Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Lion_Lady wrote:What you could say is "I wrecked in a motorcycle TRAINING class" - it is, after all, all about learning, and sometimes you fall down while you're learning.

Ya, training class is a much better way to say it. Can't believe I didn't think of that!

Lion_Lady wrote:When I wrecked, two summers ago, I got a hairline fracture of the scaphoid bone as well. Left thumb must have hooked in the handgrip. Folks had a hard time believing that I would consider returning to riding, but I quickly perfected the look of incredulousness: "WHY on earth would I NOT continue riding?!" Just the look shut people up pretty quickly.

I'm not quite that dramatic, but I do pretty much just say "Of course I'm going to ride again..."

Loonette wrote:By the way - that is one awesome setup you've got there. I didn't even know they had crutches like that. I would have thought a wheel chair would be the only option. Hang in there!! Hope you're healing up nicely.

It is a nifty contraption, one I didn't know existed either. It did take my Mom and I 3 days to track one down though. And even then, they had to special order it or something! Keep in mind this is in Kansas City, MO, a city with nearly 500,000 population and a metro area of over 1 million. What I figure is that most people that break a leg and an arm, have enough other injuries that prevent them from using crutches. I just got 'lucky' enough to have relatively simple injuries that happen to require such an odd contraption. Also, just the crutch attachment for my right arm cost nearly $200!! Luckily insurance should pick it up though.

What happened to you?

"Look. If this was easy, everybody would do it."

How did you manage to do that at 15mph??

After you get better, you might want to take a bicycle and practice bailing out in the grass or something... try some tumbles, etc. I don't mean to pick on you, but even the one old lady that dropped her bike at my MSF was able to hop off without getting hurt.
(Guess I missed your crash thread).


Just tell them that you n00bed it up, and you will do better after more practice.

DivideOverflow wrote:How did you manage to do that at 15mph??

After you get better, you might want to take a bicycle and practice bailing out in the grass or something... try some tumbles, etc. I don't mean to pick on you, but even the one old lady that dropped her bike at my MSF was able to hop off without getting hurt.
(Guess I missed your crash thread).

First thing, I didn't drop the bike, I crashed. I experienced a high-side, which I doubt is what happened to the lady in your class.

It was a total fluke I think. Here's the earlier thread, but I'll go ahead and explain it again with a little more emphasis on how the injuries happened and the one thing I've figured out that may have prevented the injuries (other than not crashing).

I was doing right practice swerves when I hit one of the cones. This cause my front tire to slide to the left, it then got off the cone, hit pavement, grabbed and I high-sided. It happened so insanely fast there was nothing I could do. Before I even knew what had happened I was on the pavement trying to figure it out, lol.
There's no way I could replicate a crash happening that quickly on a bicycle. And I'm not totally inept at falls and tumbles, etc. I practice an activity called parkour, it's close enough to free-running that if you know what free-running is you'll get the idea.
Really there just wasn't enough time during the crash to even think about going limp or anything. Another reason it was so violent though was that I had my left foot angled out so that the toes were alongside the gear shift lever. So when I flipped over to the left, my toes caught, twisted my foot back under the bike and brought the right side of my body around towards the pavement very forcefully.
So, it wasn't a simple drop like that old lady in your class likely had. It was a crash, I high-sided very very quickly. However, there were 2 things I've figured out that I could have done that would have made a world of difference:
1) If I hadn't hit the cone, can't let myself get distracted.
2) If I had put the ball of my left foot on the peg when I wasn't using the shift lever instead of angling it out. I didn't read about that until after my MSF course unfortunately. If it had been in on the peg, then maybe it wouldn't have gotten caught and twisted and then the right side of my body wouldn't have been pulled around towards the pavement either. I probably would have had basically no injuries.

So, ya, like I said, it was pretty much a fluke.

At least you got back on a bike after that.

We had a guy in my MSF class who dropped his bike doing the figure eight, and just fell with it. He let it drop on top of his leg. After getting out from under the bike he got up and just walked away. He works out at the same gym as I do, and I asked him the other week if he has ever ridden again...all I got was a dirty look.

So, good job not letting it get to your head!

Andrew wrote:So, good job not letting it get to your head!

I'll admit I was very leary of all the cones after that though. Before that I thought nothing of hitting the cones, after I was all paranoid about them. Still I've got some cone issues I'm gonna have to eventually work out for future practice sessions and such, hehe.

You can't explain to someone something they have no chance of ever understanding.

So just tell them you tipped a bike at the training course.

When they go off on their rant about danger, give them the blank "you have no idea what the f--k you're talking about" stare and leave it at that.

Nobody wants to hear about thousands of miles of successful riding. People only focus on those few seconds that you messed up. So it's not even worth trying to convince them they're wrong.

Anyway good luck healing up!

Oh and just a side note... my friend broke his wrist falling off a see-saw at the playground. He was 17 at the time. That's gotta be a far worse story to tell people.

Ninjas! you had to stop the terrorist ninjas from distroying the power plant!

Candy750 wrote:I broke my neck, arm, cheek, knee cap and chin doing the laundry.

thats why I never ever do laundry!


just look at them, steely eyed and say.... you should see the other guys....