Motorcycle fall down, go boom

It's been a long process trying to fix my previous bike and then searching for a new one. I finally bought one and took it out for it's first ride last night….. and crashed it.

Here is the story…..

Two nights ago I was finally able to pick up my 1977 Yamaha xs360 from LA, and just last night I rode it to downtown long beach for its first big ride.

Accompanying me was my friends Ryan, Jared and Danny who were all on their Vespas. We went from the El Dorado Park area to Pine and 9th downtown to head to Danny's apartment. Our next stop was the Pike to show my bike off to a friend who we had seen as we passed earlier. Right after that we headed to my friend Jole's new apartment which was about a block away. As it got late, and we got hungry it was time to head home. Jared, Ryan and I parted ways with Danny and headed east to get home from 4th street. It was a smooth ride home and I was really getting the hang of handling this bike. After we made our shortcut through CSULB we turned right onto Atherton from Palo Verde, and things went downhill.

I got ahead of Ryan after our turn and noticed a car which seemed to be parking. Then the car started to creep out into the road in a manner you'd expect a car to do while parallel parking, but then it kept coming and I realized it was making a U-Turn from the curb.

At 40mph it isn't too easy to stop right away. The car had gotten in front of me so I hit both brakes which locked and I started skidding towards the car. The bike took a dive to the left and tossed me off of it, in front of it. I slide a number of feet towards the center island, hit the island and bounced onto it, landing a good length from it's curb. The bike followed me , sliding into the curb and stopping there. I landed on my back and didn't move for a good 10 minutes before help came, not because I couldn't but I really didn't want to.

The Jeep backed up to where it had started and called 911 while Ryan and Jared rushed over to my landing spot. I knew I wasn't dead and I was 90% sure I hadn't broken anything, that 10% being my leg which was pretty numb so I wasn't exactly sure. I could still see, I didn't black out, and I wasn't delirious so I knew my head was alright. My body felt fine but my arms and legs felt like they were in buckets of dry ice, a constant stinging. As I laid there a nice woman parked her car next to me with her hazards on to divert traffic and talked to me about how she had fallen off the back of a harley two times before, so she knew my pain.

When the firetruck got there the fireman asked me a few questions about where it hurts, checked my ribs with a deep breath, and then cut up my left pant leg to get to my bleeding knee. He then asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital which I opted out of since I didn't want to spend the rest of the night there, nor did I want to have to deal with hospital bills, even if it wasn't me who had to pay for them. Why waste resources for some road rash that I can treat at home? With that the firemen packed up and left, leaving me with the police who had arrived around the same time.

We went through the motions of being in an accident, license, statement, injuries, bike damage, blah blah. I might ad, I managed to keep my gum in my mouth throughout the accident and was chewing it after I got up, which is when I felt the hard bit. I fished out this mystery piece with my tongue and I turned to ryan.

"I think I chipped a tooth!" Sure enough I spit out a little chunk of my very back, top right molar; Jared has it in his wallet right now.

As the cop finished filling out my info he looked at my bloody joints and made sure that I didn't want to go to the hospital. I said I was sure. Then he said, "So the firemen came, and they didn't clean you up?"

"Nope"

"Humph, and they call them heroes."

Finally right before parting ways, the kid who was driving came up and said he didn't want to leave here without apologizing, which I feel was big of him. The cops gave us our case number and told us to call in a week after the paperwork goes through and we'll see how it goes from there.

About 5 min after I had initially got up, Jared left to go get our bands trailer to take my bike home and after the police left he pulled up with our getaway car. Ryan and Jared loaded Max (the Yamaha) into the trailer and we headed home.

Once in my driveway I snapped a few shots.

What happened to my bike: Both left blinkers and headlight broke, clutch lever is broken, clutch pedal is bent inward(unusable), seat torn, general scuffs on left side, gas tank smashed and cracked open. (Update: not cracked open)

What happened to me: Both hands torn up, both knees, left foot, left ankle sore from impact, both knees sore, tooth chipped, bruise on my lower back from hitting the curb, nothing broken thankfully.

The bike is inoperable due to the leaking gas tank and the clutch scenario, but the tires still spin. The bike never hit the car and neither did I, which could have made this accident a lot worse, but I am glad I am still here and able to write all this.

I'm not looking to get compensated for my injuries, nor the day of work I missed today or any of that BS, the only thing I hope that can happen now is some help from the kids insurance company to get my bike back in working order. Shit happens and it did last night. They call them accidents for a reason and it clearly was a careless mistake.

I am just happy that my friends or I weren't harmed more severely in the wreck... although it is still a bummer I can't ride my new bike today.