Crashes 2
Crash no.7 was on my XR600 in Australia. I actually had two crashes on this bike and loads of hairy off road moments during the short time I had the bike. The first crash was very minor but it did involve sliding along the road on my bum, so I’ll include it anyway. I had this bike while in Perth, and ended up working as a bike courier for a while. I was doing a drop in the city centre and had to go down to the underground car park. This had a concrete floor and on this day it was wet and very slippy. I was going down the ramp and as soon as I touched the brakes at the bottom the front locked up and down I went. No damage to me or the bike, so I picked it up and carried on. I had just parked up at the bottom when I heard another bike coming down. Next thing there was a crash and the familiar sound of a motorcycle and rider sliding down the road. I ran back up to find one of my work mates had gone down at exactly the same spot as me. I found this extremely amusing, but unfortunately he didn’t, so I had to suppress my laughter for a while.
I had a very memorable trip up the coast one day with a couple of local lads. We went about 250km north all off road over a variety of terrain including a lot of soft sand. I found the sand challenging as it was something I had never driven on before. The basic idea is to keep your weight as far back as possible, keep the speed up and never shut off. Supposedly it’s not too bad on a small light bike, however mine was a big heavy thing with a monster fuel tank. Combine this with an inexperienced rider and things are bound to get interesting. During the course of the day I managed to mow down rather a lot of small trees and bushes, luckily no big ones though! On one bit of rutted sand I was finding it difficult to stay on for more than 20-30 metres. I was glad to see the back of that bit! All in all it proved to be an excellent day out and the experience was invaluable when I got to the dirt roads in Canada and Alaska.
The next crash on the XR was a biggie. I was on my way to a delivery when a woman in a Suzuki jeep pulled out in front of me. I nearly managed to avoid her but not nearly enough as I clipped the back bumper of the car. Next thing me and motorcycle are cart wheeling up the road. I came to a halt lying on my back and promptly got run over by my own bike! By some miracle I once again walked away without damage to myself. The only sign of being run over by my bike was a big oily chain impression on my denims and that was it. Bike was a different story though. It was a write off and had bent forks, bars and a variety of other dings. The woman who pulled out was in terrible state. She thought she had killed me and was in shock. Me being an experienced crasher (doh!) had no such symptoms. I reckon that I was extremely lucky with this crash as had I hit the side of the jeep instead of just the bumper I don’t think I would have walked away from it, or even walked again for that matter. I have now come to the conclusion that a motorcycle courier’s job is rather hazardous and I will not be doing it again except as a last resort.
Somehow or other I managed to keep the FZ upright when in America. This was also the first bike that I didn’t crash although I did have a couple of amusing incidents with it. One of these happened when in a petrol station Alaska. For those of you who have not used a petrol pump in America, I will explain how they are different to our ones here in the UK. Once you have lifted the nozzle from its holder on the pump, you then have to turn a handle on the pump to activate it before you start filling up. Most of the pumps still have the pins in the nozzle which allow you to fill up without holding the trigger all the time. In the UK most of the pumps have had the pins removed although some diesel pumps still have them. Anyway, I pulled up at this petrol pump, lifted the nozzle out and turned the handle to activate it. Suddenly fuel started spraying out at a vast rate, liberally coating my bike and several other vehicles with fuel. Fast as I could I turned the pump off with the handle, but it had still sprayed two gallons all over the place. Somewhat shocked, I went in to complain to the assistant. He came out to investigate and found that someone had locked the trigger on and instead of waiting until the pump clicked off when the tank was full, they just turned the pump off with the handle. Thus the trigger was still pulled in for when the next poor unsuspecting sod came along and turned the pump on with the handle! I was a bit pissed of at the time but fortunately all my luggage was covered with plastic rain covers so no damage was done and I have been able to laugh about it ever since.