Quick Interlude since someone asked:
What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened on a motorcycle tour?
You mean not counting the time I got hit head on by a truck or spending a week in a Neurological ICU, both while leading motorcycle tour groups?
Boring. What else ya got?
How about the time I got run over by one of the tour participants and photographed the whole thing. His eyes grew a bit wide & the edges of his mouth curled a bit. Yah, that one. Tell me that one.
About 15 years ago, it was commonplace to try to fit some action photography into our tour day. As in let’s get some magazine-style shots of a bike riding past the photographer on a twisty section of road. Seems simple enough, right? And we had done this many times over with many groups, and the pics came out great! Never had an issue. I was also publishing a yearly Pashnit Calendar at the time, and always had a use for action photography.
While on Forest Rd 1 in Northern California, I gave the rider what I thought were very simple instructions. Ride down a bit, turn around and ride past me slowly. That’s it. Simple, right? Nope.
He was on a Concours which is a large, well-loved sport-touring bike with hard bags. He rode down a bit just as instructed, turned around and burbled up the road in my direction. I was standing in the ditch and began to walk towards the center line towards the center of the lane to change my camera position. There’s a whole side of the road that’s all his. Simple, right? Nope.
As I neared the center line, I knelt down and put my knee on the road to get the low angle shot. He got progressively close to me, but instead of slowly riding past as instructed, he began to accelerate, then aimed right for me in the middle of the road. I was looking through the viewfinder, focused on the shot, and snapping a steady cadence of pics.
Then as he got close to me, something clicked in his brain and he realized he was still accelerating, and aiming right for me kneeling in the road.
At the very last second before impact, he pushed the bike downward towards the pavement to his left to avoid hitting me directly. Which is the last photo in the sequence. A split second later, the front tire missed me by several inches and the front of the bike grazed me to my right. While he missed me with the front wheel of the motorcycle, since I was still kneeling with one knee on the ground, the hardbag on his right side hit me squarely in the chest so hard, it tore the hard bag off the side of the motorcycle which went chattering down the road apart from the bike.
The impact blew me over, and I landed flat on my back in the middle of the road, The impact knocked the wind out of me and I couldn’t breathe. I just lay there in the middle of the road trying to suck in air with nothing happening. The camera went flying out of hands Charlie Brown-style and landed a few feet away, but somehow was perfectly okay.
I have not had the wind knocked out of me since 3rd grade at Grandview Elementary when I fell off the monkey bars. It’s been a while, but let me provide some insight, it’s no different from 3rd grade. You still feel like you’re dying.
The rest of the group was standing off a few yards away enjoying the views and for a moment, no one moved. There I lay, spread eagle flat on my back in the middle of road, attempting to breathe without much success.
It felt like five minutes, but it was probably five seconds, the group noticed me not moving in the middle of the road and came racing over to see if I was still alive after getting run over.
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t breathe” emitted from my lips in a guttural last breath.
Just like in 3rd grade, I was able to breathe a few moments later. And because we always ride armored up, not a scratch on me. Although I was thinking a ballistic chest plate might be needed in addition to my back protector to continue with this style of photography.
We collected up the hard bag and began to figure out a way to reattached it to the bike. He hit me so hard, all the mounting brackets on the hard bag were broken off, and we simply strapped it to his rear seat. The rider was profusely apologetic and seemed flabbergasted as to why he’d just run over the tour guide. He was as embarrassed as I was surprised.
It wasn’t till we looked at the sequence of shots I’d taken that we had a good laugh as the camera recorded everything.
It’s the only time I’ve been run over by one of my tour participants, and hopefully the last.
What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened on a motorcycle tour?
You mean not counting the time I got hit head on by a truck or spending a week in a Neurological ICU, both while leading motorcycle tour groups?
Boring. What else ya got?
How about the time I got run over by one of the tour participants and photographed the whole thing. His eyes grew a bit wide & the edges of his mouth curled a bit. Yah, that one. Tell me that one.
About 15 years ago, it was commonplace to try to fit some action photography into our tour day. As in let’s get some magazine-style shots of a bike riding past the photographer on a twisty section of road. Seems simple enough, right? And we had done this many times over with many groups, and the pics came out great! Never had an issue. I was also publishing a yearly Pashnit Calendar at the time, and always had a use for action photography.
While on Forest Rd 1 in Northern California, I gave the rider what I thought were very simple instructions. Ride down a bit, turn around and ride past me slowly. That’s it. Simple, right? Nope.
He was on a Concours which is a large, well-loved sport-touring bike with hard bags. He rode down a bit just as instructed, turned around and burbled up the road in my direction. I was standing in the ditch and began to walk towards the center line towards the center of the lane to change my camera position. There’s a whole side of the road that’s all his. Simple, right? Nope.
As I neared the center line, I knelt down and put my knee on the road to get the low angle shot. He got progressively close to me, but instead of slowly riding past as instructed, he began to accelerate, then aimed right for me in the middle of the road. I was looking through the viewfinder, focused on the shot, and snapping a steady cadence of pics.
Then as he got close to me, something clicked in his brain and he realized he was still accelerating, and aiming right for me kneeling in the road.
At the very last second before impact, he pushed the bike downward towards the pavement to his left to avoid hitting me directly. Which is the last photo in the sequence. A split second later, the front tire missed me by several inches and the front of the bike grazed me to my right. While he missed me with the front wheel of the motorcycle, since I was still kneeling with one knee on the ground, the hardbag on his right side hit me squarely in the chest so hard, it tore the hard bag off the side of the motorcycle which went chattering down the road apart from the bike.
The impact blew me over, and I landed flat on my back in the middle of the road, The impact knocked the wind out of me and I couldn’t breathe. I just lay there in the middle of the road trying to suck in air with nothing happening. The camera went flying out of hands Charlie Brown-style and landed a few feet away, but somehow was perfectly okay.
I have not had the wind knocked out of me since 3rd grade at Grandview Elementary when I fell off the monkey bars. It’s been a while, but let me provide some insight, it’s no different from 3rd grade. You still feel like you’re dying.
The rest of the group was standing off a few yards away enjoying the views and for a moment, no one moved. There I lay, spread eagle flat on my back in the middle of road, attempting to breathe without much success.
It felt like five minutes, but it was probably five seconds, the group noticed me not moving in the middle of the road and came racing over to see if I was still alive after getting run over.
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t breathe” emitted from my lips in a guttural last breath.
Just like in 3rd grade, I was able to breathe a few moments later. And because we always ride armored up, not a scratch on me. Although I was thinking a ballistic chest plate might be needed in addition to my back protector to continue with this style of photography.
We collected up the hard bag and began to figure out a way to reattached it to the bike. He hit me so hard, all the mounting brackets on the hard bag were broken off, and we simply strapped it to his rear seat. The rider was profusely apologetic and seemed flabbergasted as to why he’d just run over the tour guide. He was as embarrassed as I was surprised.
It wasn’t till we looked at the sequence of shots I’d taken that we had a good laugh as the camera recorded everything.
It’s the only time I’ve been run over by one of my tour participants, and hopefully the last.
