Wherever I May Roam - One Woman Livin' on a DR650

What they said!! Glad you're okay, sounds like one heck of a crash! "Adventure" or not, thatll stick with you. Rest and recuperate, hope all else is well!!!

Glad you are still in the land of the living Fey! Hope your wrist is only sprained!
Glad there are people near your folks that might be able to help with your forks. Strange these bikes don't come with fork braces of any kind. Heal fast!

My thought go out to you Fey.

Whoa!!! Been there, done that, and soooo glad yer ALRIGHT! :eek1
Alex is in Phoenix right now but may be too busy preparing to work as a chase truck for Baja... you may wanna ring him up?

Peace girl,
JIm

Wow! So glad you're ok Fey - don't hesitate to visit a doc to make sure tho!

Sendin you healing thoughts from across the pond

Fey, if you're willing to post a PayPal address I'd be willing to help with a little loot. X-Rays and Bike parts cost a bunch.

I agree, some people would like to help you so they can continue to read about your adventures.

Awwww, you guys are so sweet! Thanks for all the get well soon messages!

Yesterday I rode 300 miles to Phoenix on the sprained throttle wrist. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. After showing my parents the destroyed riding pants and hugs all around, I got to sleep in my old bed, which is always a bit surreal.

Wrist is even better this morning, still a bit tender and unhappy with certain motions. The fact that it's recovering this rapidly suggests it isn't a break, which I'd frankly been a bit concerned about, just sprained or hyperextended. I'll take it easy and keep an eye on it. Road rash has scabbed over. I've got bruises everywhere, but those are harmless. I need to fix the screwed-up mermite can and figure out how to get the rack back into shape, it's a bit tweaked to the side. I also need to do some bike TLC, oil change and rear tire, and get my passport renewed.

The good news is that typing doesn't seem to bother my wrist for the most part, and I've got access to a desktop, so I should be able to crank out replies and get everything up to date pretty quickly. I've got nothing but time to relax. It's nice.

I was thinking maybe you could get some fiberglass cloth and resin. Wrap it around the can and coat it with several layers of resin. I made some humongous 7 foot animatronics puppets for a TV show a couple of years ago, and used the resin to make the round 2 foot heads. They were rock solid! After coating it with some more of that hammered paint it might not even look too bad.....

Boats are made of fiberglass (and resin). It's really tough stuff. Heck, I've seen entire panners made of fiberglass.

No need to wad a lifetime of riding experience in one month!

I've never had a "get-off" at that kind of speed before on the highway in traffic! It is likely the panniers combined with the large truck you were passing did you in aerodynamically. Those big trucks push a lot of air to either side of the front that you can feel even in a car when you pass. But even without a sudden uneven gust, I've experienced a similar tank-slapper on a heavily loaded KLR accelerating past 80 before. After regaining control I actually played "test-pilot" to carefully bring on the same slapper a few times more to find the cause -finally taking the boxes off to find the bike very stable past 90.

I suspect nothing can be done to avoid that problem while traveling heavy and wide aside from the trouble and expense of installing a steering stabilizer. The potential may be inherent in the tall, willowy design of our dual-sports when more weight is distributed up and to the rear so caution is often the best solution. As for surviving surprise tank-slappers, vigorous praying such as, "Oh God Oh God Oh God!" sometime helps.

Really amazing you came out from that accident rather intact, got back in the saddle immediately and even rode to Phoneix on a sprained wrist. You are correct that your riding gear saved your bacon. Watch the swollen joints though and be sure the road-rash doesn't get infected. If it needs to be said, Fey, you've earned the right to take it easy for a while...

Glad that I read this update upon returning from our trip to visit Yuriko's family and my friends in Japan for the past few weeks. It would have sucked to learn about your accident from another country for some reason -felt more helpless? Weird, I know.

But even more, I'm happy to know you came out of this without having broken your bones nor your spirit.

Holy crap... Glad you're alright! Rest, heal up.

Good to hear that you are mostly OK.

Check with some one on how you have the bike loaded. I have heard that when you have too much weight on the rear and the front unloaded that can cause a tank slapper. So be careful about how much you put in the cans that you have mounted to the back. You might want to carry some stuff in a tank bag.

