Shaken confidence and post crash feelings.

[ConPilot1]

Several years ago, (17 to be exact) I owned a GL550 Silverwing. I enjoyed the bike immensely, then all of the sudden one day, without incident or reason, I developed a sudden fear of the bike.

I parked it, sold it, and didn't ride again for about 7 years. Strange.

7 years later, my buddy wakes me up from a nap with a knock on my front door. "Come down, I want to show you something."

He had a Honda CB750 in my driveway. Gave it a walk around, I said "give me the keys", took it down the road and back, wound it up a bit, and got that hankering again, 2 days later I bought a Kawasaki ZR750 Zephyr.

[stewm_21]

I'm sort of in the same boat.  I had a good friend get wiped out by a car in 2010, ended up in the ICU, rehab ++ etc.  He's back almost to 100% but it has been a long road.  That year I also started to feel "shaky" in my own skills after 5 years of great riding, decent miles, a few trips etc.  The majority of my riding was to work and back in Toronto and then day trips alone on my off days.  I have taken several courses to keep my skills up, get rid of bad habits and try to improve my confidence.

This year I signed up to take my first race course.  2 days on the track with instructors, ye-haw.  I went in with the attitude of "I have to ride home and go to work after the course, I don't need to be the best / fastest".  I stuck to that, I was happily at the back of one of the fast groups and easily faster than the slow groups.  On the 2nd day, 3rd session at the back of the fast group we caught up to 2 slow groups that bunched together.  As we were in the "green" group passing was only allowed on straights (makes sense).  The 2 slow groups formed ~7 riders all together (with the instructors) and we were a group of 5 with our instructor.  He gave us the signal, after the corner we were gong to pass.  The front straight at Calabogie is ~400m (~1300') then into an ~15-20 degree flat corner.  I passed the 1st group of 4 about 1/2 way down the track and the instructor for the 2nd group was sitting up and looking back.  The other riders were all in good position at the outside edge to give us lots of room to pass so I kept my head down and went for the pass.  As I came to the corner my mind switched off and instead of looking through the corner I told myself "too fast, too late" and started to plan my route off course.  Brakes, switch to rear brakes, control, loose arms, ready for the grass, doing fine then I hit the edge of the gravel trap and high sided. "F**k, my wife will kill me, sky, tire wall, ground, I am getting up as soon as I stop rolling".  Fortunately, I did.  I signaled the marshals to let them know I was OK, noted a rather sharp pain in my shoulder as I lifted it (dislocated), was able to remove my helmet and wait for the track ambulance.  

Shoulder has mostly healed, still a little stiff, but the course I took to "feel better about my riding" didn't do that.  I have now officially fallen into the category of "those that have fallen" and feel fortunate that it wasn't on the street.  Since then, I have ridden back from Ottawa where I stored the bike for a couple of weeks until I could go to pick it up and I have ridden a few times but still feel the same uneasiness (or more) that I did before.

I think my biggest issues with my riding both before and after the crash is that I over analyze everything I'm doing, I'm not as relaxed as I should be and I can't seem to get back to that.  I talked with all the instructors that day to get there opinion of what I did wrong, quite simply, had I looked through the corner I would have gone through the corner.  Many of them stated they will go through 20-30 km/h faster.  As 1 instructor put it "always go for the corner, at least you're closer to the ground if you don't make it".  Sorry, FYI we were on ZX-6R, in 3rd gear and I guess I was ~150-170 km/h (93-105 mph) on the straight.  

Riding is still a desire for me, I have to put the bike away for the winter soon but I do plan on taking a course (not race) again in 2012 and getting back my MoJo.  My 2 cents

[ChrisZRX]

It's been 3 1/2 weeks since my crash and my ankle is a hell of a lot better.  

[Lawn Dart]

Seven months for me...seven bones broken in ten places...more than a few worried friends and a very concerned wife.  It was a simple morning ride with some good friends...a ride where we weren't railing.  Just relaxing.  I still managed to crash...sometimes things just happen.  

There always something to learn from a crash.  In my case it was simply a case of distraction.  A momentary lapse of focus at a whopping 35 mph that had me in the back of a very innocent car.  My fault.  No question about it.

These things happen.  Life has risk.  I could just as easily lapsed my focus in a car.  Heck, I fell down the stairs in my house at the age of 38.  Broke a toe years back stubbing it in the middle of the night.  I've tripped on curbs and fallen down many a time.  Risk is something we can't escape.  We can only seek to mitigate what risk there is.

It doesn't matter what ones hobbies are.  I saw a guy get beaned in the head with a baseball.  Saw another guy get bonked on the head by a missed catch.  Heck, my mother in law got popped (blacked out) by a foul ball at a little-league game and she wasn't even drinking!  

