{"id":178,"date":"2010-02-28T15:26:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelonelyrider.com\/?p=91"},"modified":"2010-10-12T15:31:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T15:31:18","slug":"scary-moment-recalled-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/scary-moment-recalled-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Scary Moment Recalled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With all the snow I’ve gotten in my area recently and hearing about all the collisions on the roads, I recall a close-call that I had myself just a couple years ago on snowy roads…on my bike.<\/p>\n

Two weeks after picking up my BMW F650GS, I was riding home from my dealership (needed to order a couple things). It was in Feb and the forecast called for light flurries late in the evening. I figured I had plenty of time to get home. I was wrong and so was the forecast. The weather system arrived 3hrs early and it wasn’t just flurries…it was a full out storm.<\/p>\n

As I rode the highway, the roads became wet but I wasn’t concerned. At least not until I came to my exit and saw the off ramp was at least 1cm deep with wet snow. Oh crap! Not only was I thinking this but I nearly did too! I wished at this point that my bike had ABS but it didn’t.<\/p>\n

I knew well enough to not touch the front brake but every time I applied the slightest rear brake, my rear wheel locked up causing me to fish tail dramatically. Ok…I’m gonna crash I thought to myself. I accepted it. I double downshifted in hopes of using engine braking to slow down. Of course my rear wheel slid out as I varied clutch and throttle inputs, but because my rear wheel was still spinning, I still had vertical stability thanks to the laws of physics and how gyroscopes work. I fish-tailed through the entire ramp Motard style but managed to stay upright and was able to come to a safe stop at the lights.<\/p>\n

Sitting at the light, my heart pounding in my chest, I observed the conditions on Victoria Park and it was bad. Cars were skidding through the intersection, drifting into snow banks and once again thought to myself…I’m gonna crash.<\/p>\n

I gingerly turned onto Vic Park, and every foot traveled was a challenging, white-knuckle ride. My heart was pounding hard and my eyes were popping out of my head as I watched cars slamming into each other. How the hell was I going to make it home? The snow was coming down so hard and visibility was near-zero. This was a bloody blizzard!!!!<\/p>\n

This was getting bad…really bad. I thought of parking the bike and calling for a tow truck but I was nearly home. Just take it easy…control your breathing and don’t bloody panic! I needed to get off this road though before I turned into a speed bump for some incompetent SUV driver. I turned onto a side street and was grateful to be away from the carnage I was witnessing on the main road. I literally lost count of the number of cars I observed crashing into snow banks or each other. I was happy with my choice to get off the main road; well…that was until I actually turned onto the side street and saw that the snow was so much deeper because there was no traffic driving on it. Damn…now I’m sliding sideways at 10km\/hr down hill approaching a curve and what do I see? A car attempting to go up the hill towards me but skidded sideways and it was blocking my path. Yup…I’m screwed. No way I can stop. I’m gonna crash.<\/p>\n

At the last moment, I saw what I needed…an escape hole around the backside of the car against the left curb. I aimed for it and figured I was going down for sure but at least I would hit the snow bank and not the side of the car.<\/p>\n

Screw it…I’m going for it! I recall talking to myself “take it easy..stay smooth…look were you want to go…don’t screw up!” You can imagine my surprise when I rounded the back of the sideways sliding car, my rear wheel grazing the snow bank, which actually straightened me out and I proceeded down the hill without dumping and filling my helmet with snow.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t believe it! Only half a kilometer left to get home and although I continued slipping, sliding and drifting…I made it…without crashing.<\/p>\n

Was it skill? Was it luck? I would say a good combo of both!<\/p>\n

It was one of those times that you either soil yourself in fear or pucker up so tight that you can’t take a dump for two days. Well I didn’t ruin my shorts that day and two days later…I was able to go again.<\/p>\n

Made me think though…why with four wheels and ABS did so many cars crash but I didn’t with half the wheels and no ABS?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all the snow I’ve gotten in my area recently and hearing about all the collisions on the roads, I recall a close-call that I had myself just a couple years ago on snowy roads…on my bike. Two weeks after picking up my BMW F650GS, I was riding home from my dealership (needed to order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pedVzR-2S","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}