What type of accidents? Gear on/off ?

[Hailwood]

First time was on my first bike - a Yamaha Seca II. I was 17, and in a freshly sealed parking lot, and thought it would look really cool to accelerate to about 30~40 to show off for some girls. When I got on the brakes at the end of the lot the front end lost grip and the bike went into a massive tank-slapper. I was able to jump off the back of the bike and land on my feet, but the tank-slapper damn near broke my wrist, and I had severe pain and swelling for months afterwards. I was wearing a helmet and some bicycling gloves.

The second time was on the Speed Triple on OH-60 just South of Millersburg towards the end of a really great group ride. I went into a tight right hand corner and cut the apex way too close. There was some black sand there and I went right down, probably doing 40~50. I was wearing full leathers and walked away without a scratch, just a little soreness in my knee, which hit the deck first. This was me losing focus and trying to push too hard when I knew I was fatigued.

I personally think that the street is a great place to build skills in bike control and awareness, but is not the place to be 'pushing it'. If you don't *know* that you are travelling at a pace where you won't have issues should something unexpected occur, in my opinion, you're going too quickly - that's going to be very different for everyone based on individual skill levels and comfort zones. I think the track is the perfect place to push that envelope and start to expand your personal comfort zone from a bike control standpoint.

[Bellboy1]

First accident(and only so far) was last July. Coming into a group of sweeping turns that I go over every day, I noticed something looked wierd about the surface. I slowed way down but as got into it I realized it was fine loose gravel spread all the way across the road. I tried to look through the corner and apply gas to get through, but the bike never hooked up and I just drifted all the way the lane over to the ditch beside the road where I finally low sided and broke some plastic on my fairing. I had all the gear on and only a bruised hip where I landed in the ditch. Lady behind me said she thought I was drifting on purpose until I went into the ditch.

From there it gets a little wierd. I get up and there is a highway patrol man already walking towards me from the little park where I went off. He helped me push the bike out and checked me over to make sure I was OK. Turns out I was bike 3 to go off that corner that morning and the only one able to ride away. An R1 that had gone off ahead of me endo'd in the ditch and the rider was on his way to the hospital with a concussion. That bike was almost unrecongizeable. A cruiser had gone off too at lower speed but had snapped his left side handebar clip off. The highway patrolman had just arrived to take care of the earlier two crashes when he saw me go off.

Turns out construction on the road the previous night had ironically laid down this gravel with a resin to make a high traction surface in the northbound lane the night before. However they did not sweep the gravel out of the southbound lane(the one I was in) or put up any signs.

Lesson I learned from this is not to get complacent. I am just thankful I slowed down when I didn't recognize what was wrong with the surface or I could have ended up like the R1 rider. I went from maybe 50 to below 30 before I hit the gravel. I rack a great deal of that accident up to stupidity for not recognizing the gravel for what it was. Another 5-10 mph drop in speed and I would have made it through.

[RSparky]

That's shitty. They should really have swept that. And because they didn't, they should have been held responsible for all of the bikes.

[Bellboy1]

The highway patrol actually helped out on that. He wrote up the report that the road was unpassable for bikes and nearly so for cars. I guess by law they are supposed to sweep up debris at the end of the day, or post signs, or have flaggers. They did not have any of those. I did not get cited for anything and placed a claim with the insurance company of the contractor doing the construction. I did a phone interview with my insurance and their insurance on the line and was eventually reimbursed for everything, so I can't complain too much. Insurance actually totalled my ninja 500 because of the broken plastic fairing, so I bought it back and repaired it myself. (Sometimes its good to have a good cheap bike! ) Still need some fresh paint on the front, but otherwise it has been a joy to ride since I'm not worried about dropping it anymore!