Your stupidest crash?

[Taipan]

Got to be some good tales to be told here!

I've probably got a few when I think about it, but this one was fairly recent. I pulled up at my house, got the bike into position for my ground anchor and put the side stand down then lent the bike over to get off. But the side stand hadn't gone down fully and had retracted itself. So over I went with a fecking great NC750X on top of me! Fortunately it had crash bars, otherwise it'd have probably broke my leg!

[DefTrap]

Crashed my own bike (first day after it was back on the road after fixing it).
Borrowed a friend's bike, to get to work, rode it home - car stopped in front of me so I hauled on the brakes and there weren't really any - stacked it in the same place as the crash the day before.

[Horse]

Parked in a space alongside two cars, which were outside of garages.

Bike facing uphill, towards the garages.

Disc lock on, always put it so that it was against caliper, so minimal wheel rotation possible.

Leaving ... cars are gone. Ah, space for a U turn!

Ride forward, feet up, CLANG, huh? Oh faaaarkcrunch.

Next day a neighbour asked Filly "Was your man ok? He didn't seem very happy."

[The Spin Doctor]

Bloody hell... how long have you got?

I'll dig out a couple of the tales I've written up over the years!

[Rockburner]

Probably the 10mph highside.

Going out to visit a mate on my ZXR400 (when it had the green paintjob - so pre VD), I got about 3/4 of a mile from home to find that the council had 'tar&chipped' one of the local roads.



The tar&chipping ended 2/3rds of the way around a long corner (this one : https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.52246 ... 384!8i8192 ), about a yard past where that side-road is.

I was doing no more than 10mph, the chippings had gone down that morning and hadn't been rolled in by traffic yet - so it was hideously slippery even on the soft tar area.

What I hadn't realised was that the chippings had also been thrown forward from the work area and had piled up on the 'hard' tarmac just beyond the work area. When I hit the 2" deep pile of chippings I was still slightly leant over (for the corner), and without even putting any throttle on at all, the rear wheel just slid sidewise on the loose chippings and then hit the old tarmac, gripped and just flipped over.

I know it sounds unbelieveable, but I swear that's what happened. I ended up lying in the gutter on the other side of the road and all the damage to the bike was on the right side bodywork.

First person on the scene was the local bobby! Luckily he was a friend of the family as well and gave the council hell, demanding they come back and clean up the mess, and he provided me with an incident report for the insurance claim against the council that totally blamed the council workers.

The really irritating thing was although the repairs were done under insurance, the bike shop doing the work didn't ask me where I'd had the paint job done and just repainted the bike black/purple.

[Skub]

They were all pretty stupid. I'll have a think on the prime examples.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I'm not the tallest person, I also enjoy riding off road motorcycles, riding isn't a problem, coming to a stop can be.
On the 2002 Welsh Rally of Discovery (an off road navigation rally) I rode my DRZ400 up to a navigation point at a castle some where in south Wales and there were a load of tourists there, I came to a stop and put my foot down only to discover I'd stopped on a slope and there was no ground under my foot, I promptly fell over at 0 mph, crawled out from under the bike, did a bow for the watching crowd, picked the bike up and pushed it to somewhere where I could remount.
My fellow rally competitors found this hugely amusing and I got a good bit of piss taking in the bar that evening.

There's also the hitting a tree with my head during the 2002 Cambrian Rally and getting knocked off the back of the bike incident, and I'll probably think of some more laughable off road crashes.

[Skub]

My Z1 ownership was a 70s crashfest. My early biking years were a perfect example of someone with way more balls than brains.

One example.

It's gone now,but we used to have a road locally named Lover's Lane. It was narrow,(just about enough room for two cars to pass carefully) straight,tree lined on both sides and had several major humps. These were often used by local hooligans to get some air,wheelie off and generally behave like dicks.

On one particular day I blattered down the road on my Z1 and succeeded in getting a little more air than I anticipated. Unfortunately for me and the oncoming driver of a Reliant Robin,it looked very much like the landing was going to be more than a bit out of shape. I still have a vivid image of his eyes over the steering wheel as he saw the rapidly approaching Kawasaki sump.

The bike landed well on the driver's side of the road,he swerved to his right,but the Kawasaki's alternator casing on the left of the bike entered his front wheel arch and peeled the plastic pig from stem to stern,doors and all. I bounced off the demolition and into the trees. I managed to miss most of the small trees,but one large one had my name on it. Being ever thoughtful of the bike,I pushed it away and took the hit myself.

I broke my arm,but didn't know this until much later in the day. The bike suffered a minor dent in the alternator casing and a smashed headlamp.

The Robin was destroyed down the left side. The owner was understandably upset.

Around that time my insurance was loaded by 400%

[Cousin Jack]

I've probably told this story before.

