Log> Lessons in scars & motorcycle maintenance

I just completed the best road trip of my life, and quite possibly one of the best vacations I've had. My friend Kalle and myself took off on two Kawasaki cruisers, 1500 and 800 cubes respectively, from Newark in the East Bay of Northern California on a cold Saturday morning at 6 am. We were headed to Utah and to the Four States corner, with the national parks of Arches, Bryce and Zion as our main goals.

California gave us its best from the beginning. Once the fast, uneven highway had been cleared, we were into the woods of Yosemite Valley, crossing over the Sierras via Tioga Pass. The winding roads were beautiful and the frequent fueling stops meant that we stayed more or less refreshed.

After about 250 miles, almost on the Nevadan border, as the roads changed from serpentine to rolling chicanes I leaned into a tightening right-hander, and like so often before, my right footpeg scratched the asphalt. Having ridden two tall Hondas before, I was constantly leaning too much for the low cruiser's liking, and this time the peg touched down quite hard. I straightened the bike which also took me wider in the curve - and at the same instant a large SUV emerged from behind the curve, in my eyes cutting the apex and thus placing me in the middle of its front fender. I braked and downshifted (a quick downshift has become a VFR-induced reaction I always do; maybe not good since it necessarily involves some coasting as I pull in the clutch) but hadn't straightened the bike enough and so the peg hit again, the rear started sliding and the diving nose threw me off the bike. I must have managed to reduce some speed, and I'm thinking I parted ways with the bike at around 35 mph. That was the recommended speed limit for the curve, so I may have approached it too fast (as an insurance disclaimer: within the speed limit, of course).

I landed on my left shoulder, hit the helmet on the left side, rolled over a few times and then slid on my knee. At one point I remember thinking I'd come to a stop, but I still rolled over once, hitting the back of my helmet in the asphalt before finding myself from the soft shoulder of the road. The kevlar enforcing on my brand-new riding jeans burned off in two spots, effectively saving my knee - the abrasion must have been intense. My hip and the side of the right leg got some abrasion damage and bruising too. These were the exact locations where knee and hip armors would have protected me - another lesson learned. My gloves were in shreds, but my hands and wrists intact. Holes had burned in my beautiful Furygan jacket on both shoulders and the abrasion damage had scraped off half of the thickness of the leather on the left side of my back. The safety equipment had paid off.

Another key point was that the driver of the SUV managed to swerve to its left, i.e. over to my lane. Had she turned away from my lane, she would've crushed me. She also turned her car immediately and came to check if I was ok, to find me staggering to my feet and to my triumph discover that despite the intense pain, both of my legs worked!

And that was just the first day of the trip. Next, I patched myself, we picked the bike up, waited for search and rescue, then the cops, then the highway patrol, then the tow truck. We were stuck in a small town called Lee Vining for the Saturday night. The following morning we took the bike apart as far as we could (you learn so much when you take things to bits! highly recommended!) and emptied the flooded engine (and the tank) and few times over. We drove 60 miles with a dripping engine, took a break, realized the bike ran okay, and decided to ride to Las Vegas straight away to lick our wounds and to get the bike fixed.

This is where I'll leave you now, and will return to the rest of the road trip with a lot of photos (including the Vulcan with half the bits on the right side held together by cable tiers - we didn't find a bike shop to service it). But after all this, life had started tasting pretty damn good, my friends.