My first big spill

[cybermaxx12]

Alright, so I thought before today that maybe I'm a good rider and maybe I am but today I had my first painful motorcycle experience. I'm 17 and I ride a '93 Honda F2 into school everyday but today I took the long way to school so I could have a little more riding time since I didn't get to ride yesterday (rain). This long route took me through a park which has some nice turns in it, I'm not sure how fast I was going but I honestly don't think it was that fast. So I start to take a turn and I don't feel like I don't have good traction on the road all of the sudden and like I won't make the turn. So I go off the road while I'm leaning over and almost immediately after that I realize my bike is sideways sliding and I see something fly off (later find out it was my tank bag). Whats worse is that I realize that my foot I'm being pulled along with the bike by my foot which has been caught under it. So I slide across the grass for a 10 or 20 feet until the grass stops and pavement begins which was a lot more painful to be dragged across I've learned by comparrison. Fortunately the road slowed my bike a lot faster than the grass and a stopped about 10 or 15 feet onto it. It was only then that I was able to get my foot out from under it (with considerable effort) and shut off the engine. Normally I have to work a little bit to pick my bike up but I felt like it didn't weigh anything at all and I got it up pretty quickly. At that point I was able to flag down some help, luckily when I crashed no one else was in the road. The damage that I could see was a busted upper fairing, bent clutch, broken shift lever, and my left footpeg snapped off. When my dad and best friend got there we tried to find a towing place but couldn't find anyone so I had to ride it 10 miles on busy 3 lane roads to a dealership. I guess the only good thing about it was that I was able to keep my head from hitting the ground and my gear saved me a lot of pain. I had on Icon motorhead boots and Alpinestar gloves and jacket. Unfortunatly I got some nasty strawberrries on my legs. My dad thinks I it happened because of the slick roads and we found out my tires are around 10-15 psi less than they should be. All I know is that I'm feeling it for not going slower on wet roads and not checking my tires enough.

[Johnj]

I'm glad to hear your not seriously injured. I hope you'll slow down a little bit in bad weather or conditions from now on.

[dr_bar]

Glad to hear you're not too banged up. Just file the info in the lessons learnt drawer and start paying better
attention to your bikes maintenance. You should check your bike before every ride: Lights, signals, tires, oil,
chain (if so equipped). I'm sure people will pop in with other things to include in a pre-trip.

[allihay]

Glad you are OK. I'm checking the air in my tires tomorrow!

[Skel3tor1]

Sorry you had to learn that lesson that hard way but I'm glad you had your gear on and that you came out walking away from your spill. Don't be too hard on yourself. Oh, and the reason you were able to pick up your bike with ease is by that time, your adrenaline had kicked in.

[Shorts]

Proper psi in the tires is a larger factor than it may seem. Keep the maintenance up to par and ride what the conditions require, especially on an unfamiliar road.

Glad you are ok. Learn your lesson and take it in stride.

[DivideOverflow]

Normally, a lower PSI will give you more traction, not less, it will just wear faster. Less pressure in the tires means more surface area of that tire that can touch the road, and it will bend a little more to keep traction.

However, I don't know how long your ride was, but if your tires were not properly warmed up, that could be a factor. Also, you said it rained the previous day... that means that the oils in the road were probably all raised to the surface, making it much more slippery than normal.

I always take it easy in rain, or after it has rained (among other situations).

[KarateChick]

I guess the only good thing about it was that I was able to keep my head from hitting the ground and my gear saved me a lot of pain.

No, that's not the only good thing. A really good thing is that you're okay (sounds like you'll heal up) and are here to tell us what happened. Glad you're alright! And thanks for sharing that learning experience.