What caused you to crash and what bike where you on?

Inexperience, stupidity and a good yarning man!

Told I needed to help my then BF’s bestie repair my Boyfriend’s Laverda Jota - (Boyfriend worked away and was due to return in a few days - no cell phones in the early 80’s) so I stupidly believed same bloke as he seemed to spin a good yarn and said he was my BF’s bestie who had just brought the Jota down from QLD for my BF.

So took a ride as the pillon on said bike “listening for tappets making a noise” had no idea what a tappet was but was told I would definitely hear an unusual sound 😳 “nothing - nuddah” couldn’t hear a damn thing.

Stopped at a small town some 11 miles out to workshop the problem and HE decided that I would ride the Jota back into town with said shyster on the back listening for spurious noise. To my great protest and apprehension as I had never ridden said bike and in fact NEVER ridden any of my BF’s bikes let alone rode any other bike with any other guy….,but felt obligated to assist my BF’s bike repair won out on the day.

Started home with red sun settling behind us on deep red bull dust road and the Razor Back movie truck heading towards us at breakneck speed with no area to pull over just those big water trenches on the side of the road I hit that to avoid the truck. The then shyster pillion flew over the top of me pushing me into the 🏍️ bike and the rest as they say is history……after his numerous aggressive attempts to scam a poultry amount of GIO monies out of me and my mother I have never heard from him since.

Sadly also lost the BF….

Moral don’t do dumb shit
 
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Reactions: Jo
Nadia said:
Moral don’t do dumb shit
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One of my dumbest prangs was attempting to ride a Yamaha TY250 (trials bike) over the top of a VW Beetle. It wasn't someone's pride and joy, but a rusty old beetle that had been abandoned in the bush, so it was fair game. My mate made it look easy on his Montesa Cota, so I had a go. Got out of line on the roof of the car and fell off sideways. I landed on the ground beside the VW and the bike landed on top of me with the engine crushing my right ankle into the ground. I had to ride several km on rough bush track to get back to the car and trailer. But when I tried to kick start the bike, I couldn't kick it with my right foot while sitting on the bike in the normal fashion because my ankle hurt too much. Nor could I do it by getting off the bike and kick it with my left foot because that meant putting all my weight on the sore right ankle. I had to get my mate to start the bike for me. He reckoned I was a wimp moaning about a sore ankle until I took myself to hospital the next day and found that it was broken. Spent the next 6 weeks in a plaster boot.
 
Dellortoman said:
One of my dumbest prangs was attempting to ride a Yamaha TY250 (trials bike) over the top of a VW Beetle. It wasn't someone's pride and joy, but a rusty old beetle that had been abandoned in the bush, so it was fair game. My mate made it look easy on his Montesa Cota, so I had a go. Got out of line on the roof of the car and fell off sideways. I landed on the ground beside the VW and the bike landed on top of me with the engine crushing my right ankle into the ground. I had to ride several km on rough bush track to get back to the car and trailer. But when I tried to kick start the bike, I couldn't kick it with my right foot while sitting on the bike in the normal fashion because my ankle hurt too much. Nor could I do it by getting off the bike and kick it with my left foot because that meant putting all my weight on the sore right ankle. I had to get my mate to start the bike for me. He reckoned I was a wimp moaning about a sore ankle until I took myself to hospital the next day and found that it was broken. Spent the next 6 weeks in a plaster boot.
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I wouldn't classify that as dumb Cam, more like some bad luck when experimenting with your ability level in a reasonably controlled situation.

Now if you said you were only wearing shorts, alone, miles from anywhere, and never ridden a trials bike before...
 
