Cpt_Caveman
Registered
Well Guys, it finally happened. This weekend me and a few buddies were heading up to The Dragon for a nice little weekend getaway. As some of y’all had seen, I got my first Busa just about a month ago and had been excited to take it up there to really test out.
I know what you must be thinking “new rider wants to conquer the dragon?... take some time to learn the bike first”.
Well, I didn’t. But that wasn’t the cause of my fall. I’m about 5 hours away, so that meant a nice freezing cold morning ride to head up there and apparently it’s easy to let yourself lose attention. About an hour and a half in, and the group was deciding to stop and give some of them an opportunity to pick up some warmer gear. When i went to move over, we’ll call it a result of target fixation trying to figure out where we were trying to turn into, cold weather leaving my hands worse for wear, and being unfamiliar with the drive leaving me missing the sharp drop off on the right edge of my lane. In any case, I drifted too far, hit the drop (about 2 inches) to finish pushing me right into the curb before overcorrecting left and popping me sideways. The road was clear, so no traffic to worry about, but that didn’t help me feeling like a fool for finally doing this. After riding for about 4 years, this is my first ever fall.
I got up with a few scuffs but no real injuries.
The bike has a nice rub on the right fairing from rubbing the curb, and a nice rash down the left fairing, stator cover, rear peg, and a few other pieces from going over.
After a minor scare getting it back up and hearing what sounded like a knock from the engine oil being out of place, and some air in the brake lines, we got back on the road and finished the ride up.
After two days on the dragon and all the trails, I can say I’m glad I picked a low consequence place to go down rather than the dragon and can’t wait to make my next trip back up there. An absolute blast to ride with some buddies and saw very little traffic the entire time. I learned a lot from this incident, but still can’t believe I actually went down
I know what you must be thinking “new rider wants to conquer the dragon?... take some time to learn the bike first”.
Well, I didn’t. But that wasn’t the cause of my fall. I’m about 5 hours away, so that meant a nice freezing cold morning ride to head up there and apparently it’s easy to let yourself lose attention. About an hour and a half in, and the group was deciding to stop and give some of them an opportunity to pick up some warmer gear. When i went to move over, we’ll call it a result of target fixation trying to figure out where we were trying to turn into, cold weather leaving my hands worse for wear, and being unfamiliar with the drive leaving me missing the sharp drop off on the right edge of my lane. In any case, I drifted too far, hit the drop (about 2 inches) to finish pushing me right into the curb before overcorrecting left and popping me sideways. The road was clear, so no traffic to worry about, but that didn’t help me feeling like a fool for finally doing this. After riding for about 4 years, this is my first ever fall.
I got up with a few scuffs but no real injuries.
The bike has a nice rub on the right fairing from rubbing the curb, and a nice rash down the left fairing, stator cover, rear peg, and a few other pieces from going over.
After a minor scare getting it back up and hearing what sounded like a knock from the engine oil being out of place, and some air in the brake lines, we got back on the road and finished the ride up.
After two days on the dragon and all the trails, I can say I’m glad I picked a low consequence place to go down rather than the dragon and can’t wait to make my next trip back up there. An absolute blast to ride with some buddies and saw very little traffic the entire time. I learned a lot from this incident, but still can’t believe I actually went down
