Well, looks like I’m going to be saying yes to any sponsorship offers that come my way because I’m going to need some extra money. Let’s call it The Dumbass Tax. Why? Because this dumbass wrecked on her ride home yesterday afternoon.

Now, don’t get all worried because I’m fine. ATGATT (“all the gear, all the time”) works, folks. It really does. But you’re probably wondering what happened so here’s the story.

First, the location. Locals will know this spot well.

Here’s the view ahead:

And here’s the view behind:

So, this is a merging situation. Now picture both lanes full of 5 o’clock traffic. I’m behind a line of cars on Western Blvd merging on to Philomath Blvd. (Can you guess where this is going?)

The cars ahead are moving, merging into traffic, but not completely stopping. A small black compact car is immediately in front of me. As I approach the stripes indicating the merging zone, I do a headcheck over my left shoulder (and see the back view picture above). I turn my head back just in time to see that the black compact car has decided to stop and then IMPACT.

Here’s where I got lucky: I was far enough to the left of the lane that I struck the bumper a glancing blow instead of plowing right square into the back of the car. My bike ricocheted to the left and then I was on the ground and rolling right down the middle of busy Philomath Blvd. The SV ended up laying perpendicular in the lane. Thankfully, the cars behind me stopped before running over me or the bike.

So here I am on my back spread eagle in the road. After a few seconds in a daze, I realize that yes, I’m in the middle of the damn road and that I ought to get out of the way. By now traffic is completely stopped. I slowly get up. A young lady is the driver of the car I hit. Apparently one of her friends was in a car not far behind me. The car I hit and her friend’s car park on the side of the road. Friend looks and me and says, “Are you all right?” I say, “Yeah, I’m ok.” And then she says something like, “Now what do [we] do?” Yay, I get to manage the scene of my own wreck! I suppose that’s fitting in a way.

So I tell her to direct traffic, which is starting to back up since the cars behind are either too shocked or too busy gawking at the dumb motorcyclist to start moving past. Then, I ask if someone can help me lift my bike. The driver of the car I hit and a nice gentleman help me get the bike off the ground and push it to the side of the road. Information is exchanged, and this being Corvallis, a police officer appears in about 30 seconds. Another 30 seconds after that, a firetruck and paramedic crew arrive. The police officer is very nice and somewhat embarrassed that the fire crew showed up even after he called them off. I bet all they needed to hear was “motorcycle” and “crash” on the radio and they were on their way! Joking aside, it’s kind of nice knowing how fast the emergency responders show up in my town. So thank you, Corvallis PD and Fire Department!

I feel a few small pains here and there but other than that I’m OK so I decline any medical offers and just get busy trading phone numbers and such. Once that’s done and the driver is back on her way, the police officer and I look over my bike to see if I need a tow. My first thought while laying in the middle of the road was that I totaled the SV, because I was sure I just trashed the entire front end against the bumper of a compact car. But on further examination, the damage didn’t look quite as bad. The radiator was badly bent, and some coolant leaked on the road, but after sitting upright for a few minutes there were no drips. The rear brake pedal was snapped off and my right mirror was trashed, but the brake lever was still workable (if a little bent). The bike started and ran, front brake worked, forks seemed OK, so I thought I could probably make it home. And I did. Good thing I live just around the corner.

Let me talk about ATGATT for a minute. My injuries were as follows:

• big bruise on left shin, I’m guessing from my leg hitting something as I tumbled off the bike
• nice raspberry on my right hip, probably from the pants/jacket connector zipper pull inside my armored pants
• slight pain in right thumb joint and bruised thumbtip

I hit a car going somewhere between 10 and 15 miles per hour. And then I fell off the bike, hit the road square on my shoulder, and tumbled onto my back. ATGATT saved my dumb ass. The interesting part is that my Rukka jacket and pants and Daytona boots don’t have a scratch. My helmet has a small gouge, which I’m pretty sure came from the tumble over and not a direct impact — but yes, I will be buying a new lid. My Rev’it glove has a tiny bit of rash on the thumb and across the back of the knuckles. My credit card may have cried at the time, but the gear paid off.

Damage to my baby (from what I can see so far):

• radiator trashed
• right mirror arm trashed (but oddly, the mirror housing and glass remain pristine)
• small dent on gas tank (looks like the right grip hit the tank)
• rear brake pedal busted off
• front brake lever bent
• exhaust can scratched
• right Hyper-lite LED housing busted off, but the lights still work (those are some tough lights!)
• right Motoslider ground down, giving its life so that my gas tank and bodywork might live

Eek! (But seriously, yay for Motosliders!)

20/20 Hindsight

I’m sure you guys have already guessed what I did wrong, but here’s the short list:

• I allowed my forward space cushion to close up when traffic got congested
• I didn’t use my mirror enough to gauge traffic as I was merging
• I took too long executing the “lifesaver” headcheck (isn’t that ironic)
• … because I assumed that the car in front was actually merging

And there you have it.

On the bright side, one of the thoughts that occurred to me as I was surveying the damage this morning was, “Oh well, at least I’ll have something to blog about.” Indeed!

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Tagged as: crash, Motorcycling