Some of you who followed my other thread know that I was heading for Colorado last week. Well, I didn't make it. About 500 miles into day one, I was cruising along I-64 in Kentucky going about 70 MPH when the rear tire blew. (I had new tires installed front and rear before I left.) The rear began to fishtail wildly. I managed to slow it down some and get it over to the shoulder before the rubber was completely chewed off the rim and the bike spun around and threw me 15-20 feet into the ditch. I credit decades of martial arts training to instinctively ducking my head, turning my shoulder and rolling. So I never hit my head and didn't lose consciousness. Several of the many wonderful people of Kentucky stopped to help me immediately, including a husband and wife biker couple that were in the car behind me when my tire blew. They were in the ditch with me as a started to stand up.

I was VERY lucky to walk away from this, which I did. Which is not to say that I wasn't injured. I was. I badly fractured my scapula (shoulder blade) and fractured three ribs. The doctor at the hospital told me that my body must have still been going about 50 MPH when my body hit the ground to break the scapula, which aren't easy to break. But because of the duck and roll, I did not impact nor fracture the shoulder joint (ball and socket) itself, so no surgical repair is required, just time and some PT. My orthopedist says that he'll have me back in the saddle in about 4 months.

The bike doesn't look too bad either. It ultimately went down on its left side and the left saddle bag is chewed up, the clutch handle is broken, the highway peg is scraped up and the windshield shattered, but other than that, the bike looks to be in decent shape. The adjuster is supposed to come this afternoon, so we'll see that she has to say.

BTW, when my wife, riding buddy and his wife drove out to Kentucky to pick up me and the bike, he saw about a 1 inch phillips head screw sticking out of the tread of the blown tire. Undoubtedly that was the culprit. Just bad luck.

 

That must have ben one hell of a ride. Glad to here that it will take just time to get back in the saddle. Thank the Man up stairs for your good luck ( if there is any when something like this happens)

 

Wow - glad to hear you're alright for the most part and things weren't any worse. Hope they treat you right with fixing the bike up!

 

Sorry to hear about your rotten luck! But the fact that you were able to get up and were not injured worse was a blessing. Having been down hard myself, I can relate. In a word, it SUCKS! I've been told there are 2 kinds of bikers; those who have crashed, and those who will eventually crash...not sure how true it is, but I know which camp we are in! Good luck to you in your recovery. Hopefully, this was your one bad crash for life....

 

Feel better!

 

Blew a front once on my old shovel, not fun at all. Take a look at this Ride On stuff, seems to be pretty popular. I just put some in the new rear tire I mounted but I haven't had it on the road because a certain online HD parts vendor has been incredibly slow in getting me my order. Glad you are ok.

 

Damn Kurt. Glad you are still with us!

 

Glad it wasn't any worse...for you and your bike. Might still have snow in N VA after 4 months, but spring won't be too far off.

 

Glad you weren't hurt any worse. Someone was looking out for you!!

 

Wow, glad you're still here man, hope you have a speedy recovery!!