My Road Days are Over

[DukeRed]

Well after an awful lot of thinking and weighing up things I've realised I'm not safe on the roads. I'v got my car test on thursday so a car is what I'm going to opt for and going to have a track bike to get all that testosterone out. After 4 rather unpleasant crashes within 2 months of having it I think that road bikes are not suited to me no matter how much I want them to be. Alas I will always be a track day biker.

Jan
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Enjoy Life There's Plenty of Time to be Dead
https://www.janoner.com

[Visitor Q]

*hugs*

Dw youll be back out on it in no time, its kinda like us all deciding we are getting fat (-not me obviously, i have a six pack honest -) so we will definitely cut down the beer, crisps and lack of excercise. Lasts a week if we are lucky.

Same with quiting biking from what ive seen, everyone gets back into it within a month or two. Just got to take it easier, i tend to be a bit of a loon but i take it easy on occasions when im a bit worried about the road/death boxes. Im assuming you have/had a decent bike and so the urge to go faster then perhaps the road conditions allowed was the downfall. Or maybe just really bad luck. Either way sad to hear. But im sure you will miss the convenience of bikes (once on road that is, the gear and locking up is a pain obviously) and naturally the fun or riding them.
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China traffic/travel bike vid - When I make a sweeping statement, please add the word 'statistically' in to the sentence before you bitch...
From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule...

[G]

Just a thought.....

You've crashed a 150kg (or whatever) machine on the roads a few times. Not sure of the details, but this is a time when presumably you've known you're going to hurt yourself.

You're now going to get a 1000+kg machine where you're much less likely to hurt your self if you crash.
Okay, maybe good that you don't hurt yourself, but the damage you can cause is a lot greater now.

Maybe you could just calm down a bit; maybe take some advandced riding lessons so you can read the road a bit better and understand more when you can and can't push the bike.


I did crash my first bike quite a lot (probably around 10 times in under a year), though most weren't too significant; just grazed knees because no bike trousers. However I reckon this crashing stood me in fairly good stead for later, bigger bikes... I could push them a bit and when dodgy stuff happened I had already got a kinda instictive reation to stop me crashing.

[headlamp]

Sorry to hear your decision but well done on being brave and stoic about it.

My brother in law, who had three bikes in three years including a Triumph Trident crashed as many times. He came to the conclusion he was not cut out to ride a bike and now commutes in his car. He has not had a crash since.
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Using a mobile phone while driving a car should be made a capital offence!

[priller]

I know how you feel, I've lost 2 friends recently in crashs, 1 still in hospital weeks after crashing, probably wont walk again and a new rider with the club i ride with died last weeked. So it aint been a good time recently.

I'm either going to stop riding on the road or slow down a bit.

[ZZ-Rse]

[sv_cath]

Maybe it's the type of bike you're riding doesn't suit you? I tried riding my other half's R6 and only got a few metres down the road before I knew that I'd crash if I went out for a ride - I just felt completely out of control.
My SV650 however lets me feel like I'm totally in control and able to ride within my limits.
Is this worth thinking about?

[Bendy]

I would certainly analyze *why* you've crashed, cos if it was down to your riding style I'd be extremely worried about you swapping the bike for a car where, as G says, you can do a whole load more damage.

[DukeRed]

Thanks all, alot of food for thought.
I do totally agree with G and Bendy that if I changed driving style and took advanced lessons I would crash alot less/likely hood of crashing less. It's just that no matter how advanced people are on the bikes there's still so much more things likely to kill you. A friend of mine was coming back from his last day of uni and a road works hadn't been cleaned up properly, skidded in too a lamppost and that was it.

I know I'm saying all this and sounding like I don't wan't to ride anymore but I so do, its great fun. It's the other things on the road that worries me.

For two of the crashes I could have avoided them if I didn't brake and leant over instead. The other two where me thinking I could overtake anything at anytime round anything, you get the picture.

Jan
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Enjoy Life There's Plenty of Time to be Dead
https://www.janoner.com

[Robby]

Its fair enough, lots of us have at one point or another decided its just not fun riding on the road any more - I did, kev did for several months but seems to enjoy it again now, ste is understandably rather scared of it although it may be a while until he can ride again anyway.

My choice would be to sell your bike, hang up your riding gear, and get a little car. Don't blow everything on it, becasue there is a high chance of you crashing in your first year of driving.

See if you miss bikes after 2 or 3 months in a car. I know I miss aspects of riding, and when I have the health and money I'll get a cheap little thing. Wouldn't want to go back to riding a bike every day though.

[Ninja]

brave decision - not many people would be able to openly admit what you've just done
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James
4 wheels transport the Body ... 2 wheels transport the SOUL

[Ste]

Fair enough, but I'd look more closely at why you had the crashes, and consider some further advanced training to improve your abilities. And as G said, a car can do a lot more damage, and they do. We were just driving along perfectly safely and sensibly and then the crash happened and I ended up In Lincoln Hospital and have been in hospital since then firstly in internsive care on the critical list, as did alex althouth they have discharged him and I'm still in hospitals . The thing is, we wern't doing anything wrong and it just happened, if we'd been on bike or even in the car trying something daft or something and something goes wrong you can put a finger on it, but we can't with this (well, the police report will be trying to :-\ )and that makes it quite a lot harder to deal with.

If you're worried about your road abilities you are a bigger danger to yourself and others when you're in the car aka 1000kg + missile.

[G]

Also.... have a look at the sticky thread at the top.

Cars can be very dangerous as well. We were very lucky to some degree, me incredibly so, the others still lucky. What had happened if the car had caught fire? I'm sure there was enough fuel around for a spark to have meant it ended a lot lot more nastily.
You also have to look at the way you're much likely to hurt other people in a car; how would you feel if you just left a kid without a mother or father?

You can't really compare the two, but yes bikers probably have more serious accidents per person, however go and compare that to cars that perform similar to bikes and it may look a whole load better though.

Bikes aren't for everyone, just make sure you're making the choices you are for the right reasons.

Some accidents can't be avoided, I suspect the majority (definitely all of my bikes ones) of bike accidents can be avoided... usually with a bit of sense and judgement.
But then people that buy bikes don't get them because of good sense of 'sensible' judgement .