Isn't it funny how you almost forget the worst ones. I used to trail ride with my cousin and road ride with his brother, my other cousin funnily enough. The road riding one only knew 1 speed and had written a couple of bikes off doing it including his TRX Yamaha trying to keep up with the fast blokes on the 10mile of The Putty on a Laverda Ride. So fast bloke wants to come Dirtbiking so he buys a 250 Husky Endro bike and comes on his first ride. We are in The Wadigans and he is blasting around the fire trails at max speed, we are heading to the descent to Lagoona called The Great North Walk, and we tell him it's a rough hard descent and to take it easy. He nods and off we go, His brother is first and me second and then him. We arrive at that drop and I am in shock as he sails past me at speed on the 2-stroke pipe in 3rd gear, this needs 1st slow as hell and leaning right back. I watch in horror as he cartwheels down the mountain. He is in pain with a bad right knee, I am amassed he isn't DEAD. So we are on a steep remote mountain, late in the day, with no phone reception. We need to get him DOWN to where a car can get him to Hospital. He is a Nurse and has a great First Aid kit including strong pain pills. Fuck me this still haunts me, we splint his leg lift him onto the back of a bike and with a rope tied on belay both brothers down to where they can get a car and out. He ended up with brakes both top and bottom on that knee and was lucky to get full movement back, did I mention he tried riding that Husky again before it healed and that resulted in more Surgery. He now has a very odd bike, it's a BMW RR 1000 in a semi Adventure frame, forget what it is called still a mad rat. This makes for interesting family visits over the last 10 years since it happened.
 
tyelav13 said:
The only crash that has given me an injury was on some back roads where heading towards a corner I shut off and the front end just washed away, I stepped my foot down and luckily the bike came back upright (I wasn’t going very fast). Unluckily it had put me completely off line and I hit a stone wall bridge, the bridge didn’t move. I was absolutely gutted looking at my recently rebuilt bike laying in the road as I sat next to it. I got up and went to pick the bike up but something didn’t feel right with my right shoulder so I put my left hand inside my jacket to feel and there was a big gap where my shoulder should be and bones sticking out at strange angles. Oddly enough very little pain. Next was a 6 inch scar over my shoulder for the rebuild and screw together job and 5 and a half months off work. The physio / surgeon told me that the technical term for what my shoulder looked like was ‘a fucking mess’ 😂. All pretty good now 10 years later.
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After I had come off a first response paramedic arrived and asked if I was ok, I said yes but that my shoulder was a mess, he offered me gas and air but as I said previously it wasn’t too painful so we just had a chat. Next a policeman arrived and tbh I was expecting a load of hassle, breatheliser etc. I kept myself side on from him as I just didn’t want to speak to him but as he approached he said ‘well Tyrone, you are getting soft in your old age’. I looked and it was an old friend from a year older than me in school who I used to play rugby with, he always was a nice guy in fact. He was told about my shoulder and said ‘let’s see if we can push it together a bit’. He was obviously joking and I explained I had one good arm left that he would feel suddenly if he touched me. We had a laugh over it. Next up the ambulance arrived and the paramedic was a guy I used to play rugby with, I asked whether it was some kind of reunion 😂. He asked about my shoulder and went about cutting my (old) jacket off as we traveled in the ambulance. When he removed the jacket he said ‘oh fu*king hell’ when he looked at my shoulder, I then knew it wasn’t good news 😬. He did take a photo on his phone to show me and I wished he hadn’t. Still, as I said, 10 years later after an operation and much physio all is working ok.
 
Dellortoman said:
One of my dumbest prangs was attempting to ride a Yamaha TY250 (trials bike) over the top of a VW Beetle. It wasn't someone's pride and joy, but a rusty old beetle that had been abandoned in the bush, so it was fair game. My mate made it look easy on his Montesa Cota, so I had a go. Got out of line on the roof of the car and fell off sideways. I landed on the ground beside the VW and the bike landed on top of me with the engine crushing my right ankle into the ground. I had to ride several km on rough bush track to get back to the car and trailer. But when I tried to kick start the bike, I couldn't kick it with my right foot while sitting on the bike in the normal fashion because my ankle hurt too much. Nor could I do it by getting off the bike and kick it with my left foot because that meant putting all my weight on the sore right ankle. I had to get my mate to start the bike for me. He reckoned I was a wimp moaning about a sore ankle until I took myself to hospital the next day and found that it was broken. Spent the next 6 weeks in a plaster boot.
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I doubt I have enough time to write about the times I came off dirt bikes 😂. I did love a husaberg 550 I bought from new though, now that was a proper dirt bike and way too good for what I could offer 😂.
 