Fey, I'm glad you're, ok. Get well quick. Now you have time to get caught up on the paperwork.

....You sure know how to keep an RR interesting.

Check your steering head bearings. When they wear, you can get wobbles in the front end.

If I'm not mistaken they were recently replaced somewhere in this RR. Is it possible the adjustment is too loose?
Hope you heal up soon Feyala.

Tech23

For me , I find that like other bearings it takes a while for new head bearings to take a "set".

I check the tension/tightness often... Wonder if a steering damper would have helped and or be a good idea if your going to travel heavy...

A small sharpie pen mark on critical bolts and nuts to show they are not tuning loose is a good idea...

Cheers
Dave

Yes, a steering dampener may help prevent the onset of uncontrolled tank-slappers. But I've never seen one designed specifically for the DR650 nor have I ever seen an affordable, universal set-up for light DS's. In the end, they are designed mainly for riding in sand or uneven surfaces, not preventing tank-slappers at high-speed on pavement. I suspect the flex of our dainty frames is a larger cause for such radical oscillations when heavily loaded and that cannot be cured easily.

Higher front tire pressure would help on high-speed highway travel to prevent tank slappers. Changing speeds at the onset of a tank-slapper also helps... that ironically includes accelerating or braking.

Sounds crazy to shift more weight to the front by braking during a tank slapper, I know, just as speeding up when excessive speed and wind appears the cause of the tank-slapper in the first place. But in all instances where I survived an unexpected tank slapper, I was alternating between gas and brake to break the particular amplitude pattern of the tank slapper as I slowed the bike. Hell, the positive feedback energy would eventually cause the bike to lose complete control if nothing is changed.

Even more crazy sounding but works in a desperate tank-slapper: stand on the pegs, lean forward, and loosen your grip!

Moving the weight distribution forward instantly changes the steering angle and ends that back-n-forth positive feedback energy on the front wheel to eventually allow it to regain its natural gyroscopic stability. There is no way your arms could realistically counter that alternating force (probably make it worse if you tried) so it is safer simply to loosen the grip and let the bike sort itself out. Finally, we all know that standing up when riding in sand or gravel helps to maintain control of the bike even when the entire bike is sliding and wallowing beneath us.

I is so sure this works and stand behind every one of my free-advice that I offer y'all a complete satisfaction-or-your-money-back guarantee!

So there's like four pages of comments to reply to! :eek1 I'm going to do this in clumps. Then I'll post a couple entries and go from there. Eventually I will beat this thread into submission and it will be caught up!

Ahhh, I remember seeing this before! And then I remember finding this page, which appealed more to my uh... frugality. Maybe I should do something like this...

Awww, thanks! I try to live without regrets as much as I can.

Hey now, I don't think I'm wasting a thing!

I'm thinking a lanyard with a cheapo digital camera is in the works, as well as some tank panniers for sure! Glad you're enjoying it!

Interesting! It seems like it'd be a great "tripod", a lot of my photos end up shaky. Do you have any problems aiming it while rolling or is it fairly easy to operate "blind"? Any problems with the camera staying attached to it?

I find that along with the roads with no shoulder, my biggest complaint is group rides. I feel like a shot or two of people cruising down the highway into some fantastic scenery or some of the things I've passed on the road (I recently passed a horse drawn wagon on a highway...) would really add to the story. When riding with a group you can't really just pull over and mess around with photography, I feel like I might lose the other people I'm riding with, or at the very least, slow them down.

Some good tips, thank you!

Hell yeah!

I think mine was "oh. fuck." I regularly had to stop and consider my options when I ran into stuff like this! I'm not used to having to pick a careful path, having never ridden "not roads" before...

Yeah, it's worth a visit! I would have liked to explore the ghost town a bit more, but I wasn't sure how much of that was allowed, as it seems like the guy owns it?

Glad to hear you're OK. Now, for road rash, Spenco(that's right, the
company that makes shoe inserts) also makes a product called "Second Skin". It's a gell filled membrane mostly used now-a-days by backpackers
and their blisters. Online you can find the larger versions used for bad
burns. Interesting stuff, it keeps the wound moist allowing it to heal
without scarring. I neither work for or own stock in Spenco, I just used to
be a youth soccer coach who treated a lot of road rash, mostly on my son
who loved to slidetackle.