Met up with two friends today to ride in the beautiful weather. We're riding around, doing some twisties, headed up into PA to enjoy a nice ride, etc.

We get to a light, and there is a straight shot for about 2 miles or so. My two buddies book it from the light as I casually take off down the road as well. They get about a mile down the road and slow down to wait for me. At this point, one of my friends is in front a few hundred feet, my other friend is behind him, and I'm slowly catching up. I see the friend in the middle turn around and look at me and then back in front of him. I checked my mirrors, and when I looked back up.. the friend in the middle is tumbling (literally head over heels) while his bike continues down the road.

I flash my brakes, while putting my hand in the air to slow traffic behind me and alert them that something just happened, while the friend in front tries to slow enough to get next to the runaway bike and push it off the road with his foot. Unfortunately he wasn't able to. The bike was doing roughly 50 by itself just down the road. It makes it about half a mile before taking a sharp left and flying down into a grassy, yet forgiving, ditch.

Now before I explain what happened to my friend - one of the crazy things is that along that 1/2 mile journey it took by itself, it managed to miss a guard rail by only a few feet.. some crazy luck. It's like the bike thought to itself, "I'm not going to hurt myself going down on this pavement, so I'll just cruise along until the guard rail ends, and plummet into the grassy ditch." While I helped my friend, the other friend ran into the ditch and got the bike. With the exception of a minor crack (1-2 inches long) in the side fairing.. it was untouched. It was insane! No damage to it..

Anyways - back to the friend - he flips head over heels 5-6 times, making it from our lane into oncoming traffic, back into our lane before coming to a stop while I'm still slowing down and getting off the road. My eyes locked on him. He stops tumbling and just lays motionless. My heart sunk.. I thought the worst. I get off my bike and the guy that went for a spill gets up, walks to the side of the road to the shoulder/grass and lays back down. I'm freaking out and asking if he's okay, and miraculously he's fine. One lady that stopped was a little shook up because it's not every day you see a runaway bike charge into your lane before launching itself into a ditch.

We take a few minutes so my friend can shake it off and calm down. The friend in front gets the bike from the ditch and brings it to us. The kid was wearing a jacket, gloves, and helmet. He has rash on his legs (he had work pants on, which were really light) and on his side where the jacket didn't cover. Other than that - he was sore but okay. His jacket was ripped/shredded, and the helmet was beat up pretty bad and cracked. He tends to ride without gear, but for some reason had it on today. He got very lucky. He said the helmet felt like pillows, and that while he was flipping he was watching me flag traffic when upside down and watching his bike ride away from him when facing the opposite direction.

It was so surreal. This was the first time I've witnessed someone wreck on a bike.. what made it even worse was that it was a friend. I remember looking up and when I saw him tumbling.. so many things were running through my head. I couldn't believe it.

It put things into perspective though.. obviously you need to be careful on a bike.. but seeing that made it very clear how things can go from a-okay to screwed in a matter of a second. We asked what happened, but he doesn't remember. He just remembers being dropped off the bike.

I know people have probably seen wrecks before and will think it's no big deal.. but with it being such a crazy experience.. I felt the need to post it up.

/endlongstory

 

So what caused him to come off the bike??

 

Wow, lucky he was wearing his gear.

 

We aren't sure. There was a skid mark on his rear tire though about 3 inches long. We think he locked the rear tire at some point but unsure of how. The bike just kept rolling.

 

That's a crazy story and I'm glad to hear your buddy is alright. Get some Plastech of ebay and repair the fairing. I hope if he'll continue to wear gear from now on.. Hopefully he does. I also hope he gets his confidence back soon because riding with less of it isn't as fun.

 

Damn that is 1 crazy story. Real glad everyone seemed to fair alright though. Going down will shake you up pretty good. It doesn't surprise me that he doesn't remember what happened. When I laid my F4i down I have absolutely no idea how it happened. All I remember is 1 moment I am on the bike everything is good and the next moment I am running after it as it is laying down in someones driveway. Thank God there were no cars in the driveway for the bike to hit. I picked up it and walked it 100 yards to my brothers house. I was so shaken up I guess I walked the bike all the way to the front door. I rang the door bell and my brother just laughed like WTF is a bike doing on my door step. Get him back on the bike ASAP and his confidence will grow slowing but it will grow and he will be back to himself in no time.

 

It sucks that your buddy went down. I'm glad that he is ok and that his bike didn't fair too bad either. It's definitely a good reminder to wear the gear.

 

It could have been so much worse. Good luck on the next one!

 

Ha. I remember every microsecond from when I had my crash and can play it over like a stop motion movie in my mind... Every tumble, every contact with the pavement, every action and reaction, even the way the super wedgie felt when the *** of my pants got traction...

 

Glad to hear that your friend is ok and as you said, he got very lucky both in terms of having his gear on and the ways things went. Makes me think of gotcbr's sigline: ~ Sweat wipes off, road-rash doesn't. ~