How To Crash and NOT Smell Like Roses!

I'm involved with a few riding groups that I have met through various online forums and on the first of July 2001 a group of 12 of us got together for full days ride. I was kinda surprised at the turn out. There were riders from Columbus, Dayton, Cinncinati, and even a guy I knew online who was road tripin to the Parry Sound Sportbike Rally in Canada, and he lived in Florida! There were all kinds of sportbikes, from a couple of ZX12's to GSXR 1000's and on down throught list to a couple of 600's, one that had a big Band-Aid sticker that said OUCH! on the fairing trying to cover up a good bit of road rash from a previous lowside. We started early in the morning meeting around 7am and had a full day planned for riding some of the best roads Ohio has to offer, which is quite a few roads. Now, when on a group ride, I prefer to ride at the tail end of the pack. I am an experienced rider but some of the guys I ride with are insanely fast when the going gets twisty and would probably be more comfortable riding around a track than local backroads so I prefer the back where I can ride as fast as I'm comfortable, which is usually slower than most of the other guys. It was getting to be around 4pm or so and after hitting a few hundred miles I was gettin tired and had quit 'riding the edge' and was just cruisin the twisties, enjoying the view more than the lean angle when I came to a very innocent looking but blind corner. Keep in mind I wasn't riding hard, so I was sitting straight up on my seat leaning the bike over. Imagine my surprise when riding comfortably through this blind corner, that not only does it disappear in a steep downward slope, but it also changes into a much sharper radius. So with a serious bit of butt cheek clenching I tried to lay my bike over further to make the corner. I'm already in the opposite lane heading right into oncoming traffic (luckily no cars!). I'm looking far enough ahead that I know I'm gonna end up at almost at full lean going off the road and onto the gravel shoulder so I stand the bike up and hit the brakes hard hoping to scrub as much speed as I can before going off the road. And off the road I go. The place I had chosen to leave the road (the road chose me to leave it?) was actually a good one. There were no fences, guardrails, trees, cars, kids, or small furry woodland creatures, just a drop off of about 2 feet and a wide hayfield that had been cut down and grown up about 8 inches. I called upon all my offroad riding experience and flew my ZX9R off the road and into the field. Although my ZX9 is much different than my KLR600, I managed a good landing and was riding it out through the field. Just about the time I thought I was gonna pull it out without any further incident, the front end washed out, the bike fell over on it's left side, and I did what was probably a very picturesque flip over the bars and landed about 3 feet in front of my bike on my back. I know this is long and this should be the end of the story but this is just where it starts to get good. So I'm laying there on the ground for a minute collecting myself, going over a short list of, Can I move this part? Can I move that part? Does it hurt real bad anywhere? I seem to be just fine and I'm thinking about how lucky I am to have landed in a place as soft as a cutdown hayfield. It could have been alot worse right? Thats when I start to feel my back and legs getting wet. So I look around me and it seems I have landed in a pool of stagnant water in the hayfield....thats when the stench made it through my helmet. A horrid, putrid stench, the kind that brings to mind rotting sewers and things that die under a house in a heat wave. As I'm standing up I realize the reason my landing was so soft is because I'm in about an inch of water covering probably 4 inches of this foul smelling mud. My eyes are begining to water from the smell so as I stand up I take off my helmet to get a breath of fresh air and I look down at my bike when I hear a voice that says, "What happened?". I look up at the road and here is a state trooper sitting in his car with the window down. I'm about 50 feet from the road. I wasn't feeling totaly myself yet having just dumped my bike and finding myself covered in the stink of the mud and I answered him with," I fell." He then kind of got an attitude and asked really snotty like if I wanted to right to write a report and I said no, I didn't have insurance to cover a single bike accident. I look down at my bike and he doesn't even offer to help me pick it up, he just sat in his car watching me. About this time my buddy from the group comes flyin up on his R1, completely disregards the statie and skids to a stop on the road and comes running down to me throwing his helmet off. His eyes are wide and he's like," Holy shit! Holy shit!! Are you ok?!? Are you ok?!?!". I kinda laugh cuz he is really freakin out and tell him I'm fine. About this time the statie says, really snotty like again," Well if your ok and you don't want to write a report. I'm gone." and just like that, he leaves. Which was cool with me cuz I figure the longer he sat there, the more likely he was to give me a ticket for something or other. My buddy asks me how my bike is and I had just started to look it over. The only damage I could see was the turn signal had gotten yanked out and punched a nice, neat little hole for itself breaking through both the upper cowling and side fairing. As my buddy and I are looking at the bike, he turns to me with a disgusting look on his face and says," Man, did you shit yourself when you dumped it?" I laughed and told him no and showed him where I landed all he could say was,"Dude, your my friend and all...but you smell like shit!" So he helps me push my bike back up onto the road and I'm havin a quick cigarette and checkin over my bike a bit better and the only damage is to the fairings, hell, the turn signal even still worked! Then my buddy says, "Now I understand why you smell like shit." I look over at him and he points to the nearest house up the gently sloping field I landed in. Behind the house was a Rotweiler kennel. There must have been 15-20 dogs in pens at that house and he says,"You landed in the runoff of dog shit from that house!" and he starts laughing...he starts laughing WAY too hard. the only I could think to say was," Hey, I may smell like dog shit, but you want to talk about a nice comfortable, soft landing.". That just made him laugh harder. As we are getting our gear back on and he says to me, "You know what the worst part is?".

"What? Wrecking your bike and landing in a pool of dog shit?"

He says," Nope, the worst part is pullin over to the side of road to wait for your buddy and havin a van pull over and a little old lady poke her head out of the window and say,'I think your friend is laying back there in the middle of the field'. It didn't take me long to get back to where you were, but it was one of the longest rides of my life. Don't you ever make me make that kind of a trip again. Fucker."

I can't promise that, no one can. I was lucky enough to ride away with some fairing damage, a need for a serious shower, and the new found experience that even when your just cruisin around and enjoying the countryside that you should always be on your guard cuz you never know whats around the next corner.