An experienced rider flew into LAX from Manitoba at 2:30 in the afternoon on February 17, 2008. We delivered the bike to his hotel at 3:00 and by 5:30 he and his bike were upside-down in a tree after riding off a cliff in Malibu.

    You can’t tell from the picture, but the bike is down the cliff about 30 feet. The angle of the slope is about 60 degrees and beyond the tree is another 400 foot drop into the canyon.


What can we learn from this?


  1. 1.After a long plane trip, you need to get some rest so that you are sharp and alert.


  1. 2.The mountain roads in Southern California are some of the most challenging in the world. Although the rides through the canyons are breathtaking, they are also dangerous. Many of the turns do not have guardrails or fences to keep you from going over the edge of a cliff. Rider beware.


  1. 3.The crashed bike is a Stratoliner. The rider was riding with a friend who was on a Concours 14. Obviously, the Concours is a faster bike through the mountains. I have a feeling that the rider on the Stratoliner was trying to keep up with the guy on the Concours in the mountains. Moral of the story, “Ride at your own pace. Don’t get pushed by others.”


  1. 4.Plan your riding according to your skill level. There are plenty of beautiful roads in California. You don’t need to be riding over your head to have a good time.


    Miraculously, the rider fell through the branches and was not crushed by the bike as it rolled down the cliff and got hung on the tree. The rider got away with only a few bruises and the loss of his security deposit.

   





    We delivered a K1200S and three Concours 14s to a Southern California residence the night of October 17, 2008. Four experienced local riders where planning to go sport-touring for a few days in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They left at 8:30 AM the next morning. Two hours later, we got a call that a rider had gone down and might have a broken leg.


What can we learn from this?


  1. 1.   Don’t mess around with a bike you are unfamiliar with. The rider owns a Kawasaki cruiser style bike, but was not use to the performance of a modern sport-touring bike. The tracking device on the bike indicated he had been riding at 114 MPH shortly after departing on the trip and that he was traveling over 50 MPH (in a 25 MPH zone) when he slammed into a canyon wall in the rain.

  2. 2.Choose your riding buddies carefully. After the crash, the three friends turned their bikes around and called the ambulance, a tow truck and the guys wife. After the ambulance arrived, they waived good-bye and left for the rest of their trip (at speeds of up-to 152 MPH). The rider and his wife wound up in a strange hospital two hours from home on a Saturday afternoon with an intern trying to save his leg from amputation. Fortunately, even though he had never done it before, the intern reconnected a major artery in the leg and the rider got away with “only” a broken femur bone.

  3. 3.    Don’t get sucked into doing something stupid or riding with stupid people. Honda recently did a safety campaign and some public service announcements titled, “Stupid Hurts.” Nothing could be more true. When I visited the rider after he got out of the hospital, he said, “I was just trying to keep up with my buddies.” How stupid is that?

  4. 4.    Public roads are no place for The Cannon Ball Run. You can easily ($295 for eight 20 minute sessions) buy a track day at the California Speedway and ride 175 MPH safely. Street racing just leads to accidents and innocent people getting hurt. Enough said...

  

    This was by far our worst accident yet. An experienced rider from the Czech Republic picked up a GS in Los Angeles on May 8, 2009 for a four day rental. In the late afternoon on May 10th, a 92 year-old gold miner from Death Valley called us from a phone at a gas station. “I found your boy out in Ballarat. He’s in pretty bad shape. You’d better come and get him.”


    Due to bad dirt-roads and harsh conditions (temperatures over 115 degrees at night), it took us until 11:00 PM that night to get our rescue van to Ballarat. We found the rider in terrible pain with a broken right wrist, broken fingers on his left hand and broken ribs.


    He had crashed by himself about 50 miles off-road in Death Valley in 125 degree heat. When he regained consciousness, he realized that if he didn’t ride the bike back to civilization, he would surely die alone in the desert. Somehow, with broken fingers and wrist, he lifted up the broken bike (which was totaled), started it and rode about 10 miles until he found the gold miner in Ballarat. Till this day, I still don’t know how he managed it.


What can we learn from this?


  1. 1.The United States is a very big country. Just a few hours drive outside of Los Angeles and you can be out in the middle of nowhere. No people, no roads, no cellphone service, no water and no hospitals. You just can’t ride around in the desert without a partner or without someone knowing exactly where you are going and when you will be back.

  2. 2.You need to have a satellite phone if you are going adventure touring. We were so disturbed by this accident that we now offer free Iridium phones to customers who plan to ride in remote areas either paved or unpaved.

  3. 3.Don’t bite-off more than you can chew. The bikes are big, the roads are fast, the country is vast and there is danger everywhere. You have to use some common sense to stay out of bad situations.


   We are in this business because we are passionate about motorcycles and like meeting people who share our passion for fun and adventure. However, when someone gets hurt, the passion, fun and adventure all goes away and you get left with a feeling of loss and sadness.

    Take some extra time when planning your motorcycle adventure to think about safety. Are you on the right bike? Are you riding with the right people? Do you have the experience you need to take the roads you have chosen?

    For our part, we will provide you with class leading motorcycles that are well maintained and make available to you top-notch riding and safety gear. We are familiar with the roads in California, Nevada and Arizona and can give you advice about where you should go.

    When all is said and done, safety is the most important part of any motorcycle adventure. The best way to have a great motorcycle vacation is to take the extra time to plan safety into the trip.


Ride safe...