It was a dark and stormy night...

So, last night, I locked up the store where I work and walked over to my motorcycle. As I do every night after work, I hopped on and prepared to head on home. It was dark and raining, but not raining too terribly hard; more of a drizzle really. I coasted backwards down the ramp of the sidewalk where I was parked and turned the handlebar to the left coming to a stop parallel with the building.

With my left thumb I pulled on the choke lever and hit the starter button with my right. The bike cranked over, caught, and began to warm up. I glanced over my right shoulder as a car pulled into the parking lot. I wanted to make sure they didn't need the handicapped parking stall I was sitting in. They drove on by and I watched them park. Nice car. Some sort of newer Mercedes.

The far end of the parking lot was pretty full. There's an Italian restaurant down at that end of the building that makes really good food. They usually draw a pretty decent dinner crowd. I glanced over to my right and saw that there was a fairly wide opening in the parking lot, so I decided to cut through instead of riding all the way around the parking lot.

With that, I squeezed the clutch and popped the bike into first. As the bike was still warming up, the idle was sufficient to get the bike moving by just easing out on the clutch. I began to roll forward, so I gave the bike a slight lean and rolled the handlebar to the right. All of a sudden, I could feel the rear wheel begin to spin much faster than what I was moving. I let go of the throttle but because the choke was on, the rear wheel kept accelerating.

And that's when I felt it. The rear end of the bike started to come around and I had the split-second thought I'm going down. I twisted the forks back to the left in a vain attempt to save it, but it was too late. The next thing I knew, I was looking up at the sky as my helmet bounced off the parking lot asphalt. My bike went sliding across the parking lot and came to rest in an empty stall. Fortunately there were no cars or people around me.

I picked myself up and hurried over to my bike as it made that sickening sound of drowning in too much fuel. I hit the kill switch to put her out of her misery. I could hear fuel spilling out of the air box onto the pavement and knew I had to get the bike back upright. She was laying on her right side, so I reached down and popped the kickstand down. I turned my back to the bike, grabbed the handlebar with my left hand and the sissy bar with my right while crouching down, and then lifted with my legs. I was surprised at how easy it came up back on to its wheels. I eased the bike over onto its kickstand and began to assess the damage.

"Let's see, both mirrors loose and bent... there has to be something else," I thought to myself. I looked again, but that's all I could come up with in the dark and rain. I was amazed that I didn't do more damage. Thank goodness for crash bars and saddle bags!

I walked over to where I had been parked to see what the heck had caused me to crash at a whopping five miles an hour. From my new vantage point, with the building's lights shining off the parking lot, I could see the shimmer of oil. Since I work at an auto parts store, I concluded that one of my more recent visitors must have had one heck of an oil leak. How nice!

I carefully walked back over to where my poor bike was waiting and decided to roll her back a few feet as the oil and now gasoline were creating a rather slippery situation for me to be standing in. I fiddled with and fixed the mirrors the best I could for the ride home then hopped back on.

The bike didn't want to start, but I kind of suspected that. All that fuel must have flooded her out pretty good. I rolled on the throttle all the way with my right hand and hit the starter button with my left. She cranked and cranked and slowly began to catch. "Yes!" I hollered inside my head. I held the throttle wide open until the Rpm’s raced to around five thousand. One last check to make sure I was road ready, and I headed home.

This morning, as I turned off the road back into the parking lot, I was prepared for anything. That's when I saw the Castrol Super Clean, the shop broom, and a few bags of floor dry sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store. I rolled up onto the sidewalk and parked. I went inside and asked my boss what was up. He said when he came in, over a quarter of the parking lot was covered in diesel fuel. That's something like 80 feet wide by 40 feet deep. No wonder I didn't really see the oily patch: it was every where.

I then told him about my little adventure the night before and he asked if I was all right. I assured him that I was, save my back being out from bouncing off the asphalt. He told me they had spent about an hour out there cleaning up the parking lot. He wasn't happy about it at all. I don't blame him.

So, what's the lesson? I guess it's to always be alert. I find that I get complacent about keeping a watchful eye out for pitfalls and road hazards and such. Could this accident have been avoided? Most definitely. Lesson learned.

 

And I thought wet leaves was the worst that could happen this time of the year.

I know from the Helmet Bounce. Been there ... once! Not the most pleasent experience to have to recount.

Actually took a picture of the Helmet and emailed it to Shoei!
Without that Shoei on my noggin ... I'd be a goner.

Sorry you went down, Don.

But, you live to ride again!

 

Glad you're okay, Don. You got more guts than I do riding in this weather. Especially after the time change, I prefer to commute only if I know the road will be dry. The car is in the driveway for a reason. I love my bike, but it is a luxury item after all.

 

Glad all is well Don.

I had a lesson like that myself once, only I was on my Goldwing and the back tire was bald and I had just got er running after I bought it.
I was on a test drive to tell my kids who were riding dirt bikes about a mile away that it was dinner time.
Made a u-turn on a packed dry dirt road. Didn't notice the small amount of loose gravel in the road and yes at 5mph....OUCH!!

Bad thing was I didnt have plates on the bike yet nor insurance.

Thought I might have broken my pelvis, a month later I was better.

Lesson Learned Too!!!

 

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I'm still a little sore this morning, but, as they say, time heals all wounds.

 

Glad You're ok. Don't forget to replace that helmet.

 

Glad to hear you and the machine survived with minor scratches. I hope you get to confront that environmental polluter once again and give them the number of your attorney! I'd sick the EPA on them too!

 

Happy to hear it turned out reasonably OK. Isn't it a sickening feeling when a wheel lets go like that? About twelve years ago, I came very close to losing an arm after dropping my FJ1200 at about 10mph. I was just trickling along a narrow back lane, late at night, looking for the driveway I wanted to turn down, saw it at the last minute, braked, front wheel went, and next thing I knew it was too late for help. Hit the ground on my back, helmet did its job, jacket protected my back, but my arm sort of "whipped". Got up, got the bike up (and only then saw the pool of oil some cage driver had thoughtfully left in the steeply cambered road). Interestingly, like yours, my bike flooded and took some time to get going.
The next morning my arm looked as if it had a football inside it. I'd torn an artery and it was full of blood (Two pints was the estimate). After that things turned a bit nasty, and on the third day in hospital the doc gave me the happy news that if things didn't improve it would have to come off! Fortunately, the "sac" of rapidly deteriorating blood burst internally, and my body disposed of the waste products, but I was one sick puppy for some time.
I'm still amazed that I managed to pick up that FJ by myself, given the condition I was in!

Moral of story: You can do yourself a lot of damage at parking lot speeds!

 

Yeouch! A torn artery is not a laughing matter! You are indeed lucky to still have the limb. I'm surprised that your attending doc didn't get in there and repair the artery as well as evacuate the congealed blood. Modern medicine would have had you sorted out the first day. Glad your still with us.

 

This is a rather amusing photograph of the arm, well on its way to healing.
Remember this happened at not much more than walking speed.

 

Be careful to take an asprin a day so no blod clots but free (unless the dr gave you something already