From: andersen@me.udel.edu (Stephen Andersen)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Re: First Annual RCR and Crash
Date: 28 Jul 92 20:36:57 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Department of Mechanical Engineering/University of Delaware

In article <JEP.92Jul28141208@thneed.cs.duke.edu> jep@cs.duke.edu (Jonathan E. Polito) writes:
>
>Short of it:
>	I wrecked.
>
>******* Official DoD story of what happend *******

I guess I'll give my account of THE WRECK...

I was follwing directly behind Jonathan on the way out.  My wife was riding 
pillion on the Duc at the time.  We were taking the road from the 
campground at a reasonably aggressive pace.  As we came up on THE TURN,
the sign said 25mph.  I guess from later investigation that we probably
entered that turn at 40-45mph.  As I went into the turn everything seemed
fine until I noticed (while looking into the turn) that the road cam out of
the turn in the opposite direction from which we were heading :-0.  
The turn had a big-time decreasing radius and although we were going a 
decent speed for the beginning, we were moving kinda fast for the 
exit.  I had a really strong feeling at this point that I wasn't going 
to make it through the turn.  I fought the urge to slow down and just
PUSHED on the left handlebar to increase my lean.  At this point I
see that Jonathan has apparently come to the same realization, however
it appeared that he ran out of lean.  As he heeled his bike over, either
his center stand or his peg hit the road quite hard.  In a brief
instant his rear tire left the pavement and he and his K-whiner
were sliding into Joe-Bob and Bubba's Llama containment fence.

	Surprisingly I made it through the turn (thank the Ducati gods
for lotsa ground clearance) and got stopped on the "shoulder" (grass
and gravel llama path...).  My wife (Jen) immediately hopped off
and ran back to see if Jonathan was okay.  I stayed with my bike
for a while until I worked my puckered butt offa my seat.  Needless
to say, this incident slowed me WAY down for the rest of the weekend,
particularly with a passenger...

	Oh well, at least Jonathan was wearing his Aerostich (contrary
to his amusing post) and I thing he got away without so much as 
a bruise, 'ceptin for his ego.  I thin' I muss git me wunna dem
suits (sorry, I guess four days in the south was too much for me :-)

>started a U-turn on this seriously off camber road and dropped the
>bike again at near Steve Anderson speed (~ 1cm/sec ). At that point I

Hey bub, I resemble that!!!  When i suffered my 2 Dreaded Ducati Dumps
back in February, I was doing 0 cm/sec and about 5 cm/sec respectively...

>All in all, a very fun time despite my personal setback. Ed you and
>Sandy did a fabulous job! The first annual RCR was a huge success,
>imho -- at least I got my turn to crash out of the way.

Ditto to this, except for the crashing part.  I only wish that
some people would've stayed a bit longer ( and that 'Roid wasn't 
such a LOUD drunk :-)

BTW Seth, I see that you made it home without your pick-em-up
truck eh???  :-) :-) :-)


I'll try to get a picture of my fully loaded two-up
Ducabago complete with carbon-fiber luggage rack scanned
and sent to cerritos ASAP so's that you left coaster's can
see what a True Touring Machine looks like (eat your hearts
out Blaine and Chuck...)


Steve

Dumper of Ducatis #0239

I hereby nominate myself as KotDD (Keeper of the Dirty Ducati)

-- 
 Steve Andersen  DoD #0239                               andersen@me.udel.edu
 (302) 324-0888                                     andersen@zr1.ccm.udel.edu
 1992 Ducati 907 I.E.                                      1987 Yamaha SRX250
 "Life is simply a consequence of the complexities of carbon chemistry..."