tl;dr is that I was getting onto the highway and lost the rear tire, slid off the road and the bike ended up in a nice soft muddy ditch. I was ATGATT, don't have a single scratch or bruise on me. The only important damage to the bike (save for a few more dents, which it already had plenty of) was a broken left footpeg. If it wasn't for that, I could have rode it home. After I managed to get it un-stuck from the mud it had embedded itself in, and get it out of the ditch. No idea how fast I was going, this is usually my track bike and as such the speedo doesn't work. Nor does it have turn signals . . . or insurance . . . or a license plate . . . The landing area I'm not sure if the cops were either super cool, or just thought I was too much of an idiot to bother with, but I didn't get any ticket or citation, even though I should have probably gotten one (or five). Upon him noticing that there was no plate on the bike, the conversation went as follows: Cop: "Where's the license plate?" Me: "Uh, damn. It must have gotten ripped off and is somewhere in the ditch" Cop: "Uh huh. And your registration card?" Me: "I don't have it with me." Cop: "It's in the ditch as well, right?" Me: "...you've played this game before, haven't you." Cop: "You're an idiot." Me: "Yes sir." The skid marks from the frame slider and I think the rear wheel, leading to where the bike eventually ended up. I'm still not sure what happened, as while I was going at a spirited pace, I wouldn't have called it fast (Give me a break, I'm a midwesterner. S-curve highway onramps are the best we can do for "the twisties"). I was set up and hanging off the inside of the bike, but nowhere near getting a knee down. Maybe 40mph? Not sure, but not that quick. I wasn't leaned over far at all, I was more focused on getting a good turn in and line, 4th gear, maintinance throttle. I wasn't even considering that I was over enough to run out of traction, but there my ass was, sliding along the pavement. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be cold tires. It was ~45 degrees, the tires are Michalein Power Pures, which are sold as an "85% Aggressive Street/15% track" tire. I'd only done a couple miles at surface street speeds, so there's no way that the tires were near their best sticky temps. Also, I suck at motorcycles. That's the primary cause. Back the way I came The ambulance crew was very impressed with the gear; they said that as soon as they heard "motorcycle" over the radio, they'd mentally prepared themselves for a bloody mess. They even spent a few minutes admiring the stuff, being amazed at how well it had held up. They estimated that with the distance I slid, I would have lost all the skin on my left leg and probably ground through to the ankle and knee bone if I'd been wearing the standard Chicago squid armor of jeans and sneakers. My left leg took the brunt of the slide. Gear worn: -Nolan N104 Helmet -Olympia Transition jacket -Olympia Air-Glide 2 pants -Sidi Adventure Rain boots -Olympia GT 4150 gloves
You dodged a bullet and not just with your possible injuries. I don't know what the law is where you are, but here in PA driving an uninsured vehicle alone is a 90 day license suspension and 300 dollar fine. Not to mention what you'd be paying if you smacked a car or a pedestrian or something with no insurance. I mean legally you have 1. No insurance-300$ 2. No registration-300$ 3. No inspection-150$ 4. Driving too fast for conditions/reckless driving 400$ So you're looking at over 1k dollars in fines, no driving for 90 days, and a few days spent over legal crap. Because you didn't wanna pay 100$ to register/plate it and a couple bucks for insurance? And you're gonna risk your fiscal security in the future driving without insurance? I'm surprised you wear a helmet.
Well the bike IS registered, I just didn't have the plate on it. And Illinois doesn't have vehicle inspections. Fortunately, the cop was able to look up the registration by the VIN, and that saved me a whole heaping lot of trouble. I had actually debated registering the bike at all when I bought it, because it spends 90% of it's time on the track. It's only on the street when my street bike (which is fully insured, titled, plated and legal) is down for repairs or maintenance. Foresight saved my ass there, I suppose. tl;dr - I'm dumb. But I'm charming, or something like that. This isn't the first major traffic issue that I've been let off on just because the cop was feeling nice, or just didn't want to deal with all the paperwork (They really don't like lane splitting in Illinois) Honestly, they were probably taking bets as to how long it would be before they're scraping my remains off a guardrail somewhere. *Edit* Heh, in Illinois it's a $500 fine for no insurance plus a $100 reinstatement fee. *Runs off to Progressive's website*
Why need a foot peg, just put your foot on the slider. If you did something like that in New Jersey, you would be locked up and it would likely cost you about $6000.00 by the time you were done.
Geez, if that were here in NY, you'd have probably 100 tickets and then they'd give you tickets for having the tickets. Go buy a lottery ticket, dude.
'Tard - you're an idiot but you're funny and you're taking responsibility for it so I guess it's a wash. Carry on.
Thanks for sharing. Good to see the olympia pants held up so well, I have the same pants in my rotation.
I wish all motorcycle accidents went this way. *I* messed up. *I* made the mistake. *I* wrecked *MY* vehicle. I wore my gear. I walked away. No one else was involved, no one else was hurt or hurt me. Now *I* have to fix this shit
good luck. here, if you are found driving/riding without insurance, you're subject to your license being suspended. not a guarantee... just a possibility. gear did its job, though.
I think you just used up you cop luck for your comming trip. Keep the rubber side down and ride more reasonable and you should be fine. Now you can bedliner this bike too.
