my biker mates in the St Stephens car park where the old tescos used to be, so I went round the roundabout and almost made it before some arsehole decided not to slow down but to just shoot through and not worry about the boy on the moped.
I had no chance couldn't stop or speed up to get out of his way and he hit me straight in the side. I was so lucky, the dent on my tank started 1" away from my kneeif I had been a fraction of a second further along I would have lost my leg.
I was wearing a pair of bike boots on that had a metal plate in the front, this plate had a very deep and round dent in, I tried to recreate the dent with a ball pain hammer but no luck.
Anyway I somersaulted over the car, I can still remember seeing it going underneath me, landed on my back on the road, clocked his number plate then passed out.
I came too with a lot of heads in a circle looking down at me just like you see in the films and I thought "Oh I must be dead"
The driver didn't stop he just raced off. A chap some of you may remember called Selwin (wears a patch over one eye) jumped on his Yamaha 750 caught him up and took his number as well.
The police were up the road by the Chinese so I went to tell them what had happened. Even thought the driver had done a hit and run they tried to blame me saying it was my fault for going round the roundabout >
1981 fell off the same DT50 again, going round a very long bend with the bike led over, somebody had lovingly placed a brick in the middle of the road right on my line, tried to drop the bike even lower but still hit the brick and came off. Bike hit the kerb and flipped over onto some ones lawn, undamaged. The lawn had a hole where the handle bars dug in which pissed off the lawn owner ;D I hurt my knee. :'(
As has been said above it really pays to wear good kit
23-12-11, 12:58 PM
Ahh yes hehe.forgot that one.....the one where I had grass hanging off my jacket zip and muddy skid marks on the boobie area (of my jacket) hahahaha.........yeah that was a good one too !!!
23-12-11, 01:23 PM
Where do I start.... :-[
Started riding in the mid 70's on sports mopeds where falling off was done on a daily basis in fact the old Swindon hospital used to have one ward full of motorcycle riders with broken legs. We used to go visiting mates there who would be swapping crash stories with the young lads in the other beds... ;D
Fell off my moped a few times but never got more than a few bruises and gravel rash scars. Then in 1976 I bought a new RD250 Yamaha. Three weeks later I was having a bit of a burn up with some mates around the country lanes outside Calne. The front wheel went into a rut on the side of the road and pushed the bike to the right while I was going straight on...
Well it chucked me over the handlebars head first and I landed on the top of my head and I rolled down the road.
I took a chunck off the top of my helmet as big as my fist right down to the last layer of black cloth liner.
That helmet cost me 30 quid out of my mothers catalogue, which was a lot of money back then so my dad helped me to fill the hole with plastic padding car filler. We rubbed it down and sprayed it with an aerosol paint. That helmet did me good for another couple of years...
In 1976 I lost a good mate who came off his Yamaha YDS7 on a bend coming into Hilmarton and slid under the rear wheels of a lorry. The police drew around his body on the road and you could see the twin tire skid marks from the lorry as the driver tried to stop. The tire marks stopped at the body outline.
On the 23rd September 1980 I had another good mate and his young wife killed in a head on crash outside Beanacre.
By now you realise how dangerous motorcles really are - anyone who says riding bikes is a safe pastime is a complete idiot no matter wot training you have.
But once you ride a bike you realise there is not much out there to replace the thrill of them.
Other stories....... I had a mate who was riding a RD400 out of Chippenham by the cemetary when a taxi pulled out of the old Stanley Lane junction.
My mate hit him side on behind the door post and imbedded the bike into the door. He flew over the top of the car and broke his wrist. Beleive it or not but the taxi driver tried to drive awy with the bike still embedded into the rear door.
My mates best bit of biking kit was a bright red pair of Dainese motorcycle boots. As my mate flew over the top of the car the toe caps left two neat red lines across the roof of the car... ;D ;D
Another story with a photo.....and a quiz.
One saturday afternoon a certain chippenham motorcycle dealer lost control at speed and cartwheeled his old Suzuki GT750 as he was heading into Wootten Bassett (see hill behind in photo) from Lyneham.
Me and the missus were coming the other way just after the crash and we stopped to take this photo.
Someone called an ambulance - In them days the ambulances did not treat you they just put you on a stretcher and took you to hospital. Because the rider said he was ok they just drove away. The police turned up and were also not interested. Good job because the bike was uninsured...
Question - Who was the rider?
Footnote to the photo... The chap on the left with hand on hip was my mate that was killed at Beanacre. His wife is in the red jacket. My missus is holding the white helmet
23-12-11, 06:05 PM
Back in the days of the punk era when Johhny Rotten and Joe Strummer were Kings of the music scene and Liverpool FC was the best team in Europe, a hedge jumped out in front of me, knocking me off my 185GT Suzuki.
In the small town where I lived, along with the youth of the day, the girl of my dreams would hang-out on a street corner on our housing estate. As a naïve juvenile I thought that if I took the 90 degree junction at 40 mph I could woo her with my riding skills.
Things didn’t really go to plan - £100 damage to my bike (a lot then, the bike cost £447 new) had to pay for the resident’s hedge and I never got the girl. :'(
Fast forward 35 years and I have been very lucky to not have an off since (‘touch wood’).
23-12-11, 07:34 PM
1985 - riding pillion on a Honda superdream. Rider decided to take hump-back bridge too quickly and I shot about 20 feet over a hedgerow. I was not injured in any way and walked away from my aerial acrobatics - Very funny now but pretty shocked at the time.
Since getting back on bikes I have only had low speed drops when learning to do what was required for Mod 1- with much bigger bikes. ( Only twice )
23-12-11, 09:16 PM
i had a accident 5 weeeks ago,on a 125,not mine,sorry mark able,feel so bad,but any way crashed into a car,entirerly my fault,hands up,poor womens car,went through the window screen,but only suffered very bad bruising to my legs and pelvis,but on the mend,now ive found out my wrist may be fractured,but lesson learnt,and hands up to the police and ambulance men,they were great and also lee from able training.it happens to the best of us,but on a plus note hasnt put me off
23-12-11, 09:23 PM
1979 - came off my 250 Superdream on black ice. My fault - should have realised a railway bridge would be icey at that time if it's been in shade all day. Ended up in someones front garden who came out to help me pick the bike up off his lawn. No injuries and only scratches to the bike.
1981 - Locked up the front on a wet Monday morning when someone pulled out in front of me and stopped to let a woman with child cross the road. Woke up underneath the car with the rear wheel slowly spinning around above my head - just like in a film. The bike, a CB900F had gone underneath the car, breaking the rear axle and wedging the back end of the car 18 inches off the ground (thankfully for me). I walked around in a daze picking bits and bobs up off the ground while car drivers carried on around me. I had 2 police bikes, traffic car, an ambulance and a fire engine come to that one. I walked away from it with just a bruise. I had fitted a colour matched Pantera fairing to the bike 3 weeks earlier (cost £750 and remember this is 30 years ago) which was trashed along with the alternator cover and hard panniers I had at the time. The car was a write off.
That one was my fault to as I should have been able to brake in time and is why I will always have a bike with ABS from now on. Thankfully that was the last one although I have had a few near misses when I was in my twenties and stupid.
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