mauricejota7604
Hero member
- Location
- Victoria Australia
Vic Laverda Owners head to the high country for a few days
- Thread starter mauricejota7604
- Start date
Jo
Hero member
- Location
- Cologne, NRW Germany
The arc of suspense was elegantly started - waiting for more to come!
piranha-bro2
Hero member
- Location
- Melbourne
Ah, very cryptic, Maurizio!! Yes, an awesome 5-day venture through some of SE Australia's finest motorcycling country, as evidenced by the many, many motorcyclists we encountered ... and Friday the 13th sitting nicely in there somewhere. Many things come in threes, so I'll leave it to others to fill in the gaps (all I'll say is one BMW down and out and one rider heading home in a hire car with a broken tib and fib after a statioary bike topple).
My 5 days would have been fairly uneventful save for the trip home over the Bogong High Plains in the alpine area above Falls Creek. Loping along in lovely undulating open terrain once through the twisties I suddenly found myself looking at a very sharp 90 degree left hand bend over the crest of a hill ... sadly the advisory speed signs I'd been successfully relying on for the previous 2,000km of this trip were totally absent and it was 'Oh, fuk!' - full anchors and pray for enough bitumised real estate to pull up and avoid getting acquainted with the alpine scrub. Almost, but not quite - over the gravel verge and down, hoping for 2m of button grass . The boulder had other ideas and in went the front wheel, only doing about 15-20kph by this stage. Slo-mo flying W and a gentle landing, but the bike came down sideways on a large granite boulder on the left side of the tank and the primary cover. I'm almost laughing because I have zero injuries other than a sore wrist and a bruised left butt cheek.
Run back over the crest to warn my riding buddy Bryan of the nasty little surprise, we then extracted the SFQ and got it back onto the road to assess the damage. Looked ugly, but actually apart from the tank, not too bad. A small split in the lower part of the primary cover was losing drops of oil. Starting the motor immediately revealed that the cover was grinding against the clutch/chain. Meanwhile the sky is black and the weather closing in. Rain starts, phone calls to my roadside assist (no go - accident, not breakdown) and my insurer transfer here, transfer there, with 50 minutes on hold, then a 1 1/2 hr wait for the tow truck. In that time I realised I could easily remove the cover, bash it out to clear the clutch and refit with a bit of duct tape - alas, no 3mm allen key to remove the Ignitech board. Bugger!
Towie arrives with a wry smile and says he didn't need detailed location info, because he'd lost count of the number of bikes and cars he'd extracted on this very corner. He strongly advised I light a fire under the relative authorities to put up some advisory speed signs - which I'm in the process of doing. On the attached map I don't think you'll need to look too hard to see where it took place. So we're talking a 100kph speed limit on an open road with excellent visibility into an unsigned 45kph bend over a blind crest. My fault for not reading the road - fair enough. I'm not renowned for misreading roads. The irony is I ride the wheels off this bike but this misadventure happened while cruising home and taking it easy ... maybe that's the problem!!
Bike is now in a holding pen in Bright until Shannons transport it to Melbourne for assessment ... that is going to be an interesting process.
Q
My 5 days would have been fairly uneventful save for the trip home over the Bogong High Plains in the alpine area above Falls Creek. Loping along in lovely undulating open terrain once through the twisties I suddenly found myself looking at a very sharp 90 degree left hand bend over the crest of a hill ... sadly the advisory speed signs I'd been successfully relying on for the previous 2,000km of this trip were totally absent and it was 'Oh, fuk!' - full anchors and pray for enough bitumised real estate to pull up and avoid getting acquainted with the alpine scrub. Almost, but not quite - over the gravel verge and down, hoping for 2m of button grass . The boulder had other ideas and in went the front wheel, only doing about 15-20kph by this stage. Slo-mo flying W and a gentle landing, but the bike came down sideways on a large granite boulder on the left side of the tank and the primary cover. I'm almost laughing because I have zero injuries other than a sore wrist and a bruised left butt cheek.
Run back over the crest to warn my riding buddy Bryan of the nasty little surprise, we then extracted the SFQ and got it back onto the road to assess the damage. Looked ugly, but actually apart from the tank, not too bad. A small split in the lower part of the primary cover was losing drops of oil. Starting the motor immediately revealed that the cover was grinding against the clutch/chain. Meanwhile the sky is black and the weather closing in. Rain starts, phone calls to my roadside assist (no go - accident, not breakdown) and my insurer transfer here, transfer there, with 50 minutes on hold, then a 1 1/2 hr wait for the tow truck. In that time I realised I could easily remove the cover, bash it out to clear the clutch and refit with a bit of duct tape - alas, no 3mm allen key to remove the Ignitech board. Bugger!
Towie arrives with a wry smile and says he didn't need detailed location info, because he'd lost count of the number of bikes and cars he'd extracted on this very corner. He strongly advised I light a fire under the relative authorities to put up some advisory speed signs - which I'm in the process of doing. On the attached map I don't think you'll need to look too hard to see where it took place. So we're talking a 100kph speed limit on an open road with excellent visibility into an unsigned 45kph bend over a blind crest. My fault for not reading the road - fair enough. I'm not renowned for misreading roads. The irony is I ride the wheels off this bike but this misadventure happened while cruising home and taking it easy ... maybe that's the problem!!
