Motorcycle Crash


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	Leaning it a little too far over "Balancing your expensive BMW on its Magnesium valve covers while it spins like a top at 30 mph is not the best way to start out a 400 mile road trip."	Saturday, 22nd March 2008

BrainShare

This was a big week. My favorite partner Honeywell has a 20 x 30 booth at our annual BrainShare event. I have six sessions to give or at least help give. I saw a lot of friends from Europe who I haven't seen in awhile. It is also the 22nd Anniversary of my 29th Birthday. The event went really well so Honeywell is happy. The sessions go well. I has a great time hooking up with my friends. There was really only two downsides. One I went to Salt Lake City and didn't ski. It was my own fault I could have gone on Saturday but I thought I would help setup the booth. I also spent the entire week thinking, " I can not wait for this to be over." I seem to be spending a lot of my life waiting for stuff to be over. I don't look forward to much anymore. Even when I was giving my session and it was going well I was thinking, "I can not wait for this to be over." It was funny, the information seemed to be hitting the mark, people were engaged, but I couldn't help thinking, "I sure would like this to be over."

The only thing that I seem to look forward to is riding the Motorcycle. I made the mistake of putting a photo of my motorcycle as my desktop background. That means I spend a lot of my day looking at a couple of people riding a BMW R1200 RT bike and wishing "This would be over." so I could get on the bike and ride.

I am not a great motorcyclist. I love to ride and I have ridden for at least 30 years with a long break after the kids were born. I got my latest bike for Fathers Day 2007 and have put on just under 12,000 miles so far. That is a pretty decent amount of mileage for a guy that spends most days out of town. I like riding because I try and improve every time I go out. It is like skiing I'm not bad at it but it is more interesting because I'm not great. I'd like to be great but my goal is just to improve. Take the turn a little faster, lean over a little more, accelerate smoothly in the corner. I try and improve every time I ride.

I took the Motorcycle safety course with my son for a couple of reasons. I figured it wouldn't hurt to take it even if I have been riding for over a quarter of a century. I also wanted Matthew to take the course. I figured it would be a fun Father/Son thing and it would be very cool for his first license be for a motorcycle and car. I am pretty sure he was not as happy about the idea as I was. Mostly because he kept asking me, "Why do I have to do this? You are not going to let me ride your motorcycle." He was right of course, I'm not going to let him ride my motorcycle and even if I was, his Mom wouldn't let him.

Motorcycle Safety Foundation Course

In the course they tell you all of the things that can go wrong. Never let your spouse attend since it will just convince them that no one should ride a motorcycle. They tell you to make sure you wear protective gear, no shorts, sandals, or tank tops. Also you should always wear a helmet. The other interesting thing they talked about was that a large percentage of accidents happen near your own home. The statistic is that an accident is more than twice as likely to occur one mile from your home then 20 miles from your home. I certainly did my part to validate that little statistic.

I wasn't in the best mood when I left my garage. No one had remembered my Birthday, mostly because I wasn't home but it still annoyed me. I just finished a full week including the weekend away from home and I would be on the road again on Monday returning Wednesday and then out for another full six days the following week. I tried to put all of that behind me as I put on my riding gear. My riding pants are only a couple of weeks old, so for at least 10,000 miles on this bike and all of my riding on the other five motorcycles that I have owned I have ridden in blue jeans. I check over the motorcycle then pulled out of the driveway. I cut the turn out of my driveway a little too sharp and thought, "That was kind of sloppy." I failed to put my right foot down at the stop sign something I always do. I came to a stop but balanced the bike and then accelerated away from the stop. There was no traffic but I thought again, "That was kind of sloppy. I wonder why I'm not having a better time." I'm on the road with no plan yet so this should be more fun. I can go anywhere I want, including someplace so far away that I would need to spend the night." Cheryl would not be surprised if I called her and said that I was in Cripple Creek Colorado and was getting a hotel room for the night.

I noticed the tank was running on near empty so went to fill it up. I spilled a drop of fuel on my pristine bike which didn't put me in a better mood. I rode off in the direction of no where. I got to the intersection of Peytonville and Dove, didn't put my foot down again, made the turn and thought at the last minute maybe I should turn up Sam School Road. There was a Texas pick-up truck coming the other direction. He was moving pretty quickly toward me down Dove but I thought I would have just enough time to lean the bike over and make a smooth turn in front of him. It was stupid and another sloppy thing to do but I figured what the heck."

