Riding Wednesday with my riding buddy and a couple other guys he rides with a lot. Only back roads that we are very familiar with. I was the last one in the group, which is where I prefer so I can "ride my ride if I want". Going into a left turn where a gravel road inters the road and he hits some gravel/dirt. Rear kicks out and he is just getting into the most turning part of the curve. Almost saved it and ran out of road and off into the grass shoulder. Bike caught the edge of the road and starts down on left side and suddenly snaps to the right and over. He leaves the bike and hits the road ahead of bike. We are 3 miles from my house!!
He went to hospital but is ok other than being extremely sore, nothing broken. I have relived this in my mind way too many times.
One really scratched up'14 ultra but my friend is going to be ok.

 

One really scratched up'14 ultra but my friend is going to be ok.[/quote]

The only thing that matters is your friend is ok!! Everything thing is replaceable.
Glad he's ok. I had a riding buddy this September who wasn't as fortunate

 

Thankful he will ride again. Gravel can be a bitch when it's on blacktop for sure

 

Glad he's ok. The bike can be fixed.

 

Thanks for sharing a crash we can all learn from. A familiar road close to home means your buddy should have been aware of the gravel hazard. In any event, you should never ride faster than you can see, react and avoid hazards. Proper reaction to the slippery hazard would be to decrease lean angle, brake hard and then ride over the gravel surface as slowly and as straight up as possible. It's all learned through situational awareness and surface appraisal.
Group riding also presents peer pressure hazards as less experienced riders ride over their heads to keep up with more experienced riders.
If you can walk away from a crash, its a happy ending.

 

As they say in a plane crash...any landing that you can walk away from is a good one. Glad he wasn't hurt much.

Looking out for gravel is a huge concern for me and always has been. It's like black ice in a car.

 

It's apparent you guys were *NOT* riding "Only back roads that we are very familiar with." or he'd not have been going so fast in that turn/area - that I'm betting always has gravel in the road - to not have let such a thing happen to him.

 

Glad your friend is okay. I have heard many times that most accidents happen within a five mile radius of your house.

 

I'm so glad your friend is okay. Bikes are much easier to fix.

 

The only accident that I witnessed someone I knew going down ended up as good as it could have.

Three of us, me, my female cousin and her husband were on a trip and had exited the interstate in order to get fuel.
My cousin's husband was pulling a trailer, she was following him and I was the caboose.
We were in a busy, commercial area and he was looking for the entrance to the service station and had his RH turn signal flashing.
She was just at the rear end of his trailer on the RH side when he made his turn. She couldn't stop fast enough and she couldn't swerve to the right because of the curb so she tried to go left and get around the trailer but hit the trailer as she moved to her left which turned her front wheel sharply and when she brought the front wheel bike, the bike went into the wobble!
She did a good job of trying to ride it out (for a few seconds) but then she and the bike went down on the RH side.
Good thing that it was a slow speed mishap. Her bike only suffered a minimal scratching to the wind shied and she only a broken fingernail but a massive hit to her pride.
That happened 15 years ago and her husband is still "ticked off"!