Bike is now in a holding pen in Bright until Shannons transport it to Melbourne for assessment ... that is going to be an interesting process.Q
AJ
Senior member
- Location
- 38°33'00.0"S 177°55'00"E
Bugga! Still you don't go into battle without a few scars. Lucky escape for you.
piranha-bro2
Hero member
- Location
- Melbourne
We struck similar on the Great Alpine Way once. A Wooden Bridge with a 35kph bend right on the end of it, and making it even crazier, a dirt camping access track straight ahead looking like the actual road,, but having a solid timber barrier across said dirt track. I luckily noticed the bend just in time, but someone following sailed straight down that track and tipped over just before the wooden barrier. We used to find some of the roads down there go hundreds of ks without corner speed advisory signs. Ifs fine if you have them or don't have them, but Q having signs and then on a nasty bend no sign, that's diabolical. What's the plan for the tank? Can you manipulate it through the filler cap, maybe? BTW, we have never done Fall Creek Rd on a club ride, did it once in a car on a Ski trip, it's one delight. That leg brake sounds bloody horrible from being parked.
piranha-bro2
Hero member
- Location
- Melbourne
That's the issue in a nutshell, Vince. Either don't have advisory signs, or use them with emphatic consistency - obviously there's no need on every friggin bend in a road, but if there's an open piece of road coming out of a tight twisting section loaded with advisory signs, and a hairpin over a blind crest (where the horizon indicates the natural continuation of a very open curve) FFS just put up a sign. No brainer.
Not sure about the tank - cut the bottom out I'd say - I won't be allowing some cheapo fix - about to find out how true Shannons are to their word. Looks like I have an option of using my own repairer and taking control of it all. Just means I won't have their repair warranty. If their quote is satisfactory, I'll take the money and spend it as i see fit. They'll probably be glad - a rather rare 70's Italian bike isn't going to be a simple case for them. All my mods are listed on the policy ... loads of handmade custom parts listed.
Not sure about the tank - cut the bottom out I'd say - I won't be allowing some cheapo fix - about to find out how true Shannons are to their word. Looks like I have an option of using my own repairer and taking control of it all. Just means I won't have their repair warranty. If their quote is satisfactory, I'll take the money and spend it as i see fit. They'll probably be glad - a rather rare 70's Italian bike isn't going to be a simple case for them. All my mods are listed on the policy ... loads of handmade custom parts listed.
We had another issue once on the back way to Goulburn on the western side of the mountains. We had a newish rider with us riding a brand new 750 8 valve Ducati wearing full leathers, nice enough young bloke. Most had never done this ride, including me, and it's kind of a fast bit of open road, TILL you approach a big descent with a massive sign that says SLOW DOWN and a story about the local council not having money to maintain this road. It suddenly went from a fast open dual lane to a narrow, rough as guts single lane and a tight bend. Only ever seen one other sign like that, on Lemings Bend. Lots of crashes there, so they mean SLOW. So I brake hard, and the next thing I notice is Ducatu Man passing me well off the road, and he is doing great till he hits the big gutter and lowsides the bike. He snaps off the rear brake lever and jams gravel up under his front tyre and rim. No physical injuries. So even with massive signs, sometimes it's just the way it goes.
Jo
Hero member
- Location
- Cologne, NRW Germany
Hi Quentin, sorry to hear about your mishap, but also sounds kind of blessing in disguise! As you wrote, “my fault for not reading the road" – but on the other hand, a little advisory sign would've surely saved the one or the other’s butt.
I remember a few nasty misinterpretations myself where luck played a far bigger a role than talent …
Speedy recovery for you and SFQ!
I remember a few nasty misinterpretations myself where luck played a far bigger a role than talent …
Speedy recovery for you and SFQ!
The Sock
Hero member
- Location
- London, England
Sorry to hear about your spill, Quentin.
Glad you escaped without serious injury.
Hopefully, the SFQ will be back and beautiful, soon.
Glad you escaped without serious injury.
Hopefully, the SFQ will be back and beautiful, soon.
Andy J
Hero member
- Location
- Isle of Man
You have my sympathies Q. I had a very similar experience 40 odd years ago on a ‘Slaters’ weekend’ participating in the ‘treasure hunt’ ride out. I was ‘leading’ Simon Elton on his Jota down a narrow country lane, went over a largish hump in the road that was obscuring an almost immediate 90 degree right hand bend. Needless to say I ended up mud tracking into a farm entrance and binning my bike. Fortunately, other than being embarrassed and muddy, I and the bike got off relatively unscathed. However, I did manage to ‘win’ the event booby prize for my antics, and the award was presented to me by Pete PK Davies, complete with neck Meccano following his really bad smash at the TT. He magnanimously told me not to worry as we all crash occasionally.