Riding for me is much like any other hobby.  It's something that gives me pleasure, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of being and a sense of living.  Seven months after my crash I'm finally getting ready for my first official ride.  In my mind there was no question about riding again.  I knew I would, I learned from my mistake, and I make my own choices.

My co-workers think I'm nuts for riding.  Maybe I am...but it's a good kind of nuts.

If you need to ride, then ride.  

If you need to do something else, then do that.

Regardless, I say choose to live life, however that may be defined for you.  Live.    

[black hills]

I know how you feel, unfortunatley I can't help you. Everyone deals with these things differently. A good friend and one of my woods riding buddies broke his neck 2 years ago and is now a quadraplegic. the first woods ride after his accident was terrible. we all had new Leat braces and rode incredibly slow. Everytime someone crashed the others rushed to see if he was OK (as oppossed to the hysterical laughter it usaully produces) Some of the guys were back to normal in a ride or two, some quit all together. It took me a year to get back up to speed and I still think about it everytime I ride. good luck in your recovery and all I can say is give it some time.

[viffergyrl]

After that I was very wary of riding with other people and I have a habit of watching my mirror after every corner.  I can guarantee my stomach does a backflip whenever any rider falls off their line, stop and talk about it often without the other rider knowing about it.  That wrenching fear diminishes with time but I'll always watch.

Hmmmm... watching for others behind me distracted me enough so that a frost heave surprised me on a really goaty road. Couple that with the wrong reaction (hitting the brakes) and I highsided. Four broken bones in my hands (three in the right, one in the left) and a hairline fracture in my right ankle. Rode the bike 800 miles home. (I didn't know I had all the fractures even after a visit to the emergency room...)  

Since then I've been practicing the right reactions for bumps, learning more about the physics and suspension of motorcycles, and taking a skills class. I actually have to stop worrying about others behind me and pick the right time to check. But stop riding? I was riding pillion while my hands were healing. (Not an option for all I realize.)

It's coming up on two years after and there's still a little unease percolating around the brain stem. I keep practicing - in fact - my rides are more purposeful as there is always something to work on. You don't stop learning. Prior to the accident, I was a little too complacent... and the universe gave me a slap on the head - "Hey! (smack) Pay attention!" Shit. Ok.

I think there is always a period of trauma after a crash - I think it's pretty normal - but is your desire greater than the trauma? Well you work it out. Get the head back into the game. Psych yourself 'In', not 'Out'. And so on....

Jason F. - it sounds like you got a lot things rolling around in your head and in your life. Makes sense to park the motorcycle for awhile while things sort themselves. There are days where I don't ride because my head isn't 'in the game' - even before the crash. And when you are ready, well then you're ready. If not... don't ride. It's all good.

[ChrisZRX]

Phew! I'm not the only one.  

[SuperSlider]

I should have checked this thread a long time ago.  I crashed  back in the spring and broke my ankle, since then I've been having a little trouble getting the groove back.  The road just seems to be a little more skinny than before and I get fairly tense on blind turns. I slow way down and feel like the turn will suddenly sharpen and I won't be able to make it. In reality I could have taken the turn at twice the speed and had room to spare.  It feels like my head and my gut aren't really in agreement. I've gone through a lot of turns this year telling myself to stop being such a douche and just roll on the gas, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

[ChrisZRX]

Drove down to Monterey, Va to answer the charge of reckless driving a few days ago.  That's what I was ticketed for due to the accident.  Fortunately, the Judge agree with me that a momentary lapse of attention while riding at or below the speed limit does not constitute reckless driving.  An online safety course and it's dismissed.

I revisted the curve where my accident happened.  I'll have to scratch the "suspension-being-unloaded" excuse.  It was pure in-stupid-attention.  I should have been able to easily make that curve at the speed I was traveling.        

[county]

I dunno, somebody else going down never had much impact on me....the couple of times I went down I was pretty careful for a while after....

[keppyou812]

For myself, I ended up in the ditch on the side of the road, attempting to miss the back of a Mustang. Ended getting slowed down enough that when the bike next few weeks.  Waayyy slow.  Was just glad my daughter wasn't with me.

The other incident occurred to my g/f at the time. While on a group ride, she was trying to keep up with "us boys". Decided she was too fast for a left hand curve, and attempted to slow. Low sided into the guard rail.  She ended up with some new bruises, and 5 stitches to her hip.
Will never forget the guy at the back, yelling into the chatterbox.  "She's down, she's down!!  Ohhh, **** She's down!!!"

[corndogs]

I understand how you feel, I crashed my bike March of last year ( nothing bad ) I was out of work for a month.  Since I work at the fire dept. as a firemedic I see alot of accidents involving motorcycles.  I can honestly say 95 % of the motorcycle accidents I go are the cyclist fault where they get hurt.  Either by not wearing a helmet, swerving in and out of traffic, doing wheelies or speeding at night time where people just can not see you coming and can not judge your speed.  You just have to ride every day like its your first day riding where you are very aware and cautious.   I'll ride till I my body says no more.

