It finally happened....

Everyone has told me that you will have an accident on every bike you own at least once. My first one on my Kawasaki Eliminator (which I have been working on and just got rideable again) happened earlier today.

I was going down a 30 MPH street about 35 MPH, in a hurry, due to the fact it was beginning to rain and I had no rain gear (wearing jeans T-shirt, gloves, helmet, and steel-toe boots for riding around town). The roads were already wet from a slightly earlier shower.

I put on my turn signal to turn onto a side street and started to brake about 150 feet from the street. I applied the front brake lightly and the rear brake a bit heavier, because in the wet environment I certainly did not want to lock my front wheel. About 50 feet later, I felt my rear wheel start to skid. I let off the rear brake then reapplied as soon as I felt traction, at which point it started to skid again.

I had begun to lean for the turn, and when I felt the second skid I tried to abandon the turn and straighten out but it was too late. I turned 90 degrees (facing the curb) and started skidding down the road sideways. I managed to keep the bike upright for about 12 feet, and remember thinking, "I'm actually going to pull this off, and STILL MAKE MY TURN!" Unfortunately, as I lost speed I also lost my balance. I lowsided 5 feet before the turn.

As I fell I remembered to kill the engine (thanks MSF!) and skidded on the right side of the bike. I heard my helmet hit the ground and felt my jeans ripping. I managed somehow to keep my arm off the ground for the majority of the skid.

I immediately got up, checked myself for major injuries, and picked my bike up by myself (adrenaline is one hell of a drug). This is where the story turns Benny Hill: As I was holding my bike up checking for damage, I heard a voice yell, "ARE YOU OKAY!?" This startled me and I dropped the bike....on the left [other] side. After getting it back up I fixed it to rideable condition and finished riding home...slowly.

Damage to me:

• Badly scraped elbow (3" x 1" raspberry)

• Torn jeans

• Scratched helmet

• Scratched right boot

Damage to bike:

• Brake lever "ball" end sheared off

• Crank cover scratched

• Shifter lever bent

• Exhaust pipe (brand new...on the way home from exhaust shop) bent

• Passenger footpeg snapped off

I hope that others can learn from this somehow. If nothing else, ATGATT would have saved me a lot of pain both during the fall. Also, if I had been wearing rain gear (like I should have) I wouldn't have been in a rush to get home, and wouldn't have been going so fast.

Ride safe y'all