A Close One Today

[Dave39]

As I sit here in the comfort and safety of my home, I'm mulling over the day's event, that nearly resulted in my demise. Some friends and I were on a a two-day overnighter up to Tahoe and back. There were five of us on assorted bikes, three Beemers, a Virago, and a Yamaha FJR 1300. We were returning to Sacramento down Hwy 88. We came up behind an RV, tooling a long about 50 mph. Two of our party managed to get around it on the curvey road. The rest of us were waiting for some passing lanes we knew were ahead. A long uphill passing lane finally came up. Gerry on his Virago, for some reason, was hesitant to go by and showed no intention of catching and passing the RV. Rick, behind me, finally zoomed by, with me wondering whether to stay with Gerry, or abandon him and go with Rick. Finally, I decided to follow Rick. I gunned my RT and started to catch up. As I approached the RV the dreaded "lane ends" sign appeared and the RV was starting to move left with me not quite up to it. I decided to go for it and accelerated up to over 70 mph with the space in my lane disappearing. I moved to the left and passed the RV on the center yellow double. I got by right at the summit doing about 75 mph and saw ahead to my horror a sharp right curve. I immeditely began to let off the throttle, and leaned hard trying work my way back into my lane, but found myself wandering into the opposing left lane. I refrained from hitting the brakes, not sure what would happen at those speeds in a curve. As I was leaning hard trying to slow and work right, a car suddenly approached from the opposite direction headed right for me. I honestly thought, "This is it. I'm going to die." I'm not sure at this point what I was doing, other than leaning hard tring to get back into my lane with fractions of a second to get out of the way. The driver of the car veered to his right towards the shoulder, and we met with about two feet to spare at a relative speed of about 100 mph. I continued to slow and finally found myself back in my lane and alive. If I learned anything from this experience it was 1) if you're going to pass do it when it's clear and get it over with. 2) if you see the passing lane ending and the slow pokes are moving over, back off. There'll be other opportunities. 3) I need to improve my skills in curves, never came close to dragging pegs. 4) don't pass vehicles down the center line when you can't see what's over the hill. 5) sometimes it is a good idea to follow speed limits. I have no illusions that any skills I might have saved me. If anyone did it was the cager who moved right and missed me, and I feel more than a little guilty that I might have taken him with me as my loaded 650 lbs of bike crashed through the driver's side windshield.

[Paul Mihalka]

Really glad you are telling the story. I am not going to comment on some of the bad judgment involved, you wisely already did that. What I want to seriously recommend is on-track rider training where you ride your own bike. It is not for going faster. It is to find out how far from the real limit of the bike, and the real limit of yourself when you trained, you are in normal every day riding. This way when you need it, you will do it. I have the impression that just a good load of counter-steering and moving your upper body to the inside of the turn would have avoided the quasi-heart-attack - but if you have not done it before, you'll not do it when needed.

[notacop]

I do believe this falls under, 'ride your own ride'. Glad you are safe and only need to wash your riding suit. I hates the double yellow and clunky motor homes but the mistake was your judgment and timing.

Good warning and reality check though. Get rid of the Virago pokey guy to follow. Or allow him to ride his own ride and don't second guess.

I'll do my own passing when I feel comfy. If I keep up with the lead, ok. If I'm first, I'll wait for the followers once I'm passed the slug.I hate when the lead guy runs off like a rabbit. On 88 you will usually find another slug to pass round the next bend anyway.

[SageRider]

Glad you're still around to talk about it.

 

...I gunned my RT...

Only comment I can add is that if one is passing an RV starting from 50MPH and only gets to 75MPH to complete the pass, the motorcycle was most certainly NOT gunned! Sounds more like a top gear roll-on from too low an RPM. Might think about downshifting to get the RPMs above 4500-5000 to get some acceleration!

Getting around the RV more quickly likely would have allowed more use of the passing lane to slow before entering the curve...

