Real scary thing happened this morning.

[dusty2221]

Had a real eye opener this morning on the way to work. I ride my Harley to work just about every single day, if it's not raining when it's time to go in the morning I am on it. Well, this morning was going great, I took Kira to school, came home parked the truck and hopped on Debbie (Harley's name). I make it about 15 miles from home and am cruising at around 78ish behind a truck in the fast lane. We are passing a car that is in the right line, we make it past and the truck moves over and I speed up. I made it to right about 80 when all the sudden my bars started shaking horribly back and forth and I was now having to "turn" the bars right to go straight. I immediately knew what had happened and that I was in a heap of trouble! I had to bolt between the car we had just passed and the truck that I was following to the shoulder while trying to keep the bike under control.

I get her pulled over and sure enough, my front tire blew out. It didn't just go flat, the damn tube exploded on the inside and the tire instantly lost it's bead. Luckily, Ash's work is only about 10 more minutes down the road and she was able to bring a truck and trailer for me to load the bike on. Talk about a scary few seconds. I've experienced rear flats before, they are bad enough, but to have the front tire completely gone...woah. Hell, I've arrived and had a "flat" front before and could only tell because the steering was sluggish...this was a whole new experience. It scared the heck outta me.

So that got me thinking, any one else had any "oh crap I'm in big trouble" moments lately? When I had to jet between the truck I was following and the car we had just passed I really had no clue what was about to happen. In that moment it seems like 50 different things went through my head of what was about to happen. The main one I remember was get me off this damn road!!!

[jester]

Dang good to hear you did not lay it down goin 80 down the road. I have not had any life or death moments recently but the week is still early.

[wolfeman131]

Dusty, glad to hear you are OK. I sold my FZR after hitting some road construction debris and blowing out the front at about the same speed. Just shook me up too much.

[sandm]

please tell me you are not the typical harley rider and believe that gear'ed up includes leather chaps, gloves, vest and no helmet....

nothing frosts me more than to pass a group of them up in the twisties with no helmets on.. except morons on sportbikes with tees, shorts and flipflops.. or the token hot skinny blond hanging on for dear life on the interstate doing 80 and no helmet..



ok, off the soapbox. REAL GLAD you are not hurt and came out with a brown stain in the shorts and nothing else..

[dusty2221]

Ha, oh I wear a helmet alright You can't miss it!





I'm hoping that this one is on the way

[New Guy]

Awesome Helmet!

Way to not panic in that situation. I went into a tank slapper really bad when I first got my bike @ 90ish and I still to this day have know idea how I didn't go down.

[mmandley]

Wow man, nice recovery and way to keep your cool man, did you find out why the tire blew? Bad tire? Hit something and complete failure? Dryrot?

I used to ride street bikes and stoped after doing 70 on a 2 lane highway and a lady tried to pass me in a 4banger going uphill, in a no passing area, well a semi came over the top of the hill, she paniced and instead of hitting her brakes she decided to merge. Completly forgot i was next to her. I hit the brakes as much as i could causing her to mix me, but i was so close to her truck the wind drift blew me and the bike right off the road. I dislocated my shoulder, riped my pants, jacket, and scratched my helmet from front to back, tore the fairings up on the bike, lose a mirror and turn signal, bent the headlight housing and rear swing arm

I got it all fixed, and rode it a few times to prove i wasnt scared. Then i sold the bike after discosing the repairs.

Worst thing is i knew the lady as i was a corrections officer then and so was she. I used to see her all the time at work and to this day she never even said sorry. I like to think she completey didnt know what happened.

[rdlangston13]

thats pretty scary, glad to hear your ok.

my latest oh shit moment was last week in singapore. We were walking from our hotel to the river walk to go get some singaporean mexican food. i had been warned not to jay walk in singapore but my buddy i was with was a singapore expert and he was just crossing as he needed. Well we get to one street and I look left and right and see no one coming so i start walking and make it to median. Now on the median i looked right and didnt see anyone so i so i began to step into the street as i hear my buddy yell at me, i then look left and there is an audi a8 coming at me hard on the brakes all the tires chirping from the ABS as i quickly try to reverse direction and get back on the median. i made it back on about 20 ft before the car came by. Damn singaporeans drive on the wrong side of the road. Yeah, i used cross walks the rest of my stay.

[jmvotto]

Dusty, glad your ok and great way to keep calm.

No bikes for me.

With all the west coast avalanches in the past weeks.He is my oh sh$t moment.
Last January , I triggered an avy coming over a hog back right next to my buddies and our guides tracks, just heard this "whoosh" and I was now skiing on marbles 30 mph. I was taught to ski to the closest exit. The Avey broke on my right, so left is out, try to go left and no real control or steering. Then a big pine is coming right at me, hard left, no control, crap, brushed right by it inches and out I came.
We did not think it was too bad until we tried to drive the cat up the snow road an there was six to eight feet of snow blocking the road al piled up. Guide says if you were 10 feet more to the right It could have buried any one of us ....Scary stuff.

[rc5695]

Some scary moments guys. Glad you're OK and kept her under control.

I'm a daily rider too, at least I was until my ankle thing. Just started riding again last week. I've averaged 900 miles/month on my bike from 2007 until last year. 1 wreck in around 2006, on my way to work at 6 am and it was still a little dark, came around a corner and a tree was laying across the road! Fortunately it was right before a stop sign, so i was only running about 45 when I saw it instead of 60 or so... Damp roads, locked up the rear brake, light on the front so it wouldn't lock. I knew i didn't want to go down with a bike sliding behind me going straight into the side of a tree full of branches and getting speared Figure i was doing about 10-15 is all when I t-boned the tree; bike never even fell over, as the tree stuck between the front wheel and the headlight ('01? Katana). I went off the right side, thigh hit the tree, and I flipped over it, landing on my feet! Never even hit the ground! had a HUGE bruise on my thigh though, and nearly totalled the bike due to plastics damaged... Took me quite a while to get my nerves back to ride hard again.

Closest brush since then was on the Blie Ridge Parkway a couple years ago. A friend and I did an end-to-ender in 2 days (including skyline drive) and we came around a righthand curve somewhere in Virginia, with a bank and trees on the inside of the corner. I figure i was running around 35-40 leaned in a little and all of a sudden in the middle of this curve there's deer in the road! Whoa! No lie, inches from my handlebars...Probably the closest I've been to brown stains

I've not been pushed off the road completely yet, but I've visited shoulders and other lanes from people changing lanes into me. Sad to say, but after a while you kinda get used to it, a little bit anyways, i guess more "learn to expect it and anticipate it" than "get used to it"...