Bent Rim... Front Tire Blow Out... Crashed

[Baatfam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...D-fDQSSA#t=34s

What mount are you using with your GoPro? The chest strap?
It's a nice perspective...

[Tim Tom]

Police had to be involved because there were 9 riders stopped on a highway exit ramp with no shoulder and crazy car drivers barrelling down the blind exit. For the safety of us all we needed the police to close the lane before someone got killed.

Since it was an accident scene the state police arranged for the tow. I have a AAA membership, but they are useless and don't tow motorcycles anyway.

[loud et]

there are tons of gs rims on e bay for 25-50 bucks

[shwaz]

What mount are you using with your GoPro? The chest strap?
It's a nice perspective...

yeah, that's the chesty. i like it for a few reasons, not least is the fact that it's the only place i really feel like i'm not going to lose the damn thing. i do really like having the handlebars and cluster in the picture, it just gives everything context instead of putting it on top of your head or front of a windshield or something.

[GateKeeper]

Glad to hear your OK.....

as for the bike, it can be fixed, and you will have it like new in no time....

,

[Tim Tom]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I will be cannibalizing the front wheel of my project bike tomorrow and putting it on the 850. As an added bonus, that bike has brand new Sport Demons on it too, so I won't even have an issue with tires .

Aaron got a lead on a new wheel for his bike from another local forum member, and it looks like this story is gonna end up alright.

I am in the market for a repacement windshield so if you've got one for sale please let me know. The parts wanted thread is here.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?p=1734145#post1734145

Waiting on the guy who has the video of my actual fall, and if it's not too tramatuzing I'll post that here too

[tatu]

Ouch, sorry for that.

[Billy Ricks]

Sorry to hear you went down. I jit a huge pothole when my 700 was about two years old. After that the rear felt a little unstable. It wasn't until I checked the swingarm bolt torque sometime later I discovered the bolt was snapped. That pothole is the only thing I can think of that could have caused it.

[Buffalo Bill]

Potholes sheese…

Having lived in Chicago for 17 years, I'm a Zen Master pothole dodger,
tire and suspension repair expert.
That one you hit came up sudden, bummer afternoon.

[shwaz]

Having lived in Chicago for 17 years, I'm a Zen Master pothole dodger,
tire and suspension repair expert.
That one you hit came up sudden, bummer afternoon.

hahah it really did!

you can see it in the video, no real warning and i guess that's a lesson for me (damned if i didn't learn a lot yesterday... i should start trying to learn less)... i was trying to keep our formation relatively tight. this was my first group ride and the ride leader didn't do any kind of briefing or discuss anything about how he liked to lead, which i will make sure to bring up next time i ride with folks i don't know. anyway, that's something of an aside as it're really not his fault, but i decided to try to keep things somewhat close, in contrast with the mile long tail of 8 other riders spread out behind us. you can see in the video where Tim hits the pothole. I was fairly close behind him and I swerved to try to avoid it and MOSHED it square on. i'm pretty certain that if i had kept going on my existing arc i would have missed it entirely. anyway, lesson 1: leave more distance between riders, don't worry about taking up extra length of road. the cagers will figure it out.

the other lesson i'll be kicking myself about for a while to come. fortunately
i don't have to kick too hard, because everyone is ok and healthy and it's nothing that a bit of time and money won't take care of. my mistake after hitting the pothole was not pulling over immediately to check out the bike. i KNOW that if i hadn't been in a group, i would have pulled over right away. if you watch the video, you can see me leaning over and slowing down after the hit to watch my wheel. bully for me, that's something, but really i should have known better and i'm a bit ashamed that i didn't have the balls to pull the whole train of riders over to the shoulder to check out my rim. i knew that our stop was fairly soon, 15 minutes or so, and i figured i'd just check it there. pretty much restating what Tim already expressed, but i had the same thoughts running through my head.

anyway, thank god everyone's alright and that's really all that matters.

i had a surprisingly pleasant 30mph ride home on county route 506. it's odd how rarely i bother riding slowly - i'm usually speeding by 10mph at the least, and it changed the ride entirely to be going 20-30mph and really take in what i was passing instead of looking for road hazards. got to really watch the scenery change as i left montclair and verona and passed through newark, all down the "main street" with plenty of shops and people. good reminder to slow down and take in the world through that visor. while i would certainly rather have been carving the twistys out in the delaware water gap, this was a pretty nice way to end a day that went sour, but could have been far worse. on the whole, no complaints.

oh, and ardbeglily is coming through with a front wheel for me. he has a rear as well which i may pick up - i can't tell visually if mine has a dent, and i think i'm looking for one where there might not be. will probably go back out with a ruler in a bit and see if i can get any more definite determination.

[Tim Tom]

hahah it really did!
lesson 1: leave more distance between riders, don't worry about taking up extra length of road. the cagers will figure it out.

This is the best thing you can do for a group ride. Too often things get in trouble when everyone is too close together. It was partly my mistake as I didn't realize not everyone knew group ride etiquette / experience. Next time for sure we will go over it before we leave.

Here is the video of me going down... IT happens at 4:10 into the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt-vMKV09uk

[JEEPRUSTY]

I saw the first clip and was a bit shocked that the schwartz did not get to a safe stop and do an inspection. That thing was not a pothole it was a sharp damaged expansion joint by the looks of it.

We have em here and I suppose locals get used to them but new users of a stretch of highway are in for the joy of discovery.

As for suing the dept of hwys. I had my insurance company do this sucessfully once. It was a situation where neglect had caused a clear hazard and they made em cough up for my repairs. I had to sign a waiver against future issues related to the accident but that is normal I suppose.

[tkent02]

Tim Tom, was the tire cut? I still can't believe it lost air from that little dent.

[JEEPRUSTY]

Oh and not to be a tool do you have the clip with just the ambient noise instead of the music?

[Tim Tom]

Tim Tom, was the tire cut? I still can't believe it lost air from that little dent.

I'm thinking this is likely the case. Neither of the other two bikes that bent rims experienced such a blowout, so it's possible that it cut my tire. I'll have to investigate closely.

Oh and not to be a tool do you have the clip with just the ambient noise instead of the music?

Sorry Jeep, I didn't post / edit the video, the rider who filmed it did. I didn't even realize there was music as my laptop is always on mute ...

The three of us will be contacting the state about this, its very dangerous to other people, and they need to get it fixed. How would I go about suing for damages done to my bike?