I thought this was an interesting story. It's not my story, but I still htink it's post worthy in that it astounds me how stupid some people can be on a sport bike. It was written to be a true story but I cannot verify that. It does have a moral to the story!

This is a true story experienced first hand 4 years ago.

It was a beautiful day for riding and there were about 10 of us that met up at the Sonic burger restaurant in the neighborhood. Everybody in the group had been riding together for a while and knew each other pretty well. We had a couple guys that were stunters and pretty much everyone in the group were good riders. We had planned to take a ride up to Central City which is a really good ride for twisties and some good speed.

Well one of my buddies pulls into the Sonic lot and behind him is a guy with a tank top on and his helmet half way on top of his head riding my buddies beautiful TL1000. At first I didn't think much of it and I noticed no one else payed much attention to the situation until the guy grabbed a handful of brake about 15 feet from us and almost dropped the bike. That's when everyone's radar went up and you could see everyone's ears stand up like bloodhounds.

The guy laughed it off and pulled in next to all of us. My buddy just sat there shaking his head almost knowing that something horrendous was going to happen that day. So the question finally came up "who is that guy and why the hell are you letting him ride your TL1000?" He told us that the kid was his step brother and his stepdad asked him to take him out for a ride.

The kid goes and gets something to eat and on the way back that is when you notice he is wearing a pair of 1 strap Jordan sandals. I couldn't take it so I asked him how long he had been riding and this is when the bull$*** starts. He goes on saying he has been riding for years and that he has been racing for the last 5 years, yadda yadda yadda. I think the old guy in the Oldsmobile next to us could smell the bull$*** because he just stared shaking his head.

Well I was not going to ride with this guy because he did not have the gear, so on the way to the highway we all stopped by my house and I gave him a jacket and some boots. We made him strap on his helmet and off we went. As soon as we hit the highway this idiot is in 2nd gear and you could hear him red lining the hell out of this bike. My buddy pulls up next to him and tells him something and he finally goes through his gears. Surprisingly for the next 20 miles the guy does well. He stays in his lane and keeps good distance in the pack. When we pick up the speed he keeps up and never did he try to show off.

One of the guys in the front of the pack signals that they need to pull of the highway so we all pull off and pull into a parking lot right off the highway. We are right at the beginning of the foothills and this is where the ride starts to get really fun. So everyone is checking their gear and making sure we are ready for the rest of the ride up the mountain. That's when I look over and my buddies stepbrother lights up a cigarette, no big deal right? But this guy still has his helmet fully strapped on and he is trying to smoke this cigartte through his visor. I just laugh. You shold have seen this idiot.

This is where the adventure begins, we all pull off onto the frontage road and start heading back to the highway. This is when I notice he still has this damn cigarette and he is putting forth every effort to smoke and ride. We hit the highway and that's when you see his this idiot smacking at his helmet and finally he slams his visor shut. He begins to viloently hit his helmet and takes both hands off the bars and starts to reach for the straps on his helmet. Mind you we are going about 60 MPH right now and this assh*** is riding with no hands and jerking around on this bike. That's when I realize the idiot let the cigarette fall into his helmet and he is trying to get it out. Instead of pulling onto the shoulder the idiot keeps going and the rest of the pack falls behind him and just watches as he swurves back and forth and jerks violently on this bike. That's when it happens, the bike leans far to the right and then yanks to the left and launches him off the bike. He slides for a good 100 feet and the bike hits the guard rail and flips over the rail and down the side of the mountain.

We all pull up and help him up and you can see that his helmet has smoke in it. We help him get the helmet off, the guy has 4 burns on his face from the cigarette. His legs are road rashed to hell. i looked over on the other side of the highway and that is when I see my buddy standing at the guard rail looking over at his once cherry TL1000 about 200 feet down in so many pieces that the recovery service that came out only pulled the motor up because it was not worth trying to recover all the scraps.

When my buddy finally spoke; all he said was that he was happy he said goodbye to the bike earlier that day because he knew he would never see it again.

I learned a lot that day. Most of all trust your instincts about who you ride with. If you think they will get you hurt they probably will.
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thats why i have a flip up helmet. i smoke and ride

 

i've seen that chit before and had those "feelings.

poor TL.

a few times i've had that "this cat's gonna crash" feel and it's always been right

 

That's why you never let anybody ride your bike. It's a lesson I learned the hard way.

 

Thats just dumb enough to be true lol. The *** hats that talk the most crap are usually the ones that don't have a clue.

 

werd!

 

true or not that guy deserves every injury he got and should have to pay for the bike in full. sh*t if that was my bike hes knee caps would have been injured from that wreck too.

 

tl1000's are pretty well known for getting the death shimmy also - but that has got to be the most idiotic way to wreck a bike.

 

Yeah, the TL's rear shocks were garbage so they didn't corner worth a hoot.

 

Good looking bikes though