Kawi2strokes.com Forum

I don't feel so bad now knowing that you guys crash that mush too. My vary first crash was on a mini bike way back wen I was maybe 15 years old .My buddy and I used to ride the snowmobile trails behind my house when they froze up .My be i should state that we had two of these mini bikes but only one would run at a time cause they always broke.anyway I went over a nice little hill and got the front end up but to my surprise the front forks ,shocks,and tire fell off as i was in the air. lucky for me it was winter and i had lots of snow to land in when I finally came back down to earth. I had lots of crashes or falls i like to call them in the early eighty's on the H1D but i always got up with just scraped knuckles.everything has been fine till 2009 when I had my worst crash (sliding my restored H1D under a toyota pickup truck and getting run over by the 17 year old female driver that never saw or heard me under her truck) Thankfully I'm still here and hope I never have another one like that again.

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curt & the smoking beast

1971 Learning to ride a 1969 Yamaha 63cc mini enduro (white). I was 6. Learned how to ride in circles on the slags. Then dad tought me how to go up and down small hills. Being a fearless 6 I set my eyes on a larger not not out of the question hill, grabbed a fist full of throttle and shot for the moon. 3/4 of the way up the hill hit a medium size rock that shot the cross bar into my nose. I didnt know at the time to stand up and hold the bars donw. Needless to say the bike and I proceeded down the hill at an equally rapid pace heels over arse and bike pogosticking right behind me. Got off easy with just a broken nose. Couldnt tell mom or the bike would have been gone. Still cant breath through my nose to this day! LOL

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Chicken strips are for kids.

First crash, remember it like it was yesterday. 1971 yamaha 63 cc mini enduro white, Strip mines Finnlyville Pa. Was learning to climb hills on the soft stuff. Went ripping up a nice hill and hit a rock near the top. The cross bar came up and broke my nose and the bike and I rolled heels over explitive all the way back down the hill. Dad said dont tell mom or Id never get to ride again. My nose hasny been right every since lol. Never has it fixed. Fixed the bike right away though lol.

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Chicken strips are for kids.

I've crashed just twice in my 41+ years of riding motorcycles. First off was on a 1969 Honda CB350 (6 volt). Not having extra money for new chains and such didn't bother me much, I just ran my chain as tight as a banjo string across my toothless sprockets! I was wide open on a farm road doing maybe 60 when the chain finally broke and wrapped itself around the back wheel. I skidded off the road into a ditch made of red clay and that set off a series of flips and flying parts...Being young, I was able to limp away. The bike got scrapped.

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1972 H2, modified and Tracy bodied. 77 Kawi 1000. Lime green. Cafe. Lester wheels.

1970 at 14 years old on my Motobécane 49cc moped, former mother moped
don't count crashes on bicycles before

My first crash occurred in 1967 on a Honda CL90. I was 15. I’d been riding a whole week and thought I was really getting good. Five horse power and I was the fastest thing on the road (I thought). I worked at a very nice restaurant and had been on the job that day for well over 12 hours. I’d become such a good rider that week I figured my next job was to be a professional motorcycle racer. It was close to midnight when I left work and was riding home by myself. There was a stretch of road that had these white posts every few feet to keep vehicles from leaving the roadway in case of an accident. Think of a guard rail without the rail. These posts made a swooshing sound as I rode by them in a most mesmerizing way. When I finally came out of my hypnotic state I was entering a curve. As I was sliding along the pavement on my back tearing off my black dress pants, my white dress shirt, (proper attire for a busboy but not an inspiring soon to be motorcycle racer) and losing some of my very virgin skin I was thinking maybe motorcycle racing ain’t for me. I never really knew what happen and always just assumed the posts had put me to sleep. I gave up motorcycling in 1975.

In 2005 I found the Daytona Special I have now and thought it would be a fun project to restore. Over the years the incident on the CL never really left my thoughts. I never understood what caused me to crash and it bugged the heck out of me. Since I have been riding again I am much smarter and have no desire for that to happen to me again. Yes I had other crashes in the 70’s but I always understood what caused them to occur. Finally after many decades I now understand the circumstances that lead to my first crash. I was a victim of visual fixation on the posts as they went by, I then visually fixed on the edge of the pavement as the road entered into the curve, tightened up on the bars as I started to run wide, and guess where the bike went?

I never knew there was so much to good motomanship before I got to attending the Deals Gap meet and watching bad riders and good riders on the same road. I think I’ve learned a lot and intend to send my r'esum'e to Yamaha Racing next week.