[darkstarmoto]

Wow...not sure how I missed this thread. I was in the same boat as OP, last spring one of my friends threw his rig down the road while we were on our way out to Indy MotoGP. He was a fairly new rider who had been riding to and from work and got out for a few good day rides. Now the rest of the crew are track day veterans and we've all put in thousands of miles tearing up some of the best roads on the East coast.

 So fast forward to Rt. 555 in Ohio which we had been warned wasn't a walk in the park which I communicated to the group. We were doing fine and my buddy who I had talked into going was 2 bikes ahead of me. I was really impressed as the day had progressed with the improvements I was seeing in his form and control. Well sure enough a right handed over crest caught him a bit out and the last thing I saw was his taillight and a puff of tire smoke. I crest the hill and see him and his bike laying in the grass off the left side of the road, and my heart sank. I couldn't get turned around fast enough to get back to him and when I finally got parked he was already sitting up. Thank goodness we are all ATGATT guys and he only suffered a broken collar bone...but it really affected me for a short while after. I had all kinda guilt about talking him into coming along knowing some of the roads might be a bit more than he had ever ridden before. We had talked about it as a group before riding that road and everyone was fully informed but still had this nagging guilty feeling. He took it like a champ and even continued on to the GP after getting fixed up at the local hospital which made me feel a lot better.

The bottom line is you can't keep everyone upright in every situation that comes along, accidents happen and we'll all down a bike atleast once. Hopefully we'll be able to get up, dust ourselves off and use it as a learning experience. I recently did the Pine Barren 300 and dumped my Husky more times in 2 days than I've ever dumped a bike in my riding career to that point. I learned a lot over those 2 days about riding off road that my buddies no matter how much advice they gave could have warned me about.

[Jason F.]

I have gotten over my spell of shaken confidence for the most part. I really want to be back on the bike now. I signed up for an MSF advanced rider course this spring and signed up for two long distance riding events/rallies. I was also in the process of getting in better shape to not only improve my overall health but my conditioning for longer stretches in the saddle.

Then....




Torn Meniscus in the knee and a stress fracture in the head of my tibia. I used to love to run, now all I can say is "F you running". In this brace and on crutches for 6 to 8 weeks.

[cbsnbiker]

I think I saw that in another thread. Ouch. Best wishes for good healing. Do whatever your PT says, even if it hurts.  

[CosmicCowboy]

Where do you sign up for long distance events?

[Bad Dad]

On a trip 2 years ago I had the same experience of seeing a grey blur in my mirror. It was my friend on his GTR 1400 blowing a curve and going down into the ditch. He was O.K. too, scuffed up his riding gear and just some bruising. It didn't bother me as he was fine, if he'd been seriously injured I'm not sure how it would affect me. All that said, I hit a deer last Wednesday doing around 60.


   I plan to ride today if I can get my foot in a boot . The accident won't put me off riding but I might start buying extra tags to kill more deer

[JavaD]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and after finding this thread became a member.

Crashing sucks, I try and learn from each crash as a few others do and found that has helped out a lot in my attitude on the street and track.  My street crashes have been minimal, or at least in my head: High-side on walkway paint, cold tires on wet round-a-bout, cold tires on intersection, slow-speed fall trying to beat another instructor's tight turn in front of students. The track crashes a little more impressive: two-bike crash with reported 100-yard (I'd bet maybe 30) superman flight over both bikes and other racer, two-bike low-side (feeling a bike ride over you is an interesting experience), and a couple of low sides pushing the front too much (dang weak collar bone).

I keep each helmet that's been crashed behind my desk at work as a morbid, "Sacrifices to the God of Speed", right next to my trophies.  But the hardest wasn't my wreck, but my wife's.

Riding together for some errands, we come to a stop at a light-controlled intersection and she gets punted like an American football by a maroon mini-van.  She was stopped three feet from me, and replaced by the mini-van's mirror and driver staring me in the face.  My wife was alright, a little sore, more upset her bike was broke, and insurance paid for everything.

She recovered pretty good, in fact we even shopped around for a replacement bike just in case her's wouldn't get fixed.  And she rode a lot of them, loved a lot of them, then her bike got fixed two months later.  She wouldn't ride that bike.  

A very *heated* discussion unused which led to her storming out of the house, helmet on and in full gear to her fixed bike.  Came back about 40 minutes later and apologized.  Yup, that was the level of support needed to get her back on that horse, er, motorcycle.

But two months later I bought her dream bike as an Anniversary present.  We still have both and ride them when we can, mostly trackdays and training classes as the bike is carried in the truck because we can't seem to fit the car seat on it legally...