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Amen to the downshift and gas it. The idea is to get yourself around as quick as possible giving much more time to deal with the upcoming road, albeit at a greater speed. My gearing charts are on my other laptop but as I recall, my Sprint will exceed 90 in second gear and 115 in third with decidedly brisk acceleration from 50 in either gear.

[ElevenFifty]

Thank you SO much for telling your cautionary tale. I really believe that a post I read here 3 or so years ago, saved my life. You will be a much safer rider now ... and sharing this will help others. Bravo!

 

I think we've all found ourselves in situations where we take a risk and later wonder if it was worth it. The simplest example I can think of is the 'semi-stop' where we roll up to a stop sign, slow to a crawl, take a quick look, and then gun into traffic with our feet never leaving the pegs ... a common practice. It's almost inevitable that this behavior will get us into trouble, but we do it anyway.

 

I've had the great pleasure of introducing a number of people to the sport, and an early part of my 'motorcycle self-preservation mantra' is to teach a complete, feet down, STOP! It's a simple way to re-enforce the need for patience and developing the habit of maintaining situational awareness. The pleasure of riding is not diminished when we make conscious decisions to avoid unnecessary risk.

 

I've developed a personal survival practice that serves me well ... when I find myself tempted to make an aggressive riding decision ... when I find myself having a second thought in traffic ... I back off. Patience is a much better practice than displaying skills or lack of them.

 

Don't get me wrong - I like fast, I like lean, and I enjoy improving my mental and physical skills. I have had experiences where evasive action was required and, so far, I've been able to handle those situations. But most of the skills that result in long riding careers are mental.

 

 

[pokorskij]

Glad you made it and are learning from the experience. Just want to add that while rocketing around something like this, keep in mind the always possible, turning left without signaling phenom.

 

You can never over anticipate what can happen in any situation, there seems to always be another possibility.

 

Ride safe.

[Dave39]

Thanks for all the comments. I'm definitely going to think twice, thrice, and once again before I make a make a move like that again. At 71 I don't want to die as a slobbering vegetable in bed, but am still too young to go in a violent head-on.

[upflying]

Due to kinetic energy, that 650lbs translates to 50,000 lbs.

(rough guessitimate)

[Selden]

I'm more or less offline this weekend, apart from the occasional WiFi access point at stops, so I just now got to this. Whew! I have had some close ones (fewer after I passed 60), but none this close. As others have written, thanks for sharing -- it's a good wake up call, and reminder that we are all responsible for our own safety. Glad you survived intact (apart from probably a bad case of the shakes from adrenaline poisoning), and have time to reflect. I'm going to be on some very tight mountain roads today, with few passing lanes, and your tale will help keep me on my best behavior.

[JayW]

Thanks for having the courage to share this experience. I need frequent reminders to be more careful and to make good decisions every time I ride.

 

Jay

[Survived-til-now]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Glad you scraped through...

 

Andy

[Francois_Dumas]

You sound like the French driver that tried to 'take us out' the other day ;-) But you now know what you did wrong, that helps (you and others). Thanks for sharing !

[Dave39]

You sound like the French driver that tried to 'take us out' the other day ;-) But you now know what you did wrong, that helps (you and others). Thanks for sharing !

 

Merci mille fois, Mille fois merci

 

(I'm actually not French. Google is great!)

 

[philbytx]

Thankfully, you can relate this story to us.

I had a similar occurrence many years back and was given the following piece of advice by a Metropolitan Police instructor:

When you overtake, overtake with AUTHORITY!

To this day, I alway drop to the appropriate cog and give it large handfuls !

 

[Francois_Dumas]

You sound like the French driver that tried to 'take us out' the other day ;-) But you now know what you did wrong, that helps (you and others). Thanks for sharing !

 

Merci mille fois, Mille fois merci

 

(I'm actually not French. Google is great!)

 

neither am I, actually.

[dhanson]

Sorta like stealing a pumkin, if you are going to do it, get in there and get out, might get shot.

 

Also recommend track day and some instruction to learn more about the limits.

[Rocer]

Sorta like stealing a pumkin, if you are going to do it, get in there and get out, might get shot

 

How do you know about such things?