Sounds like the Maico I tried once. Way better than what I could deliver as a rider but fantastic fun, starting it was full scary, it had a random deadly kickback that bit me more than I liked and hurt a lot.
 
I crashed my old 74 3C with another member of this Forum (Motodd Rob)riding pillion with me. Alcohol and excessive corner speed were involved, I have no doubt I could have gotten around that corner but I forgot Rob was back there, no injuries this time, and soon on our way to the next pub. Oh let's not forget the poor bloke, Rob, had a full-length bent at the elbow plaster cast on his arm, the result of a bike crash 2 weeks earlier, involving 2 Laverdas.
Incidentally, we were riding with a mate Kenny on his BMW who had crashed his bike right in front of us not 20 minutes earlier.
An interesting injury-free night out, lucky eh?
 
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The dirt bike stories reminded me of a mate. He had one of the big KTM V twin adventure bikes. It suited him as he's the size of an All Blacks lock forward. I used to get him in for heavy lifting in the workshop. Drew the line at lifting Laverda triple engines though after just one, lol.
However, he was out on Banks Peninsula doing his thing on the dirt roads in the area - narrow, winding and steep. He'd come from Akaroa and was going home via the Western Valley road to Port Levy and then round the bays to Christchurch and home. He'd come over the top and was going down into Port Levy when he met a Subaru wagon coming up. At high speed. Which on that road is f'n dumb. The driver never saw him so he said and they met head on. The (wire) front wheel of the KTM went in just inside the right hand headlight assembly - and went in to the car about a foot.
Rob simply went over the top - denting the roof heavily - and finished up down the bank. Pretty much undamaged. Padded leather pants and jacket.
When he got back up, the bike was stuck in the car and standing up. Car was fucked, blowing steam and smoke, driver very concerned and apologetic. Rob - big strong bastard - pulled the KTM out of the car and looked it over. Wheel was round, not pushed back amazingly, no radiator damage. Some scuffs on the rad shrouds but that looked like it. Tyre still had air, no puncture.
So after exchanging insurance information and the driver saying he'd called for help, Rob climbed back on the KTM and carried on.

He brought it round to my place and we looked it over. No broken spokes, wheel was still round and spun OK. Frame was straight, forks straight no paint cracking visible. Cosmetic scuffs as noted. Rode it for about another six months and traded it on something else.

The car, he was told was a writeoff.
 
Dellortoman said:
One of my dumbest prangs was attempting to ride a Yamaha TY250 (trials bike) over the top of a VW Beetle. It wasn't someone's pride and joy, but a rusty old beetle that had been abandoned in the bush, so it was fair game. My mate made it look easy on his Montesa Cota, so I had a go. Got out of line on the roof of the car and fell off sideways. I landed on the ground beside the VW and the bike landed on top of me with the engine crushing my right ankle into the ground. I had to ride several km on rough bush track to get back to the car and trailer. But when I tried to kick start the bike, I couldn't kick it with my right foot while sitting on the bike in the normal fashion because my ankle hurt too much. Nor could I do it by getting off the bike and kick it with my left foot because that meant putting all my weight on the sore right ankle. I had to get my mate to start the bike for me. He reckoned I was a wimp moaning about a sore ankle until I took myself to hospital the next day and found that it was broken. Spent the next 6 weeks in a plaster boot.
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Reading this reminded me of an incident I had on my 1978 Yamaha Ty250 a couple of years ago. Whilst riding off road in hills above my house with a couple of mates I was having continuous problems with the Ty cutting out and refusing to start. It reached a crescendo at the top of a 1in 6 stony track leading down to my home. Frozen, wet and pissed off with bike refusing to start I decided to bump it down said track. Standing on pegs and gradually twisting throttle open no success , then suddenly ( you know what’s coming ) bike fired, maximum revs screaming like a banshee, front wheel pointing skywards with me hanging on for grim death. For about 30 yds I headed downwards vertically doing the greatest wheelie I have ever managed. I subsequently fell off backwards smacking the back of my head heavily on the rocky surface. Luckily I was wearing a decent helmet so just rattled my brain ( ? ). I lifted my head to see the bike heading off down the track still wheelieing for quite some way until it veered off the track hitting the only tree in the area. There it stopped, still vertical, gently steaming as engine cut out. I meanwhile was pissing myself laughing back up the hill. After replacing the crankshaft seals the bike now runs well and is regularly chucked down the local hillsides.2C52BC2B-62A0-406B-AE19-0E3E96CC6AB8.jpeg
 
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Paul Marx said:
If you've got brakes.

