Oh, we can include off road ones, these are the most memorable: In a wood somewhere, broke funny bone, did not get treated for a week until arm was the size of Arni’s. On Road, car pulled out on me, hit its central column, wrote the car off, ambo to hospital, left hospital with the attending nurse the same night. It was the 80s. First bike, tried to take a corner in the rain at full speed on square tyres, ended up sliding for miles.
If we are including road, I have only had a couple of very small ones in over 40 years of riding. Always been rider error. All involved target fixation. I’ve also dropped a bike while unloading off a trailer, if that counts…
..two schools of thought here, and a really fine line between them. There is one body of people that maintain that people who crash constantly are not very good at driving/racing cars/vehicles. Another body will state similar to your post. Which is the truth? - somewhere between the two?
My principle was always not to be scared of and accept you may crash if you are pushing on to win. When I was backmarker in the first year, I never thought that way. As soon as I was competing, one of the old hands (many, many years racing and winning) suggested it’s not about wanting to crash or even being willing to: it was accepting it. So I adopted that principle. I started getting my knee down. Started overtaking. Took 10 seconds off most of my laptimes and won a few. But I am a blunt instrument: I have very little finesse and it’s in or off. I have very little feel as such and therefore finding limits tends to be not too easy. But I know what I am and how I just need to remove brain before racing. trackdays, I’m barely mid pack inters these days. Never push. Never take risks. Try and keep very in check. I am now scared of crashing: simple as that. The last couple have been due to others, not me, so it’s massively affected my bottle tbh
I have quite a back catalogue, but I think this might be my finest hour. The oil filler cap loosened and just put enough oil on the rear to cause this….. just as I was cracking my first sub two minute lap.
900ss on the road, at about 5-10mph... cars stationary in front, trailing the front brake...looked down the left hand side, looked down the right...front tire moved onto a perfectly uniform dusting of white fine gravel from the up-ahead roadworks. (impossible to see as it was uniform covering both sides of the road.) Found myself lying on the road in an utter flash, saying what the f*ck just happened? Other one was unfortunately considerably more major. I tinkered a bit with motorcross when young, so about 10 years ago when my uncle (who owns BikeSport in Newcastle) said come to the track one Sunday and he'd provide the bike I thought it was a good idea... Was tearing it up on the flat, but going dead slow over the jumps...getting zero air. Spoke to him about it, and he said keep throttle steady and let the suspension do the work...1st jump....wow...serious air...2nd...even better...though I did think "shit this physical"...3rd jump lost balance at base of jump and started to fall off the rear of the bike (KTM 250 I think) causing me to wide open the throttle and launch properly skyward off the jump. The bike pegs took my feet and legs forward and I came down on my arse from a proper height...thankfully ever so slightly inclined to the left. You'd think motorcross tracks were soft mud, but they are like concrete. The bike was found about 70ft from where I landed. Passed out multiple times afterwards, though strangely not at the moment of the impact, (the doctor said it was the adrenaline keeping me going) blue lighted to hospital and ended up getting brain scans and in a wheelchair for a bit. Took about 3-4 years to be back to normal, and even now I can get an ache if I lounge on my side. My Uncle still swears road motorcycling is far more dangerous than Motorcross...we agree to differ.
Redgate? I like the way you are determined to hang on to mitigate unnecessary damage….. Crashing well takes practice
I had a big off, doing the BMW ORS course back in 2011. Went up a steep hill with a ridge about three quarters of the way up. After watching most people come off as they weren’t going fast enough, dick head here went full pelt, forgetting to roll off when I got to the ledge. I (and the bike) must have got about 20 foot in the air, before I did a superman into some rocks, snapping my wrist. After Pavey realised I was OK (apart from the bone sticking out of my wrist) he was scratching his head wondering how on earth he was going to get the bike out of the woods, as it travelled quite some distance! I was glad I went in the car, rather than riding; the look on my wife’s face when I got home was priceless!
Yep Redgate, in the middle of shouting "No no no no no no..." in my helmet. Was a pretty fast one as I slid and jumped the exit kerb and I've got a series of 20 images as I'm somersaulting through the gravel. Airbag probably saved my collarbone as it was a direct impact on the kerb.
Countless times over the old wire heaps. Btw this was a waste tipping ground for the nearby wire factory! Nothing to do with racing and everything to do with being on step through and pretending to be some sort of motocross god! Typically there would be the occasional length of heavy duty wire smongst the casings. It would sometimes snag in the rear sprocket. Resulting in a slide or being spat off. Flippng black and blue from age 14 to 16
Two and a half weeks ago in south central France. A somewhat exuberant overtake of a lorry approaching a minor left-hand corner, about 30-40°. According to following rider I hesitated part way past (I don't recall that but) and then comitted. Result was a/ too much speed, b/ poor road positioning for the corner and c/ target fixation on a track more ahead than the corner, in part due to my direction getting back to the right-hand side, and ahead, of the lorry. Result was me going onto the track which went steeply uphill onto a bank ahead of the level road. Hands up, completely my fault, bad judgement/assesment. So much for all that training, brain fart moment... Bike still in France, likely a write off unfortunately. I flew back after hospital stay in Gap. Ideal as a skiing area, ergo good orthopedic surgeons. Thanks to @Sam1199, Ian B, friends in Grenoble who were all a great help as well as my GF here who's been very supportive. Have to 'stick' myself every morning with the Lovenox Funny anecdote; very early in the morning, after surgery the evening prior, I was worken by nurses for BP and pulse/blood O2 check. However, the very first thing they wanted to do was a bladder scan with a portable ultrasound wand. Suffice to say they had to negotiate an obstruction