What Happened.

I made the turn. While I was sliding across the pavement on my left side I watched my very expensive BMW do a complete 360 degree turn balanced on the left cylinder and the backleft saddle bag. It left a deep grove in the pavement as it slowly skidded to stop 50 feet from me just off the road. I got up and had three thoughts;

1.) That looked really expensive.
2.) Cheryl was not going to let me ride anymore so I wish I would have done this farther from our house.
3.) This protective clothing really works.

I did scrape a few new ventilation holes in the pants. My asylum yellow jacket had a scuff mark on it, as did my riding boots but I was completely unhurt. I didn't have scratch, scrap or bruise on me. The truck I had cut in front of was long gone by the time I got to my bike. I'm not even sure he saw what had happened. I was lifting the bike back up when a lady came by and asked me if I needed any help. I think she expected to see one of my arms missing. I put up my hand to have her wait for a second and then lifted my motorcycle to the upright and normal position. Nothing was leaking and all the parts were still connected so I told her I was fine and thanked her for her concern. I had bought a couple high-grade steel cylinder protectors and mounted them about six months ago. I kind of regretted the purchase after they came in because the instructions were in German. and even with the help of some of my German friends I was a little concerned about mounting them with my translation. Even my German friend wasn't overly confident about the translation and my German has done nothing but get me in trouble in the past..

Montaqeanleitunq, cylinder protection R·1200
(Screws must be always completely easy to pivot!) You can install these covers with the tools provided in the kit. If the screw does not move easily then you can assume that the the thread in the cylinder head is damaged. ) After both the rear and front screws are install and the cylinder protection is proper installed should you tighten both screws until you fill a sudden and firm resistance. This draws the cylinder protection firmly to the cylinder head cover. You must not over tighten the screws since may bend the cylinder protection cover.
When desired the stickers can be applied. Degrease the surface before

Questions and suggestions
0171 2729922

Looking down at my untouched magnesium valve covers I was very happy that I made the purchase. My bike had spun like a child's top across 30 feet of pavement and the cylinder protection cover had protected the engine so well that I thought I might as well go ahead and finish the ride. I assumed it might be my last ride since I was sure Cheryl was going to make me sell the bike. I turned the kill switch back to run, dropped it into neutral and hit the ignition. The bike started right up. Nothing was leaking and after a quick stop in a parking lot for a complete inspection it looked like I would at least get one more ride out of her before she went on the motorcycle section of Autotrader.com. I still didn't know where I was planning on riding but I knew I was going to have to at least practice some high speed leaning turns. I figured I could be a bit more aggressive in the left hand turns since buffing out two scrapes shouldn't cost much more that buffing out one.

You have to love German engineering!

You can notice that the scraps go in every direction. I'm not sure if I am going to get it repainted since while it is not a badge of honor it is a reminder of sloppy riding that I don't want to forget too early.

How did it happen?

Option 1.

(What I tell my wife.) I was making a very slow speed turn at the corner of Dove and Sam School Road I couldn't have been going very fast because I had just stopped at the stop sign on Peytonville. I must have been watching the truck that was coming up Dove and didn't see a wet patch. The bike kind of fell over and I must have scraped the paint trying to pull it back up.

Option 2.

(What I tell my friends) I was doing a "S" turn leaning over in a hard right hand turn then shifting my weight to make a high speed left hand turn. I scrapped the hero peg on my left footrest and it was shooting sparks while I was dragging my left knee puck. I lost traction on the rear tire most likely because my tires were still cold, I should have really warmed them up before I hung it out like that. The bike slid out from under me. I was afraid the sparks were going to ignite the fuel tank as she slid not more than 400 meters just out of my reach. I had to stop my own sliding by putting my foot on the seat. The momentum almost tossed me straight over the bike but I was able to hit the kill switch to stop the rear tire from spinning just as I went over the gas tank. I got the bike standing back up. I pulled out an Emergency Valve Cover Kit I always carry and put it over the damaged cylinder head. I rode the bike back to my home shop. Swapped out damaged valve cover with a spare Magnesium valve cover I keep with all of my other spare parts. I'm just glad the tank did not ignite since you know how hard it is to put out a magnesium fire once it gets going.

