stormcat
Well-known member
I'm not sure if I should put this in the TD section, or the crash section. 
I got an invite from my buddy, J, to a private TD event going on at TMP for Thursday during the day.
Since I didn't have a job on the go and a friend offered to pay for this as my Birthday present, I decided to jump on it. I've only ridden Calabogie before, so this was my second TD ever. Well, my 1st real TD since at Calabogie I did the ARC1 and CRG1, which was highly controlled. Anyway, I designated the day as a day to work on my body positioning, although it didn't work out that way for me! It's also my fifth summer riding, and Cayuga helped me succeed in achieving my first ever crash.
The day started out poorly. We were 3/4 of the way to the track when I realized that I had left my BP at home with my street jacket. I was really beating myself up over that oversight. I never ride without it. Ever. Then my friend dropped my bike pulling it out of the van. But surprisingly, that didn't bother me much. He scuffed the left side fairing a tiny bit and I was like, meh, whatever. I can touch that up. And luckily, one of the fast women with a super moto had brought an extra BP and let me borrow it. She wouldn't even let me buy her lunch as a thank you.
My and J's bikes in our pit. I decided to tape up cat eyes on my bike this time to make for silly TD pics :
I didn't get very far into my first lap when everything went pear-shaped. I don't even know how or what happened. I was following J and when we got to T6 I went down. Lowside. My first ever. It was my cold lap and I was being careful to be, well, careful. When I came up to T6 I remember thinking, "that's tighter than I thought" followed by "you have more than enough lean to get through it." As I scooped down the bike just went. I just recall thinking, "ow" as my hip hit down, and "bikey, why are you over there?" as I listened to the horrid sound of SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! plastics and sliders sliding across asphalt. After sliding the 20' across the asphalt, it planted itself about 7' in the grass. I jumped up as fast as I could and got the heck off the track. All of this went down in a matter of 3 seconds. But I can recall it all in slow motion. Very surreal feeling. I'm assuming this was caused by cold tires and cold asphalt. Since no one saw it, I don't have anyone to tell me what they saw.
As soon as I saw broken white metal at the clipon and the dangling clutch lever, I assumed my day was over. I also could not, for the life of me, pick the bike up. I tried three different approaches several times, but every time I'd get the thing about halfway up, it would slide in the wet grass and I'd lose grip again. So I managed to cause the first red flag of the day, and had to wait for the corner workers to come out and gather me and the bike up. Two of them struggled to right it, btw. I gave a queens wave to the spectators as we drove by back to the pits.
Back in the pits we looked at the damages. All three sliders (bar end, frame and swingarm) did their job. Which is to facilitate a nice, clean slide and keep bits from catching and snapping off, or the entire kit and kaboodle catching and flipping. The "unbreakable" ASV lever was also true to its claim and instead of snapping, it snapped the clutch lever perch instead. Better than the clipon like I originally thought! So cosmetic bits aside, the only damaged part of actual importance was that perch.
Some pics:
The guy running the Turn2 mobile shop was on the bike in seconds and back in the shop finding me something to replace the perch with. He came out with a universal perch/cluch lever and the boys set to work immediately. They just did it. I literally went off to the washrooms and when I got back, they were already hard at work! How amazing is that?! And the Turn2 guy handed over the part before it was even paid for. Rider's generosity at the track (and street) with their time, energy and expertise amazes me. So J and my just met friend, K, sacrificed their own track time to make sure that I could get back out on the track myself. It's just incredible what riders will do for each other. What an amazing bunch of people!
Yeah, that's me with my leathers half down under the canopy on my cell phone while J and K work on my bike. I'm probably texting someone:
For $90 I ended up with a super short, two-finger clutch lever and I was ready to get back out there. Albeit very nervous, anxious and shaky. Gahhhhhhhh!!!
J followed me around for the first tenuous, scary lap to try and bring my fear level down a notch. I struggled through every corner after that. I thought I was over-braking for corners at Calabogie? HA! I was almost stopping the bike, getting off and walking the thing through every single turn at Cayuga. I wasn't smooth at all, and I was having an even more difficult time getting off the bike and looking all the way through the turns. It's really difficult to just turn that 'switch' off in your brain after a crash. That survival switch that keeps telling you to just stop the bike. Park it now. But I persevered through each and every slow, shaky lap just to say I did it. And I'll go back there, damn it!
As for how my gear held up and my injuries, my left hip was the immediate problem. It hurt right away and got more and more sore as the day went on. But my gear did its job ++. It kept my skin on for one thing, and aside from the hip area, took the impact. I didn't even realize I had slammed my shoulder into the ground. In the washroom I caught a glimpse of my shoulder in the mirror and was like, holy s**t! The metal shoulder plate is dented in, the surface of the leather is scrubbed right off in one place, and scraped all down the shoulder and underneath the elbow. No stitching damage, and the leathers are still perfectly fine for more use. The outside left leg is also scraped up, one slider, and the inside of the right knee is scraped and missing some surface bits.
My left boot also hit in all the right places, scraping the toe slider, ankle slider and calf slider. My helmet ended up with a tiny scuff on one of the vent covers. Weird. The only pain I felt was my hip, but there's no armour in the hips so it makes sense. Today my neck and ribs are sore, but totally bearable. And I have a bruise on my left knee and ankle, but no pain. My hip is also much better, but swollen.
I'm pretty damn happy with my gear.
Finally, a little vid of a couple laps right after the crash. To anyone who was there on Thursday and reading this now, I'm sorry for holding you guys and gals up. That crash scared the b'jebus out of me! I ended up holding terrible lines after that, over-braking to the extreme, shifting far too slowly and mis-shifting. But at least I got back on the horse. It's going to take some time to feel like myself again. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with this kind of thing and move forward, please share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUH7I_8iM5I
I got an invite from my buddy, J, to a private TD event going on at TMP for Thursday during the day.
