It was business as usual. I locked the office, hopped on my bike, put my helmet, jacket and gloves on, and took off. I didn’t make it very far though.

I’m always extremely wary on what it’s going on around me. No car leaving the driveway escapes unnoticed, I keep an eye on oil spots at the stops and never go through the green light without looking. In other words I’m your typical paranoid motorcyclist. However, as it turns out, you can’t see it all.

Not even 1/4 mile after I began my journey home, I was coming up on the intersection. It’s a tiny residential street that leads to bigger street where I was supposed to turn right. Few cars were waiting in line to turn left, so I simply passed them on the right to roll up the the red light. I wasn’t going fast by any means, as slow as you can be on Supermoto bike with great brakes and sticky tires. Maybe a bit more aggressive that your typical grandma driving Cadillac but still well within the limits of my personal ability and the law.

So as I’m riding between cars on the left and pretty tall curb on the right, I slowly apply my front brake to stop at the red light. NOTHING. I’m still going straight like my caliper doesn’t exist. It reminded me of few occasions when I was riding on black ice, absolutely zero response to the controls. The handlebars start turning right to full lock, bike starts falling to the right, I’m just a rider at this point. Keep in mind that’s it’s all happening at very low speed, maybe 5-7mph. I try to support the bike with my right leg, I’m completely stopped by now but miraculously the bike keeps sliding forward, slowly falling on the curb. WTF? I have seen some stupid drops, but this one beats them all mostly  because it was witnessed by at least 10 people.

The lady in the car to my left opens her window and asks me if I’m okay. I respond with positive answer and try to pick up the bike. Not so easy, it keeps sliding away from me into the ladies car! I instruct her to drive off to prevent any further damage and muscle the bike up. Turns out some retarded construction workers left foldable plastic barrier on the road, someone ran it over and now it’s laying in the middle of the street. Folded. Slippery like ice. Blending with the road. Mo^%$*&^%ers.

I pick the bike up and quickly check for the damage. Huge dent in my beautiful chimney stacks, some scrapes on the bar end. Not the end of the world. Then I notice the sharp pain in my right foot. I ignore it, start the bike and ride it home for 6 miles. Upon my arrival I almost drop the bike again, it turns out it hurts more than I expected. Grinning from pain I roll the bike into garage and limp up to my 2nd floor apartment. I hate steps.

At home I’m always afraid to pull the boot off, fearing the worst. I proceed anyways, and sure enough the foot is swollen like hell. Is it broken? Well, with my beautiful $3000 deductible I’m not in a rush to find out. I apply some ice and proceed directly to face plant forum on ADV Rider

I really find it hard to think of a way that could’ve prevented this misshap. Even if I did see that stupid plastic I would still attempt to ride over it. It simply looked harmless. My only satisfaction comes from the fact that hopefully this was my crash and I will stay safe for at least another couple of years.  I haven’t been on the ground in 4 years.

By the way yesterday I finished building my track Ducati and signed up for a track day on Monday. Today I ordered nice pair of race boots. So much for having fun next week. In the best case scenario I will NOT be on crutches. I’m crossing my fingers that by tomorrow I’ll feel better. Time to call my friend who happens to be a doctor. The rant is over.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Riding, Life, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.