Option 3

(What I tell myself) I got sloppy and stupid. I am going to have to really work on the sloppy part but I'm afraid that stupid is going to be with me the rest of my life.

How do you tell your wife?

I check out the bike and besides some embedded asphalt and scraped paint everything is where is it should be. My knees were a little more wobbly than they were when I stated out the day. I still wanted to ride because even after dropping my bike I didn't think, "I wish this would be over." I rode a road that I like, it is

just North of my house, Farm to Market road 407. It's a fun ride and it would let me get in a few leaning turns (with warm tires) I still didn't have any idea where I was going to ride after I ran FM 407. I had planned on doing lunch with my wife and I had a route planned out for that but unfortunately she couldn't ride with me today. If she was riding with me I wouldn't have been so sloppy so really if you think about it the accident was her fault. Even though it was obviously her fault I wasn't looking forward to telling her. I decided to ride to George W. Bush's ranch near Crawford, TX. I wasn't in any hurry so didn't exactly take the most direct route as you can see from my GPS track. (You can click on the graphic to the left and expand it to see the route.) I was about 220 miles into the trip when I decided that it would be good to call my loving wife and mention that I might be late for dinner and that I had dropped my expensive and relatively new motorcycle. I had been thinking about how to tell her for awhile, almost three and half hours. I decided that first I should tell her that I was going to be late for dinner. We had talked about going out for my Birthday dinner but since I wouldn't be home until after 7:30 p.m. I was thinking that wasn't looking good. I also couldn't think of a restaurant that I wanted to go to on a Saturday night. I then had an inspiration, I would cook dinner on Sunday that way I would still be able to be the center of attention and since I was cooking everyone would be in a good mood.

I called her and told her I was going to be late then asked if she would mind picking up a fillet mignon roast which I would cut into individual steaks, some potatoes for twice baked potatoes and some carrots for glazed carrots. She likes this meal and loves the carrots. She is telling me how bad she feels about making me cook my own Birthday dinner, so I figure now would be the perfect time to mention that I had dropped my bike. I say it this way because she was with me the last time I did drop my bike. I had put the kick stand down but it didn't stay down so when I leaned the bike over it continued on over to the pavement. It left a small scrap on my left saddle bag. She didn't hear me when I told her this time. She was asking me some questions about the carrots and didn't hear me. I had to answer the carrot question, and then mentioned it again. She assumed that I was alright since we had just spend ten minutes talking about carrots but did ask me, just to confirm, if I was OK. I told her that everything was fine and that I was heading down to Bush's ranch.

George W. Bush's Ranch

If you are planning on going to Bush's 1583 acre ranch which is located seven miles northwest of Crawford, Texas, I'd say skip it. There is nothing to see. I had it marked wrong in my GPS so it was a little hard to find but really I only had it in there

as a point of interest. The roads southwest of Fort Worth are pretty good motorcycle roads but I thought it would be fun to have a destination in mind rather than just randomly riding around. The main house is northwest of the Staff housing up Rainey and Mill road. The photo has a link to Google maps so you can see it for yourself. I keyed off the helicopters since I assume most of the ranchers around Crawford don't have a couple of Blackhawk helicopters parked on their back forty.

On Prairie Chapel road you know you are getting close when you see a couple yellow signs that read:

You can also see the antennas and trailers that house some of the staff. I wasn't as comfortable riding around the ranch as I am riding around the rest of the area. I'm also not that comfortable in Washington D.C. it always reminds me of an armed camp. I have visited most of the major capitals including Moscow, London, and Paris and only Washington seems like everyone has a gun and would be more than happy to shoot you if they thought you were up to no good or even if they thought you might someday be up to no good.

I did a quick loop around Prairie Chapel Road and headed not exactly northeast. I thought it might be best to take the long way home and pull into the driveway a little after dark.

The sun had already set in the west and as I pull into the driveway. I think, "I wish this didn't have to be over." I am also happy because the forecast for tomorrow is heavy rain and I can't wait to try out my new rain gear.

Postscript
Due to the large number of email messages I got on this blog I wanted to answer the obvious question. Cheryl did not like the story but she laughed when she read that she could make me sell the bike. She knows that even if I destroy the bike it would just mean that I would go out and buy another bike. I'm not sure if she trying to raise my insurance.

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