Since I didn't have a job on the go and a friend offered to pay for this as my Birthday present, I decided to jump on it. I've only ridden Calabogie before, so this was my second TD ever. Well, my 1st real TD since at Calabogie I did the ARC1 and CRG1, which was highly controlled. Anyway, I designated the day as a day to work on my body positioning, although it didn't work out that way for me! It's also my fifth summer riding, and Cayuga helped me succeed in achieving my first ever crash.
The day started out poorly. We were 3/4 of the way to the track when I realized that I had left my BP at home with my street jacket. I was really beating myself up over that oversight. I never ride without it. Ever. Then my friend dropped my bike pulling it out of the van. But surprisingly, that didn't bother me much. He scuffed the left side fairing a tiny bit and I was like, meh, whatever. I can touch that up. And luckily, one of the fast women with a super moto had brought an extra BP and let me borrow it.
She wouldn't even let me buy her lunch as a thank you.My and J's bikes in our pit. I decided to tape up cat eyes on my bike this time to make for silly TD pics
:
I didn't get very far into my first lap when everything went pear-shaped. I don't even know how or what happened. I was following J and when we got to T6 I went down. Lowside. My first ever. It was my cold lap and I was being careful to be, well, careful. When I came up to T6 I remember thinking, "that's tighter than I thought" followed by "you have more than enough lean to get through it." As I scooped down the bike just went. I just recall thinking, "ow" as my hip hit down, and "bikey, why are you over there?" as I listened to the horrid sound of SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! plastics and sliders sliding across asphalt. After sliding the 20' across the asphalt, it planted itself about 7' in the grass. I jumped up as fast as I could and got the heck off the track. All of this went down in a matter of 3 seconds. But I can recall it all in slow motion. Very surreal feeling. I'm assuming this was caused by cold tires and cold asphalt. Since no one saw it, I don't have anyone to tell me what they saw.
As soon as I saw broken white metal at the clipon and the dangling clutch lever, I assumed my day was over. I also could not, for the life of me, pick the bike up. I tried three different approaches several times, but every time I'd get the thing about halfway up, it would slide in the wet grass and I'd lose grip again. So I managed to cause the first red flag of the day, and had to wait for the corner workers to come out and gather me and the bike up. Two of them struggled to right it, btw. I gave a queens wave to the spectators as we drove by back to the pits.
Back in the pits we looked at the damages. All three sliders (bar end, frame and swingarm) did their job. Which is to facilitate a nice, clean slide and keep bits from catching and snapping off, or the entire kit and kaboodle catching and flipping. The "unbreakable" ASV lever was also true to its claim and instead of snapping, it snapped the clutch lever perch instead. Better than the clipon like I originally thought! So cosmetic bits aside, the only damaged part of actual importance was that perch.
Some pics:
The guy running the Turn2 mobile shop was on the bike in seconds and back in the shop finding me something to replace the perch with. He came out with a universal perch/cluch lever and the boys set to work immediately. They just did it. I literally went off to the washrooms and when I got back, they were already hard at work! How amazing is that?! And the Turn2 guy handed over the part before it was even paid for. Rider's generosity at the track (and street) with their time, energy and expertise amazes me. So J and my just met friend, K, sacrificed their own track time to make sure that I could get back out on the track myself. It's just incredible what riders will do for each other. What an amazing bunch of people!
Yeah, that's me with my leathers half down under the canopy on my cell phone while J and K work on my bike. I'm probably texting someone:
For $90 I ended up with a super short, two-finger clutch lever and I was ready to get back out there. Albeit very nervous, anxious and shaky. Gahhhhhhhh!!!
J followed me around for the first tenuous, scary lap to try and bring my fear level down a notch. I struggled through every corner after that. I thought I was over-braking for corners at Calabogie? HA! I was almost stopping the bike, getting off and walking the thing through every single turn at Cayuga. I wasn't smooth at all, and I was having an even more difficult time getting off the bike and looking all the way through the turns. It's really difficult to just turn that 'switch' off in your brain after a crash. That survival switch that keeps telling you to just stop the bike. Park it now. But I persevered through each and every slow, shaky lap just to say I did it. And I'll go back there, damn it!
As for how my gear held up and my injuries, my left hip was the immediate problem. It hurt right away and got more and more sore as the day went on. But my gear did its job ++. It kept my skin on for one thing, and aside from the hip area, took the impact. I didn't even realize I had slammed my shoulder into the ground. In the washroom I caught a glimpse of my shoulder in the mirror and was like, holy s**t! The metal shoulder plate is dented in, the surface of the leather is scrubbed right off in one place, and scraped all down the shoulder and underneath the elbow. No stitching damage, and the leathers are still perfectly fine for more use. The outside left leg is also scraped up, one slider, and the inside of the right knee is scraped and missing some surface bits.
My left boot also hit in all the right places, scraping the toe slider, ankle slider and calf slider. My helmet ended up with a tiny scuff on one of the vent covers. Weird. The only pain I felt was my hip, but there's no armour in the hips so it makes sense. Today my neck and ribs are sore, but totally bearable. And I have a bruise on my left knee and ankle, but no pain. My hip is also much better, but swollen.
I'm pretty damn happy with my gear.
Finally, a little vid of a couple laps right after the crash. To anyone who was there on Thursday and reading this now, I'm sorry for holding you guys and gals up. That crash scared the b'jebus out of me! I ended up holding terrible lines after that, over-braking to the extreme, shifting far too slowly and mis-shifting. But at least I got back on the horse. It's going to take some time to feel like myself again. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with this kind of thing and move forward, please share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUH7I_8iM5I
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