First NAVMC BBQ Run of 2019

[ctag]

Hi,

Last week as rain pattered outside for the nth straight day in a row, I received an email from renchinrider that the forecast was good for a BBQ ride. It didn't seem quite possible that the cloud cover would ever let up, and I wondered if maybe his weather app's settings had wandered toward greener zipcodes, but low and behold on Sunday the sky was beautiful and sunny! Cabin fever must have been kicking up, because the turnout of riders was enormous, with somewhere around 15 bikes congregating at the parking lot. I had misjudged just how doggone far away my new house is from the starting point, and arrived both both low on gas and fashionably late. I guess the days of single-tank BBQ runs are behind me. Alan held the group for a couple minutes while I ran down the road in search of fuel, and then we set off toward Hog Leg BBQ.


Big turnout of all types! There's even a bicycle in there, can you find it?

I didn't bring my gopro this time, to try and have some balance between fretting over what the camera sees and actually experiencing the event itself. But we managed to wind our way along the route without too much trouble keeping the large group together, and before long we were parking and packing into the diner.


I think we picked up a few more on the way!

Lunch, once the overburdened kitchen caught up with the rush, was fine. Then we rode back. And that's all. Yup. Mmm-hm. Nothing more to see here.



Oh, what the hey. So we're riding back and come to this uphill lefthand turn, and there's a white SUV parked on the outside shoulder, with people clambering out. I got distracted wondering whether there was a hiking trail or stoner hangout behind the road, and by the time I realized I should be turning, I was too close to the turn and had pretty bad target fixation on the SUV. For a second (or however long) I just knew that *someone* had wrecked, and tried picking up the bike to help out. Then I noticed it was my bike and I had wrecked, and sat back down.

Luckily I didn't cause any ancillary accidents, and everyone stopped and came over to help. A lady riding with us saw me standing back up and said "Hey! You've still got your legs!" before introducing herself as an amputee, with some levity that I was glad for and some perspective that I needed. The riders helped get Maggie upright, running, and pushed back onto the road. We moved off at a easy pace, and after the first few bumps the suspension seemed to settle back and work properly.

I'm really, really upset about my bike. My Magna is 32 years old, and I as I already said in the build thread "was doing fine before it met me." I don't know what the plan is going forward yet, but I'm going to take inventory of my options and see how much of the damage can be fixed completely.

And I'm really glad that it went as well as it did. I was with the best people to be with, had gear on that protected me, and didn't hit that white SUV (slid to a stop a few feet from it).


Directly behind camera: one upset ctag, and a white SUV


Crash bar saved my leg and a lot of the bike

So now I have my first crash out of the way. There's some sort of comfort in that, because pre-crash ctag didn't know how it would be. Maybe I would have time to do this, or that. But in reality I only had whatever my reflexes were, which I think was grab the brake (good!) and lean the bike over (bad!).

We rode on until Alan stopped to give me a break, and everyone else a chance to gander at an old car yard.


One of the very rare times I've taken a picture and been pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.


Lots and lots of cars. Some with pretty large trees growing through them.

I got the bike home and parked it. Need to go back out at some point and better assess things, I saw the front fork brace was cracked. And I visited a clinic to get x-rayed just in case I was cracked. No broken bones! Knee is already healing and I can walk, so it should be all good.

Whew! And that's pretty much it. I'm grateful for everyone's patience with me on both legs of the trip, and I hope it's all uphill (wait, or downhill, I forget) from here for 2019!

[David DoubleEX]

Man! I missed that part! Glad you and the bike made it out ok though. It could have been worse for sure.

I left out after lunch as I needed to stop by my office and wasnt too far from it.
I was on the v strom.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[klaviator]

Bummer about the crash.  Glad you are OK.  Hope you can get everything fixed and be back on the road soon. 

[gulfcoaster]

Sorry to hear about your crash.  But sounds like you were surrounded by good people, which is fantastic!!!  And it sounds like you already know what went wrong, so you'll know what to not do from here on out.  I got my first low side out of the way pretty early on.  That was almost 15 years ago, and I still keep an eye out for small gravel when pulling into a gas station because of it.

Sucks about the bike, but it's all fixable and you're in working shape.  So all is well!!!!

[Guidedawg]

Well..other than that one part, it sounds like a great trip and was certainly a great report to read.

Which I suppose is like "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

I'm glad there wasn't damage to yourself nor as much to the bike as there could have been.  And congrats for getting that whole wrecking your bike thing out of the way so you don't have that looming and can enjoy yourself.