Saturday afternoon, it's a nice open stretch of I-65, my brother-in-law and I are having a nice ride down to the local Suzuki/Honda/Yamaha dealer to pick up a couple things for his SV650s. My lower fairing was flapping a little in the wind due to a couple broken mounting points. I stopped at the Gas station and bought some "tie wraps" to stabilize the the fairing. All seemed well for the next 10 miles. My b-in-law blew by me when we cleared traffic and I decided to play tag. I dropped it into 5th and shot past him with the quickness. Last I saw on the speedo was 110 and climbing...

All of a sudden, as I chuckled to myself, I heard a loud popping/crackling noise.

The bike violently pulled to the left, and something hard smacked my leg and ripped a nice holemy jeans. I looked back to see if my brother in law was ok..... He was pulling over to the side of the interstate (inside lane). I pulled over to the outside lane and tried to call him on my cell. I looked down and the entire lower side fairing on the left side was ripped completely off. With it it took all the mounting points on the upper faring on the left side. I was bleeding but not too bad, and there was still no answer from my brother-in law.. I was worried and started running down the interstate shoulder toward his riderless bike...

All of a sudden my phone rang, he told me what happened. The lower left fairing caught a huge burst of wind and ripped off hitting my leg and barely missing his arm.. It launched about 50ft straight up in the air like a rocket taking flight. It came down to earth like a leaf falling from a colorful oak tree in the fall, and smacked into the concrete median. He ran back, picked it up, met me at the bikeshop... It's really beaten up but is probably salvageable..

I was just so happy that he wasn't injured in the fiasco.. My heart dropped when I thought that he may have been hit by that huge chunk of hardened plastic... It was crazy...

Rider be ware.. The simplest overlooked item could potentially become deadly.. Ride safe, and think of the other people you ride with whenever you do anything.

The fairing is now held on with the white tie wraps as seen in the picture.. Nuts...

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Thanks for sharing that
When you're having so much fun it's easy to forget--
this is a dangerous thing we all do

 

true that, gear up and ride safe

 

sorry to hear that and glad you are still here, that sucks man, good thing it sounds like there wasnt much traffic around

 

As my grandmother used to say: "Now you know how that works..."
Glad to hear both of you (and everyone on the road that day) are safe.
Whew! []

 

I am not sure whybut this little quote gave me a nice laugh. Maybe because the whole story was about bad news and dread and then you have this nice peaceful little thought in the middle of the story.

Anyways I am glad you are ok and that no one got hurt.

 

Holy crap! That could of been really bad. Glad you two are alright. Reminds everyone to do a quick check before the fun begins.

 

Sounds crazy....glad everyone was OK

 

Glad you're both okay and your bikes too.

Something to think about: A 1000 lb Cessna 150 takes off at 80 mph. A Boeing 767 weighs 325,000 lbs empty. With Fuel, it weighs over 500,000 lbs; that's more than half a million pounds! It takes off at 160 to 180 MPH so just imagine the aerodynamics of such a feat. If a panel is loose or sticking up, it is immediately ripped off. You're lucky that the mount point ziptiessnapped off because if they didn't, that pull to the left could have been longer and disasterous as you said. Our bikes are a lot lighter and get up to take-off speed quicker and if they had wings, you'd be flying.So when you're out riding, check the bike over for loose hardware &fairings etc especially if you plan to break the land speed record.

 

Dang! That is some freaky stuff there. Glad neither of you were hurt worsewhen it broke loose.Somebodyhad your back on that ride.