Tragic
crash kills none
What qualifies as a crash? You'd be forgiven for thinking this is a simple problem
- that is, I fell off, am underneath the motorcycle and am no longer in control.
It's not that easy and there are shades of grey.
Two things highlighted this in the Guido household recently. One was a particularly
nasty shed incident (which I'll get to later) and the other an email from AMT
Ad Ringmaster Marty Hone.
Mr H was responding to my announcement of taking a flying lesson. Now there's
a situation which seems clear-cut: You land and live, or not. Nup. We're advised
that any landing which you walk away from is good; And any landing where you
can re-use the plane is sensational. Very comforting.
Motorcyclists have a similar thing happening. Most dirt crashes don't count,
so long as you can walk away and the bike is ride-able. Even if you rode it
up a tree, looped it, and landed on your head. Still doesn't count.
Road crashes should be more clear-cut, but aren't. If you crash in your drive,
and therefore never made it to the road, it doesn't count - or so I'm told.
Nor does my fave crash, which is where I tried to bump-start one of Ms M's bikes
on an icy dirt road near Bungendore (look it up). I jumped on to, but slid straight
off, the saddle, and ended up skating down the road on my knees beside the motorcycle,
which I was still holding by the handlebars, until the front tyre finally folded
in and let us both lie down.
That, apparently, was not a crash because: A. I never actually mounted the motorcycle;
B. It happened on dirt; C. Both bike and rider were able to restart; D. There
is no dignity in crashing while already on your knees.
Another recent incident was when friend Mr M trowelled an Aprilia - that was
a crash, apparently, because he slid off a tar road. Even though he and the
bike were both perfectly ride-able.
I've had a couple of gold-plated crashes over time. One killed a bike, and the
other killed the motorcycle and a Valiant. Since I walked away from both, Marty
will assure us they were both good landings.
So what happens if you ride thousands of kilometers and klutz-up in front of
witnesses? Here's an example. I rode my CB750 to the Bathurst Easter races (anyone
remember them?) one year and decided to park it, after 12 hours on the road,
near Hell Corner.
Apparently it was a lull in proceedings, because when I put the sidestand up
my trouser leg and wound up under the rotten thing, I got a rousing cheer from
the several hundred mildly bored dingbats within shouting distance. Eventually
disentangling from the Honda, trousers at half-mast and the bike still on its
side, I stood up and did the only decent thing - which was bow. That wasn't
a crash, either.
But a recent shed tragedy might qualify. I was returning a freshly-washed test
bike to the shed after a three-day ride and wasn't paying attention. The tester
clipped Gerald the GS Suzi, which rolled off its centrestand and started to
fall.
This is happening in slow-motion - you can't drop the test machine and both
hands are full. Daughter Ms A is watching this unfold and suddenly goes quiet
mid-sentence in describing the latest weird cultural adventures of a 16-year-old.
Gerald teeters briefly, then decides to head-butt Mac the Valk Interstate, which
he also knocks over. There's lots of strange but awfully familiar cracking and
grinding noises as a collective 600 kilos of motorcycles, some of it expensive,
decides to attack the side of the shed. Then silence. If you ignore the tinkling
noises.
Speechless, I put the tester on its sidestand. And then take the covers off
the fallen bikes. Gerald's fairing is rooted, but somehow the Valk has survived
unscathed. Now that was a crash.
Guy "Guido" Allen
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