Sour start to MotoGP weekend.

Explanation: Yes, it does deserve some. Yes, I'm long-winded.

Cruising along the 10 doing about 50 with traffic, went to shift up; clutch in, click it up, clutch out. Hmm. That's odd, it feels like I'm in the same gear even though I felt it engage solidly. Clutch in, shift down, clutch out. That feels exactly the same. Repeat 1x. Same results. wtf.

At this point I begin merging right towards the #3 and large shoulder.

Screw it, I say in my mind, I'll tap it up past third and into fourth because maybe the engagement dogs have finally gone away. Clutch in, gently shift up, shift up, clutch out.

Ok, cool. This feels like fourth and I begin to accelerate a little as the engine bogs a bit. All of a sudden it falls between gears for a second, slams back down in to third and drags the tire some, clutch in and suddenly the rear is locked, clutch out and it's still locked. Something lets go, tire spins a bit, locks, spins a bit, repeat a couple times quickly, locks one final time. Clutch in, which does nothing at this point as I zip along ruining a nice BT45 with a couple thousand more miles in it.

I suddenly begin realizing that traffic was speeding up in the... 15 seconds (Maybe? I think? Time is strange when you're hoping to not faceplant on the freeway.) all this was happening and start looking in my mirrors (my newly installed, brand new, really cool NEW mirrors, that I installed LAST NIGHT... >.< ) Ahem, a huge white pickup work truck behind me sees what's going on, effectively stops traffic for me as I the ass end begins sliding to the left. And further to the left. And more further. Until I hit the steering lock to countersteer and realize that the rear is still drifting more and more further more to the left.

(Unsober post at this point as I contemplate and thank those that be for smiling on me today. Sorry for my grammatical ingeniousness.)

A few more feet, flash the rear brake light a lot and finally come to a full on stop. I left I'd estimate 100 or 200 feet of black down the number 2 lane. The guy in the truck put his truck between me and the other cars as I shoved the bike with a locked rear end across 3 lanes of traffic and on to the shoulder. I'm now pointed the wrong way to traffic on the shoulder... the small part of the shoulder.

Text my SO, call AAA. While on the phone with AAA, a CHP officer cruises over and parks about 50 feet away. Comes around the car as I'm walking towards him, I show my AAA card and say I'm on the phone, blah, blah, blah. Sucky, it's going to be 30 minutes, but at least I'm near a huge pilon for a bridge and there's guard rail. The bike's way out of traffic. And there's a CHP officer now about 100 feet back, told me he'd keep a little further back for to notify cars for safety reasons. Kept his lights on and stuff. I'll be cool.

Sitting, sitting, sitting, texting, being really bummed out as it all starts to sink in. Start the bike with the clutch in. Let clutch out slowly, engine bogs down and stalls. Repeat several times with variations on the same theme. Can't shift in to or out of any gear. The lever doesn't move much, maybe a quarter of it's usual movement. The rear wheel has less than half the drivetrain lash of normal.

Oh well. Sit and wait for tow truck. In the shade a few feet from the bike. Sitting, sitting, sitting. About five minutes pass, and traffic starts doing that 'slow and go' crap. All of a sudden in the slow lane nearest me, a green Astrovan thing nearly hits the guy in front of him, locking and unlocking his brakes several times before they continue on. The car or two behind him brake fine, but I suddenly find myself with a large white sedan flying my way with all four tires locked up going at a pretty good clip.

The cop races forward as I see this guy will now miss me narrowly but wipe the bike out pretty solidly against the concrete wall behind it. That moment of dread was really quite heart wrenching knowing there was nothing I could do but watch it happen. At the last second, no BS, a foot away from it the driver lefts off the brakes and the car pulls straight again. I grab my wallet, phones and book it back to the CHP car. The officer was already clearing stuff off of his passenger seat to get me in the car.

So I chilled there for about 45 minutes where we watched many near-accidents and talked about how stupid and crazy too many drivers are. BS'd about a bunch of stuff. Really good guy. Six month graduate out of the academy. Used to ride a 600 until he saw the aftermath of a rider being drug under a truck for a quarter mile. The driver had no idea he was dragging someone.

Dear reader, if you've made it this far, please turn to side B, where we continue the tale with the heroic adventures of Alex the tow truck driver. Scruffy, but decently bad-ass Mexican guy who speaks fluent English.

Not really.

The ride home sucked. It was bumpy. Dropped the bike on its side while still on the truck at home, my fault, but no damage done. Thanks case protectors! Dude helped me get it into the garage, and here I sit after a lot more boring stuff. Much of which being sulky and depressed over everything.

	Author	Topic: Sour start to MotoGP weekend. (Read 219 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.