My first time dropping the bike yesterday. - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

Effex · 06-18-2009, 08:48 AM

Well, you know what they say - "There are 2 types of riders - those who've dropped their bike, and those who are yet to drop it."

The funny thing is, out of all places to drop it, I dropped it right outside of my driveway as I was coming home. There is a light about 1 1/2 blocks from my house/driveway which I almost always have to wait on since NYC lights take 45 minutes to turn green. But anyway.. I pull up front and some guy on an R6 pulls up right next to me on my left and starts revving his engine and looking at me.. I laugh and say "You know what I'm riding, right?" He ignores me and keeps revving.. Light turns green, he sits there revving, giving me a "head start".. I decide to bite and pull off, and I am actually doing pretty good because this guy simply cannot shift properly. He must of shift into second when his bike was barely doing 30 mph, and then immediately shifted into 3rd causing him to lose a ton of ground.. But anyway, I got so into beating him that I almost forgot to make the turn into the driveway.

I decide to make the turn since he was going to beat me anyway, so 3-4 seconds before it I am doing right around 65 and do a quick stop and turn into the driveway at around 12 mph and bam, it went down. I put a foot down while both hands were on the clutch/front brake and stopped it from getting any scratches, but I learned a pretty valuable lesson yesterday.. I am not as good as I thought I was.

If I had more skill/experience, I would of slowed down to a near stop before making such a sharp turn as I had to in order to get into my driveway (it's a 90 degree turn from the road)

But I also learned another important lesson.. Dropping the bike really isn't that big of a deal. Especially if you developed any sort of emergency reaction to it like killing the engine, putting a foot down, stepping off properly, etc.. I would even go as far as saying that I am glad that I dropped it since it let me further know my bikes limitations and what things I have to work on.

Let me know your thoughts!

PS. The whole racing thing I pulled wasn't exactly the smartest thing in the world, but I am generally a conservative rider and do not do things like that. It was just funny that one of the first times I did do it I get punished by the bike gods