Coming back from VD Memorial Meet in Derbyshire on my new-to-me (and still very shiny) VFR. Stopped at a service area for coffee, put the disclock on, and went off for coffee. Hot sunny day and I noticed 2 gorgeous young ladies in somewhat skimpy tops and skirts. As I left to go back to the bike they did too, with an older couple. They all went to a sports coupe parked very close to the bike and contorted themselves quite delightfully getting into a very cramped rear seat. I was so taken with this sight that I quite forgot the disclock and rode off.

The result was inevitable.

[Beancounter]

I'm not the tallest person, I also enjoy riding off road motorcycles, riding isn't a problem, coming to a stop can be.
On the 2002 Welsh Rally of Discovery (an off road navigation rally) I rode my DRZ400 up to a navigation point at a castle some where in south Wales and there were a load of tourists there, I came to a stop and put my foot down only to discover I'd stopped on a slope and there was no ground under my foot, I promptly fell over at 0 mph, crawled out from under the bike, did a bow for the watching crowd, picked the bike up and pushed it to somewhere where I could remount.

Smallred (I don't think she's on here) did similar on her WR250 whilst coming to a stop at traffic lights for the junction of Oxford Circus and Regent Street, in front of police and Christmas shoppers. Was quite funny at the time.

My stupidest crash was at the car park ticket barriers at Stansted Airport. Barrier didn't lift so I tried to bump up the kerb, lost my footing and the bike went over with me falling against the barrier.

[Dickyboy]

I dropped my GS on Monday skillfully manoeuvring into a bike bay in that there London. Had to abandon reversing into a gap because I hadn't shifted the scooters quite enough to get lard arse in whilst simultaneously forgetting the side stand wasn't down as I jumped off to move the scooters a tad more. At least I now know I can pick the bugger up full top box and panniers too.

[Dickyboy]

Mate of mine claimed to have caused a crash after ending up in a swampy ditch, crawling out like some monster from the deep & a passing car was so distracted it followed his bike into the ditch.

My stupidest crash was at the car park ticket barriers at Stansted Airport. Barrier didn't lift so I tried to bump up the kerb, lost my footing and the bike went over with me falling against the barrier.

Witnessed a barrier come down between rider and pillion once, might have laughed more than I should.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

FB_IMG_1577714796985.jpg (39.95 KiB) Viewed 393 times

Photographic evidence of my stupidity, this must be the winter of 2002, taken near Thetford Forest, it was about -7 and all the puddles were frozen over, I thought it was great fun to ride through the snow, onto the icy puddles and slide across the top of them, this puddle wouldn't support the weight of a DRZ400 and the 35 year old cheese, back wheel went through first, bike lost any momentum and went over, I'm now lying in a puddle of ice and muddy water with a DRZ on top of me, my "mate" finds time to take pictures and laugh rather than help me out.

[The Spin Doctor]

my "mate" finds time to take pictures and laugh rather than help me out.

Top man. Photographic evidence is vital in cases like this.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

my "mate" finds time to take pictures and laugh rather than help me out.

Top man. Photographic evidence is vital in cases like this.

At least I didn't manage to ride into the back of his dad like he did.

[Buckaroo]

Years ago, when sidestands didn't always have switches, I just left work on a Honda 500T, after 12.5 hrs of night work, to hit a sharp left turn. The bike pivoted on the stand and dumped me in the road. Thankfully I wasn't going too fast, but unfortunately, my mates saw it and gave me stick for weeks.

[Taipan]

When I was a yoof working in a garage I used to wear a boiler suit. I went home for lunch on my trusty RD250. I pulled up at the lights and went to put my foot down but couldn't as the boiler suit had gone over the kickstart and I promptly fell onto a Morris Marina!

[Count Steer]

my "mate" finds time to take pictures and laugh rather than help me out.

Top man. Photographic evidence is vital in cases like this.

At least I didn't manage to ride into the back of his dad like he did.

IIRC RB has form when it comes to keeping impacts 'in the family'. Something like a head on, on his own drive, with his brother? Kudos!

(Must have been a long drive!).

[Count Steer]

I've posted mine before but, after a fuel stop, I set off, into the kerb/plinth that the pumps stand on. Didn't see because the fairing was so big and the plinth, rather stupidly was shaped like a cartoon dog-bone with sticky out bits at each end.

Bump! Up goes the front end followed by a slow collapse into an untidy heap on the garage forecourt. Once gravity gets hold of a K12LT, there's only one winner. No damage but rather surprised that the front wheel didn't buckle or go out of true.

[v8-powered]

When I was a yoof working in a garage I used to wear a boiler suit. I went home for lunch on my trusty RD250. I pulled up at the lights and went to put my foot down but couldn't as the boiler suit had gone over the kickstart and I promptly fell onto a Morris Marina!

I had very similar to this only a few weeks back - laces loop from the boots I was wearing had looped over the footrest guard, rolling to a stop and went to put my foot down and found I couldn't! Luckily nothing in front so managed to keep a little momentum and unhook myself.