I thought I was a badass having ridden dirt bikes, go carts, sports cars, you name it all my life. So naturally, when I bought my 2004 Yamaha R6, I figured I could handle all that power... Well, as evidenced by my posting in this forum, I was wrong.
First, I'll let you know that I was stupid and day 1 of owning this radical piece of machinery I decided I'd take the (literally) 2 minute trip to the tag office to tag and title it. I get pulled over (literally) right in front of the tag office. Two misdemeanors (no endorsement either -- I know I suck at life!) but ended up getting a withheld judification and paid $250 in court fines. Ouch.
Well, within a month of that I was overriding the headlight and approached a corner that I failed to assess properly and clipped it at about 60mph. Mind you, I'm an idiot who only wore a helmet; a helmet that fully said my life. Other than that, I was in shorts and a T-shirt as I wasn't expecting to be riding but casually (Big lesson here! I'll never ride without proper gear again!). So I fly over the handle bars and land face-first on the pavement, ending up in a head-over-heals series of tumbles, each of which I can recall with vivid detail (It's really a surreal feeling to think you've snapped your neck and watch your limbs flail haphazardly about, unresponsive to any input or relaying any sensory data). The bike rolls up a street sign and flies over my helpless body, landing merely feet from me. After my forth tumble, I land on my feet. It's 1am and the streets are empty and here I am in the middle of the road, covered in blood.
My only thought was to find my cellphone which, of course, had fallen out of my pocket at my previous location. I quickly survey the remains of my bike across the road and wanting to find help before my adrenaline fails, I collect the remains hoping my phone will be amongst them. I fail to find it but compile my upper fairing, rear fairing, rear seat, helmet, and various other parts onto the side of the road. The pain is beginning to set in and there's still no sight of help. I spot a car at a distant stop sign who I reckon had seen me but wasn't sure what to do. After shouting and attempting to wave my arms and receiving any responsel, I rationalized I would have to attempt to ride the bike for help. I try to pick it up and fail. Afraid of what might happen if I can't lift it, I try again and this time succeed. The bike starts immediately and I, uncertain of the full extent of the damage done to the R6, roll off cautiously for help.
It was actually a friend of mine who I failed to recognize immediately. I call my mom to bring the truck. While waiting, apparently someone drove by, saw the demolished street sign and called the police, reporting that someone was stealing street signs. How they missed the fact that I was covered in blood on the side of the road is beyond me but they did. As my mother shows up, so does a female officer who merely inquires of the street signs and later asks if I'm OK. I casually respond with, "yeah, just laid down the bike. no biggie" as I bring forth my best effort to subdue the quivering throughout my body from the now all-too-real pain as it becomes a greater realization. The officer seemed disinterested and drove on, apparently ignoring the fact that beneath the street sign down the road lay fragments of a vehicle that I could only imagine she understood to be mine.
Anyhow... The real threat came after I was home. All this while I had been meticulously assessing my wounds to find that I only suffered some serious road rash along my left love-handle, left shoulder, and left/right elbows & forearms. How my legs escaped injury is a mystery. Well, my younger brother busts out all these lidocane patches, 7 in total, and begins covering me up. I'm really in no position to question anything at this point but I did manage to pipe up and ask if he knew what the side effects of these things were. His response, "oh, nothing. rashing, mild irritation, that kind of stuff. They do require prescription, though." Right. Well, my mom wanted to get involved too so she fed me antibiotics and Tylenol-3 with codeine.
After about 30 minutes, I recognize my motor skills and judgment are severely off and I begin looking up the real side effects of lidocane. You guessed it! Nothing minor was listed. It was all stuff like "cardiac arrest" and "respiratory failure." Needless to say, I refused to sleep so that if I did begin to croak I could at least attempt to call someone.
I walked away with nothing more than a bad rash; the scabs of which fell off in a week and a half. I've still got some gnarly scars but I'm really lucky to be alive. If I had just worn a jacket, I'd had stood up and saved myself from the most painful 2 weeks of my life. Additionally, aggressive night-time riding is really a no-go. As for the bike, it's almost repaired. I've managed to replace all the plastics, the exhaust, headlight, subframe, tank, and radiator for under $1,000 (that's weeks of searching and holding out on ebay for great prices). The bike got a new color that I'm actually far more happy with now than before but it was still agonizing to see my baby in such shape for so long.
Edit: Here are some pictures for you!
[Updated w/ Pics!] New Rider Learns a Few Things
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