That’s right, my bike & I went down today. I was about as lucky as you could get though. Neither the bike or I received much damage. I was able to land the bike on its left side into a mostly soft dirt bank & had scrubbed off enough speed that I had almost rolled to a stop. The worst part of it all, was that this all took place in the opposite, or on-coming lane.
I was about midway through a sharp right hand turn, when I hit a “loose spot” & slide sideways across the yellow line. Both tires were sliding & I was just along for the ride more or less. Fortunately it did not high-side on me & I was able to recover, but I was headed for the curb. There was a full size pick-up truck slowly coming towards me & he just stopped where he was. I slid between the front passenger side corner of the truck & into the bank of dirt. My right side front turn signal hit the top of the bumper on the truck & left about an 6” long scratch on the truck. I ended up just sitting on the bank of dirt with my bike laying on its side. I picked myself up & dusted myself off, then picked up the bike. By then the gentleman that owned the truck had come out to see if I was still alive. Poor guy, I probably scared the crap out of him by coming out of nowhere all of a sudden & then bouncing off the corner of his truck! I’m glad he was smart & had just stopped where he was. We greeted each other & I assured him that I was OK. I pointed out the scratch that I had made & offered to exchange insurance cards, but he said not to worry about it. Unfortunately I didn’t have any real cash on me to offer towards the damage. So far, it looks like the Ascot needs a new clutch lever, a bath & a bit of realignment on the turn signal & the shifter end. Amazingly non of the body work was dented or scratched. I really got off easily in all respects & need to learn some lessons from this event.
Be careful out there
J.