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1973 RD350, 1979 RD400F, 1984 RZ350, 2014 Suzuki Vstrom 1000
CHRIS AND JEFF ARE THE MEN

1973 hot doggin on my 69 Suzuki T500 Titan. Leaving the game arcade driving through a paking lot, looked back to see if it was smoking the same form both pipes. When I looked back in front of me there was a 68 four door chevelle right in front of me. T boned the car, windshield fell in, bent the car frame where I hit the passenger door. Flew end over end over the top of the car landing on the other side of the intersection. Got lucky , basically sprianed from the waist down. Ended up heating the fork tubes and bending them back straight.

My first crash I drew blood was in 1973 on a 73 SL 125 I was racing my best friend on his CB 125 and hit a ditch at about 60. Did a real nice endo and
the rest is blank. Woke up in a hospital with a wired shut jaw Had to eat through a straw for a few weeks and as soon as the bike was
fixed I was back on it.

Hahhaa, my first bike was a 75 S3 400. I bought it in 1981. My father was a Dr and now way, no how would they let me buy a motorcycle. Of course as soon as I turned 18...(month after?) I rode that bad boy home. I'd had it about a week or two and was riding in the hills around my home....still learning about the bike. It was not only my first bike......but the first bike I'd ever ridden on at all.

Coming around a sweeping left hand corner in a residential neighborhood....doing about 40......the corner started turning harder and kinda caught me off guard. All of the sudden....I noticed the curb was closing in on my and I kept trying to lean away from it...hahaha, not much good that did...this all occurred in about 5 seconds but it was long enough for me to "try" to lean away from it but still it came until finally I rode against the curb in a panic and down I went.

Slid about 20 feet. Rashed the palms of my hands and I think one elbow. Picked up the bike and kicked it over and rode home embarrassed.

Told my mom I fell off my skateboard. Telling her crashing a motorcycle would NOT have gone over well.

My second crash.....was about 2 years later. By this time I'd honed my skills somewhat..considering I was self taught....and was the proud owner of a nice 74 H2. Riding home one night....came up to a stop sign that was about a 1/8 mile before you entered a series of 15-25 mph curves on the way to my folks house. I slowed down and since it was a rural-ish area and like 11pm....cruised thu the stop sign at about 20 mph. Wouldn't you know it......a local sherriff was parked about 30 feet down the side road. I figured he would come after me for sure so I opened her up and away I went.

I hit the first corner flying...doing a little over double the posted speed....and felt good knowing there was NO way Johnny Law was gonna catch me that night. Through the next corner....and then the next.....keeping my speed up but trying to to let panic take over. A particularly tight left hander was coming up...and as I lined it up and leaned it over into it..I brushed into the big yellow reflector bumps they'd installed a while before that ran down the middle separating the directions of the road. Brrrrpppp, the front end washed out as I was fully leaned over and the next thing I knew I was on my back sliding.

It was funny....the first time I'd laid it down.....I wasn't wearing a helmet and must have closed my eyes when I hit the ground cause I don't remember seeing anything till I was stopped. This night I had my full face on with a clear shield and I distinctly remember watching as I slid....the bike sliding in a shower of sparks towards the wooden guardrail.

I'd been doing about 45-50 and the bike slid about 50 or 60 feet till it hit the dirt....stopping just shy of hitting the wood rail.

NOW panic set in. As I figured a cop with red & blues flashing would be coming around the corner behind me in a matter of seconds. I jumped up and ran over to my bike....picked it up (really easily I might add as I think the adrenaline was really flowing!) and pushed it back about 25 feet behind some bushes. Of course the cop never came. Now I really felt stupid. After a couple minutes....kicked it over.....it started on about 2 cylinders.....I'd ground the timing cover off and damage had been done. But it got me the last mile or so home.

Injuries again were limited to some road rash on my hands and back. Not too bad. Didn't even have to lie to my mom that time.

I've never been down since. The lesson I learned was that both of those crashes had been early on in owning the bikes. The first one at like 250 miles and the second one at about 500 miles. Since then, with every new bike I've acquired.....I take it really easy for the first 1000 miles....I figure it takes about that long for me to really get acquainted with them.

So far so good.

that is great question and it sent me off into a deep stare at the screen..........until i was snapped back to reality by the guitar riff of bloddy well right by supertramp.

Man i have had too many crashes to remember, it could be a problem when you cannot even remember your first get off. What i do know, as i sit here and look at the screen, is my neck hurts from a root i hit in a trail one time doing about 40. my shoulder aches from a high speed swap on a husky 400 when i about 14 and 120 lbs that ended with me and a tree meeting up...and my right foot is a size and half smaller than the left from getting catapulted into the ground on a CR125 in 1987 that put me in surgery. But with all that being said...............There is NOTHING in the world that could take the place of the joy that riding brings. Cheers all