Just checking the board for the first time since the ride yesterday and thought I'd throw in my $.02...
First of all the ride preceding the accident was a blast! We had a lot of cool bikes (especially the busas) and a lot of cool people. It's not often that I ride in a group that big and it was quite a sight to see all those sport bikes on the highway headed to Sperryville.
As for Mo and his fateful trip: When he first pulled up at I gave him some sh#* about the fact that he wasn't wearing any gear and that he had brought a passenger to our trip to Sperryville. He commented that he was going to hang back and meet us at the top of the mountain once we hit the twisties. I'm certainly not trying to defend his actions and certainly not his lack of gear
but I do think the pack mentality played a role in coaxing him to go faster than he might have otherwise. Also, the turn that he washed out on was a diminishing radius turn (is that the right term?) that has been the scene of several accidents before. Again, not trying to defend him.... I just hate to see him get slammed to hard for a series of bad decisions on this particular day after nearly 4 years and 30k miles of riding and pimping out his baby.
Chris (chain-smoker) is gonna kill me if he's reading this, but... I'm still waiting to get spanked by one of those 600RRs. I hear it all the time: "Yeah, the 'busas cool and all, but it's not made for the twisties." Now I will concede that someday Chris and I will probably complete a run through some REALLY tight turns and I will have to shake his hand and admit defeat but we haven't found that road yet. As long as there are a few straights or '45m.p.h.' sweepers I have no problem at all reeling him in and showing him my tail lights!
BTW, Samurai, I've seen you ride bro, and I'm with the Ripper on this one... You have plenty of speed and skill!
-Ben