- Aug 3, 2004
- 1,003
- 0
Have you ever had one of those crashes where many small mistakes all conspire to throw you on your ass like you've never been thrown on your ass before? Sure you have, this is a story of one of those crashes.
It was this past friday (April 14th) and it was the first time that I was going to ride my '06 125sx on a real MX track. I get the bike out on the track and can't believe how much better it is than my 426f, enen though it does have much less power. The bike works wonderfully. The harder you are on the brakes, the sharper you try to turn it, the more throttle you give it, the better it works. This bike just loves to be ridden HARD. I ride a few more sessions before going out for a couple WFO 100% race pace laps, which for me really isin't all that fast, I am only a "C" rider anywho. I get out there and procede to beat the hell out of that bike 2 laps. Until I come up to this small jump right after the exit of the last corner before I was getting ready to pull off the track.
Let me set it up for you.
The dirt in this corner is hard, I'm talking bluegroove, with a nice layer of loose silty dust/dirt lying on top. The face of the jump is equally burned out. There are 2 lines that can be taken in this corner, inside line with a smaller jump, or outside line with a bigger jump. Up to this point I have been taking the inside line and rolling it, but for the previous 2 laps I have been taking the outside like and getting a good drive up to the jump, but was rolling it. This time was it. I was going to do this jump. I am very familiar with how my bike behaves jumping using a variety of different techniques (preload, seat bounce, etc), but was not ready for everything to go wrong all at once.
I go into the corner, pin the throttle and begin to slip the clutch, I know I need good drive to clear this jump, especially since I'll be seat-bumping it. I get good drive out of the corner, good drive all the way up the face of the jump, until, the front tire leaves the face... I hear the rear tire break loose, but by this point there is nothing I can do, I'm already committed to a seat-bump, I'm just going to hope that I got enough drive to get the front tire over the landing hump. Guess what, I didn't. Not only was I pitched violently forward because I lost all drive on the seat bump, but I also came up short, WITH THE FRONT WHEEL LOW. As we all know, you never want to have the front wheel low if you aren't going to clear the double, as you'll likely be thrown over the bars. That's about what happened. I almost cleared the jump, so that means the bike decided to follow me to the ground and use my body to break it's fall. I thought that hitting your chest into the bars when you case a jump could knock the wind out of you. I was wrong. A bike landing on you has a much better wind-knocking effect.
All-in-all, it could have been a much worse crash, I could have gotten seriously hurt, but that didn't happen. I do, however, have pics for you all to laught at. Here is a pic of my right shoulder, not a good pic, up close you could see the dirt that got ground into it.
Way cooler than some tribal tattoo!
Here are 2 pics of my left lower back, some part of my bike decided to land on me here.
Yea! I was really attacked by a bear! You should see him! (My best guess is that this was caused by a tire)
Unfortunitely, pictures don't always convey how nasty such injuries actually look in person, You just don't get the wet, oozing effect with a picture. And to make it worse, I usually keep my waist band right where the worst part of this is. I got dress up like a plumber for a few days...
The part that hurts even worse than those two are pretty much every muscle in my back, and the muscles on my front lower ribcage from the impact. I knew I'd have a nice crash on my KTM sometime soon, and here it is.
It was this past friday (April 14th) and it was the first time that I was going to ride my '06 125sx on a real MX track. I get the bike out on the track and can't believe how much better it is than my 426f, enen though it does have much less power. The bike works wonderfully. The harder you are on the brakes, the sharper you try to turn it, the more throttle you give it, the better it works. This bike just loves to be ridden HARD. I ride a few more sessions before going out for a couple WFO 100% race pace laps, which for me really isin't all that fast, I am only a "C" rider anywho. I get out there and procede to beat the hell out of that bike 2 laps. Until I come up to this small jump right after the exit of the last corner before I was getting ready to pull off the track.
Let me set it up for you.
The dirt in this corner is hard, I'm talking bluegroove, with a nice layer of loose silty dust/dirt lying on top. The face of the jump is equally burned out. There are 2 lines that can be taken in this corner, inside line with a smaller jump, or outside line with a bigger jump. Up to this point I have been taking the inside line and rolling it, but for the previous 2 laps I have been taking the outside like and getting a good drive up to the jump, but was rolling it. This time was it. I was going to do this jump. I am very familiar with how my bike behaves jumping using a variety of different techniques (preload, seat bounce, etc), but was not ready for everything to go wrong all at once.
I go into the corner, pin the throttle and begin to slip the clutch, I know I need good drive to clear this jump, especially since I'll be seat-bumping it. I get good drive out of the corner, good drive all the way up the face of the jump, until, the front tire leaves the face... I hear the rear tire break loose, but by this point there is nothing I can do, I'm already committed to a seat-bump, I'm just going to hope that I got enough drive to get the front tire over the landing hump. Guess what, I didn't. Not only was I pitched violently forward because I lost all drive on the seat bump, but I also came up short, WITH THE FRONT WHEEL LOW. As we all know, you never want to have the front wheel low if you aren't going to clear the double, as you'll likely be thrown over the bars. That's about what happened. I almost cleared the jump, so that means the bike decided to follow me to the ground and use my body to break it's fall. I thought that hitting your chest into the bars when you case a jump could knock the wind out of you. I was wrong. A bike landing on you has a much better wind-knocking effect.
All-in-all, it could have been a much worse crash, I could have gotten seriously hurt, but that didn't happen. I do, however, have pics for you all to laught at. Here is a pic of my right shoulder, not a good pic, up close you could see the dirt that got ground into it.
Way cooler than some tribal tattoo!
Here are 2 pics of my left lower back, some part of my bike decided to land on me here.
Yea! I was really attacked by a bear! You should see him! (My best guess is that this was caused by a tire)
Unfortunitely, pictures don't always convey how nasty such injuries actually look in person, You just don't get the wet, oozing effect with a picture. And to make it worse, I usually keep my waist band right where the worst part of this is. I got dress up like a plumber for a few days...
The part that hurts even worse than those two are pretty much every muscle in my back, and the muscles on my front lower ribcage from the impact. I knew I'd have a nice crash on my KTM sometime soon, and here it is.
