On The Mark

I don’t know how it happened. I was piloting the fully-loaded RT with Betsy on the back. We were on Route 11 North in beautiful downtown Shamokin with just 40 miles to go to the Backroads gathering in Williamsport and, despite some traffic, were making decent time. I stopped us in a line of traffic on the freshly-paved right lane and, per training, put my left foot down. Everything was nominal until something happened that caused me to sense that the bike was tilting right, at which point I tried to arrest the motion by putting my right foot down. Unfortunately, I was a little late on the draw.

I do not know the cause. The pavement was brand new and free of defects. I was in the far-right lane, so there was some slope to it for drainage, but nothing that doesn’t exist everywhere. It could have been wind or a moment’s inattentiveness. Perhaps it was a local gravity storm induced by passage of a secret government satellite. Whatever it was, by the time I could plant my right foot, the 1,060 lb weight of the loaded, two-up RT was more than my leg was prepared to handle. I transitioned through the three phases of 1) I can save it, to 2) I think I can lower it slowly, to 3) *&$!, I gotta bail because I’m gonna drop this mutha!

I almost never drop a street bike – it’s been decades despite slow-riding, two-up challenges in close quarters with people sitting or standing on the back in bicycle events. I wish I could say the same thing about dirt bikes, but that’s another animal – they’re feathers by comparison to the RT (Real Truck). The one thing my offroad misadventures have taught me is how to bail out gracefully with a tuck and roll that usually leaves me well clear and sometimes standing. Once I realized there was no saving the RT, I put my dirt bike training into play and found myself sprawled on the shoulder, but clear of the bike and essentially uninjured (with the exception of massive embarrassment).

My next huge concern was for Betsy, who was also sprawled on the shoulder, but in her case face-down. She was reporting “I’m OK” over the intercom and it turns out the prone condition was merely her way of extracting herself from the wreckage (“pavement swimming” is the best description). The sidecase protected her leg and she just had to get it out of that space. I quickly turned to getting the bike out of the travel lane, so I ran around and put the sidestand down so I could lever it up and it would land on that (you know the technique). I turned the bar into me and using it and the passenger grab handle, I backed up to the bike and started walking backwards. A passerby jumped out and helped and we put the bike on the sidestand.

Another check with Betsy, who was now standing, and she reported all systems intact, so I rolled the bike over to the shoulder where I could check it over while simultaneously berating myself. There were a few scuffs, but nothing some increasingly-fine pieces of sandpaper can’t fix. The plastic cylinder-protection bumper was broken, but that’s what it is for, and the little chrome trim on the sidecase was scraped, but both are easily replaceable. Betsy and I were largely unscuffed with the exception of right wrists that were slightly tweaked by reflexively putting our hands out. Back in West Virginia, we call that “just a little stove up.”

We quickly remounted and finished the trip with no further misadventures. We elected to give our wrists a rest the next couple days and take some “Vitamin I” as we call ibuprofen. We didn’t really miss riding too much because of the rainy conditions and we had a good time poking around Williamsport and going to the Little League museums and fields - we actually got in five miles of walking. As usual, the camaraderie of hanging with our Backroads peeps was more important than any miles done or sights seen.

On the way home, we took the conservative approach of avoiding the stalled weather front pumping water in off the sea and stayed an extra night, which allowed us to have a lovely dinner with several folks who took the same approach. We avoided both meteorological and gravity storms! Now for my “homework” of getting rid of my stoplight “yips.”