This has been on my mind for the past couple weeks. On Saturday, June 8th, 2024 I was riding behind David at the "New Rubber Meet and Greet" in Redmond, CA. We were up in the area near Happy Camp, an area that's sparsely populated with great pavement and wonderful high speed sweepers. Down the road we were heading was our lunch stop.
My bike was still new to me. My wife had said to buy a new bike, so being the dutiful husband I am, I did. I picked up a new 2023 BMW F900XR on Halloween the fall before. While I'd had it for 8 months, I had only glanced at some of the screens the XR has. Enough to generally know what was on the screens, but not enough to be familiar with where to find it.
David and I had been cooking through several sweepers and I was getting to feel what this bike was capable of. It was impressive. We rounded a corner and had a straight stretch ahead of us. I backed off for a second to relax a moment and saw that David hadn't...and was pulling away.
And from this point, I'm only guessing on what happened next.
I know I looked down at something. I'm guessing it was the dash. I also guessing it must've been to look at the lean angle I'd had through those fast corners. The XR's dash will show you that on the second screen. The only problem is I hadn't been interested in checking that out in the local commuting miles I'd put on since I bought the bike. But I knew it was there...someplace. I looked and looked and looked...and couldn't find it.
What I do remember is finally looking up and seeing my front tire about 6 inches and milliseconds away from crossing over the fog line and going off the pavement. I was luckily in a short stretch of just grass along the road that had a moderate slope off to the right. Trees were ahead, but if I stayed close to the road, there was a good chance I could recover and get back on the pavement with nothing but my ego damaged.
What I do remember is the bike coming to an abrupt stop and I was heading forward...but only for about the first six inches of that. I don't remember anything from that point. Those people who think they can control what happens in an accident are wrong.
And the next thing I remember is some woman telling me to just sit tight. Not to worry. The paramedics would be there shortly. Paramedics? Really??
I got up and I think I took off my helmet. My bike was pointing towards what I thought was the direction I'd come from. I kept asking and no one would tell me which direction I was supposed to be going. I was ahead of the bike and it was about 25 feet at least away and pointed in the direction I thought we'd come from.
Then I started looking for the pieces of the bike so I could figure out how to tie them onto the bike and get going again. The medics came before I got to doing more than wandering around and told me the helicopter was on its way and they were airlifting me out.
I felt fine, but they airlifted me out to Medford, OR. The docs did lots of tests and came to the conclusion that I was fine. No concussion. Though the ER doc told me before he released me that normally with an accident like I had been in, he would be sewing the patient's liver together. I told him God was watching out for me.
I probably should not have driven back to the motel in Redmond.
For 30 days, I couldn't figure out what happened, and even now it is only guesswork. How could I have gotten out of that accident as unscathed as I was...and yet my bike was demolished. The right side looked pretty good.
But nothing was left of the left side of the bike.
The front looked like something from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
How did the bike get so far behind me and in the opposite direction of where we'd been headed?
I watched and listened to the dash cam footage several times in that 30 days and finally it clicked. I heard the throttle open and then the upshift. My guess is that I was doing about 70 when I upshifted and faster as the bike accelerated...and I looked for something down on the dash. I'm only guessing it was the lean angle, because that makes sense. I thought the front wheel had dropped into a ditch that the grass kept me from seeing. It wasn't that. There was one of those steel posts they use to mark the side of the road and it hit the bike. Why I still have a leg, I don't know.
And when was that fire truck there? I never saw any fire truck, and something that large and red would be hard to miss.
FWIW, that's the metal post I hit.
The dash cam was recording at 30 frames per second. Not per minute. Per second. That's fast. The first frame after I hit the post was me about to land in front of the bike, facing it with my airbag vest already deployed. The second frame was of the dirt as the front of the bike nose dived into the dirt. Then there was two more frames of the sky. And nothing. It was over in 4/30ths of a second. That was violent.
Why am I writing this? Maybe for closure. Hopefully, so someone else can learn from my mistake.
Chris
My bike was still new to me. My wife had said to buy a new bike, so being the dutiful husband I am, I did. I picked up a new 2023 BMW F900XR on Halloween the fall before. While I'd had it for 8 months, I had only glanced at some of the screens the XR has. Enough to generally know what was on the screens, but not enough to be familiar with where to find it.
David and I had been cooking through several sweepers and I was getting to feel what this bike was capable of. It was impressive. We rounded a corner and had a straight stretch ahead of us. I backed off for a second to relax a moment and saw that David hadn't...and was pulling away.
And from this point, I'm only guessing on what happened next.
I know I looked down at something. I'm guessing it was the dash. I also guessing it must've been to look at the lean angle I'd had through those fast corners. The XR's dash will show you that on the second screen. The only problem is I hadn't been interested in checking that out in the local commuting miles I'd put on since I bought the bike. But I knew it was there...someplace. I looked and looked and looked...and couldn't find it.
What I do remember is finally looking up and seeing my front tire about 6 inches and milliseconds away from crossing over the fog line and going off the pavement. I was luckily in a short stretch of just grass along the road that had a moderate slope off to the right. Trees were ahead, but if I stayed close to the road, there was a good chance I could recover and get back on the pavement with nothing but my ego damaged.
What I do remember is the bike coming to an abrupt stop and I was heading forward...but only for about the first six inches of that. I don't remember anything from that point. Those people who think they can control what happens in an accident are wrong.
And the next thing I remember is some woman telling me to just sit tight. Not to worry. The paramedics would be there shortly. Paramedics? Really??
I got up and I think I took off my helmet. My bike was pointing towards what I thought was the direction I'd come from. I kept asking and no one would tell me which direction I was supposed to be going. I was ahead of the bike and it was about 25 feet at least away and pointed in the direction I thought we'd come from.
Then I started looking for the pieces of the bike so I could figure out how to tie them onto the bike and get going again. The medics came before I got to doing more than wandering around and told me the helicopter was on its way and they were airlifting me out.I felt fine, but they airlifted me out to Medford, OR. The docs did lots of tests and came to the conclusion that I was fine. No concussion. Though the ER doc told me before he released me that normally with an accident like I had been in, he would be sewing the patient's liver together. I told him God was watching out for me.
I probably should not have driven back to the motel in Redmond.
For 30 days, I couldn't figure out what happened, and even now it is only guesswork. How could I have gotten out of that accident as unscathed as I was...and yet my bike was demolished. The right side looked pretty good.
But nothing was left of the left side of the bike.
The front looked like something from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
How did the bike get so far behind me and in the opposite direction of where we'd been headed?
I watched and listened to the dash cam footage several times in that 30 days and finally it clicked. I heard the throttle open and then the upshift. My guess is that I was doing about 70 when I upshifted and faster as the bike accelerated...and I looked for something down on the dash. I'm only guessing it was the lean angle, because that makes sense. I thought the front wheel had dropped into a ditch that the grass kept me from seeing. It wasn't that. There was one of those steel posts they use to mark the side of the road and it hit the bike. Why I still have a leg, I don't know.
And when was that fire truck there? I never saw any fire truck, and something that large and red would be hard to miss.
FWIW, that's the metal post I hit.
The dash cam was recording at 30 frames per second. Not per minute. Per second. That's fast. The first frame after I hit the post was me about to land in front of the bike, facing it with my airbag vest already deployed. The second frame was of the dirt as the front of the bike nose dived into the dirt. Then there was two more frames of the sky. And nothing. It was over in 4/30ths of a second. That was violent.
Why am I writing this? Maybe for closure. Hopefully, so someone else can learn from my mistake.
Chris
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