I write this thanking God that my buddy Matt is ok. A coworker who owns a Ducati sport bike asked me to go for a mountain run this morning. We ran through the mountains east of San Diego for about an hour with me following him until the turn around. I kept up pretty good most of the time. At the turn around he asked if I wanted to take lead. I obliged! We came to a border patrol check point where the officer asked what I was doing out here. I said I was having some fun with the crazy guy on the bike behind me. He said will you let him pass you...I said "he's not good enough to pass me!". Apparently he passed that on to my buddy Matt. So we drove for a few minutes when I signaled Matt to follow me through a REALLY twistie (15mph turns) section twisties along a mountain. I started this twistie run with a 90 degree right hand sweeper with about a 5-6 second drift. I start to really pull ahead of him and decide to pull over to let him catch up. 10 seconds goes by.....20 seconds go by and I start to get anxious and turn around. I drive back about 4 or 5 turns and see my buddy Matt laying in the middle of the road in a river of gasoline. His bike is trashed. He hit a 2 foot tall rock just off the side of the road and flipped over his handle bars and landed on his head, hip, and tore up his ankle pretty good. I am freaking out seeing him until I start to talk with him and doing my paramedic trained assessment and realize he's alright. I pull his bike off to the side and call Momo for some help. I pick up Momo about 15 miles down the road, drop off Matt at his house, pick up my pickup truck and drive back out there to pick up the bike. When we pull back up there are four cars and 7 people there beating bushes looking for a rider on the side of the mountain. I ask "hey, are you guys looking for a rider?". They respond yes! I tell them he is ok and am back to pick up the bike. Momo and I chuckled in disbelief...and that my buddy was ok! Just thought I'd share the story!!!
And they say helmets get in the way. I am very glad to know Matt is in good shape. It could have been much worse. Great job Rick.
this brings back horrid memories of when i was in my early 20's living in northern cali. my brother and i went with a bunch of friends out riding in the foothills. we took off on a very twisty stretch along a mountain road that had no gaurdrails, and nothing but a straight drop off the edge. i am in front, with my bro right behind me and the rest following. i am setting a pretty fast and agressive pace. suddenly, i over cook a corner, go in waaaaay to deep and take a bad line to the outside of the turn. unfortunately my brother was on my outside shoulder....... i ended up forcing him off the road and completely off the cliff!!!!! i remember doing the same thing rick....looking in my mirror waiting to see lights......after a few seconds, i turn around and see my friends looking over the edge and i panic when i do not see my bro. turns out he was clinging to a tree just about 20 feet down the side of the road. we managed to get him back, but the bike was another 50 feet down the side of the hill caught on another tree!!! by the time we got back to get the bike, we literally had to repel down the side, hook up a cable to a winch on our truck, and drag the bike up!!! my brother is a very lucky man to be alive!!!! as often as i have gone down when i rode sport bikes, i was also very lucky! i know what your friend is feeling right now!! just glad he is ok!!!
Matt's one tough mofo! I live vicariously through him. He's single, has/had a Ducati, surfs every morning, squats 650 lbs, and is building a 600 hp vette purpose built for road racing. He's a really even keeled dude. After the wreck I was telling him how glad I was that he was ok....he said "yeah, it's just a bike....I can rebuild it!". On the drive back I wondered how I was able to pull away from him. Then I thought about how often he was having to shift his bikes weight every turn and it made sense. He just got behind on the turns one turn too many! I can't wait to go to work on Monday and retell the story. I think I'm going to give him the nickname "Evel". The SEAL community is a tough crowd...and Matt isn't a SEAL so we'll really bust his balls! LOL
HOLY SHIT Chris! That is some scary shit right there! I'm glad everything turned out ok on that one. Sorry to bring up some scary memories brother!
ugh! Glad to hear he's ok too. If he's doing better then I'm sure he's pissed about the bike by now. I've seen too many wrecks like that so I'll be saving the corners for the track. Had me a spill a few years ago, halloween 2004. A few friends were taking a cruise down to the hoover damn when I highsided going around a corner and broke my collar bone and 5 ribs. I was knocked out for quite a while too. The guys I was riding with said I was having a hard time breathing and convulsing with my eyes rolling back in my head. Glad I was out though cuz I'm sure the line of traffic would have had their way with me seeing as how I backed up traffic for miles on both sides of the border for over an hour while I got airlifted to the hospital. Only good part, the whole thing only cost me $75 deductable! lol!!
I'm glad you were ok....relatively speaking....on the drive back with Matt I mentioned that there is something to be said about pushing it at the track and not on the streets! You never know when a water main might be broken, or some debris on the road....or another driver crossing a yellow line!
Yes, reasons I drive more responsibly. Too many variables. Granted, most tracks aren't nearly as fun as the twisty mountain roads. I remember I had fun on Mullholland and on Route 9 a couple years ago.
no worries!! my brother and i look back and chuckle now, but at the time it was one of those things you really do not realize what could have been until a little time passes and you truly realize how lucky we got that day!!! this is why i stopped riding hard core sport bikes years ago!!!! espcially as we get a little older, a little wiser, and have little ones needing us!
I know, I'm a day late and a dollar short on this story... That shit was fucked up. The bike was trashed, front rim BENT, etc. I guess now that we knew he was ok, seeing those folks combing the bushes for a BODY was truly fucked up, yet, funny as hell. *yes, I'm sick* BTW: We loaded the bike onto Rick's truck, then did some drifting down the mountain. That boy can drive like the dickens!