Paul
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I had brakes Paul. Dry road conditions, just cold.
My reaction time is what needed refinement. I saw the van approaching the intersection and thinking he is not going to stop, but disbelieving at the same time. My thought process kept telling me he's not going to stop, he's not going to stop, HE'S NOT GOING TO STOP! I had plenty of time to stop safely but I was in disbelief.
 
Eurocycleguy said:
I had brakes Paul. Dry road conditions, just cold.
My reaction time is what needed refinement. I saw the van approaching the intersection and thinking he is not going to stop, but disbelieving at the same time. My thought process kept telling me he's not going to stop, he's not going to stop, HE'S NOT GOING TO STOP! I had plenty of time to stop safely but I was in disbelief.
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I know Larry, when it's time, it's time. It's just that I ride a couple of bikes with very period brakes.
I doubt that I have any reaction time left. No place for it in my rapidly diminishing grey matter.

Paul
 
I still have my Husky Automatic. So that's 420cc 2 stroke with a 4-speed centrifugal gearbox like a scooter that changed gears with you only needing to back off the throttle and open it again to get super fast up and down changes of gears, huge fast fun to ride. The greatest Worst bike ever made. Lightning quick, they won a ton of 6-day Gold Medals back in the day despite having design flaws that I found with great pain. the worst was that closing said throttle on big downhills sent the bike into freewheel mod, zero engine braking and with a drum front brake, you soon became either very fast at that or crashed a lot. This trip ended with a couple of days camping in The Warenbungles but first, we went riding into the remote hills near Hill End. While up there we ran into another bunch of riders and one of them had The Wheely Gene, the ability to do vertical balance point instantaneous wheelies, something I never could do. I can pop them easily enough but not like that bloke. So later that day close to the farmhouse I went wheely practice nuts and got more and more aggressive TILL, I suddenly found myself laying on the ground in extreme pain with that Husky laying on top of me. I was thrashing like a fish on a hook and finally got up. I had landed on my Coccyx and had jarred my back to the max, any movement hurt like hell. So we packed up and started that camping trip, but crawling into tents was beyond my pain level so I got dropped at Coobabarraban Station and caught the train home. I got some physio to get over that crash, I had developed a muscle knot from it and got desperate for a fix as I had a Ski trip approaching. So back to that design flaw, I struggled to buy a new rear plastic mudguard to replace the one a broke flipping the bike, it seems everyone who owned them flipped them. The Automatic gear change mechanism worked through engine revs, max out 1st gear by aggressively accelerating when doing a wheely and it would suddenly automatically, hence its name, jump up a gear to 2nd by itself. I wish I had discovered this in a less painful way.
 
Like Vince, I tried to perfect the sustained wheelie with my TY250, but never quite got the hang of it. I'm envious of people with that skill. I'd either not lift the front wheel enough or go too far and flip it over backwards. I lost count of the number of back mudguards I smashed. They were plastic and pretty cheap at the time, but after busting a couple within a few days, I took a fibreglass mould off the next new one I bought so that I could make my own replacements. Oddly enough I never broke another one and never actually got to use the mould. I think I gave it to the bloke I sold the bike to. I never did master the technique for holding a continuous wheelie at the point of balance. I guess my throttle control skill isn't good enough.

I can sustain a sideways wheelie with the sidecar wheel for as long as you like. I reckon I could ride a sidecar outfit across a ditch on a single plank if I had to.
 
1980 Benelli 900 SEI. Unfamiliar decreasing radius turn, what turned out to be excessive speed as the turn tightened up unexpectedly, dragged the end of the crankshaft and ripped it off, the bike and I slid and tumbled and were each a bit of a mess......
 
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