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Well, it finally happened

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Mar 3, 2003
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Sorry...a little long winded ....

You have to get a little background first. I had a trip planned for this weekend to big bend. I had the reservations, trip all planned, sites picked, and I even got the third piece to my cortech luggage so that I could carry everything. My problem employee finally laid the proverbial straw that broke the camels back about 10 days ago and all **** broke loose. I ended up working all last week-end and crazy hours all week to recode one of his applications, but there was no way I could go live on Thursday and then leave Friday on my trip....Big Bend put on hold

Today, with the application live, and knowing that "he" only has a few more days in my hair, I decided to ride. I had nothing planned, but I planned to put in at least 8 good hours. After meandering around canyon lake, stopping in Luckenbach, and heading north through Fredricksburg, I decide to take 16 north and just see what's up there. I came to Willow City and had always heard what a great ride the "Willow City Loop" was. If you've never been there, I think that it's one of the most beautiful area's I've seen since coming to Texas. Anyway, I come to a low water crossing and I think, OK...I've done these at least a dozen times in the last year and it's no big deal. I slow way down, enter the water, and the next thing I know, I'm sliding across the road. I immediately go over, kill the bike and pick it up (adrenalin is a wonderful thing).

At that point the first thing that comes to my mind is "Oh Crap....this is going to be expensive".

Damage (as far as I can tell right now) -- the zero gravity double bubble is toast, left fairing is scraped up pretty badly, but not cracked, clutch is bent (it almost loops around my finger now), gear shift is bent, the little "bob" that is on the kick stand that you push down with your heal was ground away, and the cortech left saddle bag is scrapped pretty bad. Except for the plastic, I should be able to do everything myself, so not too bad. (I was going less than 10 mph so it could have been much worse)

Lessons learned --
1. Water on the road is dangerous...yes that is obvious, but some of us are more thick headed than others. I went and looked, and this was about one inch of water and about 2 inches of slime....VERY slippery even to walk on. I feel stupid enough, but two out of the three bikes that stopped fishtailed pretty badly going through the water and they even knew about it. Of course they are probably drinking some beers talking about it and I'm here trying to figure out a positive spin for this when my wife find out.
2. If I'm going to go through the trouble to put on soft luggage, I should carry a bottle of water (I normally do, but this time I left in a hurry). You'd be surprised hot much you sweat standing in the sun waiting for someone to come by
3. Riding gear is great -- I came down straight on my left elbow and the bike came down on my left leg. My Triumph boots and the padding/soft armor in my Phoenix jacket saved my hide (I was VERY surprised that there is not even a scratch on the jacket...just a dirt mark where I landed)
4. Don't procrastinate -- for two months I was going to drop my cell phone service (Sprint PCS....it's terrible!!!) and I didn't. Three Harleys were the first ones by (VERY nice people....motorcyclists are great). There were three guys and two women. All of their cell phones had signal and mine didn't. I couldn't get my bike started again so I asked them to call a tow truck (where is that number to AMA Motow again...another thing I have put off).

I did eventually get the bike to start. It blew a little smoke but that cleared right up. I even rode the bike back home (90 miles).

Anyway, with the wife still out of town, and no one at work that rides, I had to share with someone whose first words out of their mouth wouldn't be..."See I told you they were dangerous"

Keep the rubber side down

Bill
 
Ouch. Sorry to hear about that. I laid a bike down in 2000, and even though I walked away without a scratch, I still felt like crap mentally (I KILLED MY BIKE!!!). Good to hear you're alright, though. This is good info--I keep meaning to get down to that neck of the woods, and at least I'll be more aware of what to look out for.

Glad to hear you're OK.
 
That's exactly how I felt.....I KILLED MY BIKE. Once I got the bike up realized that I wasn't hurt or anything, I just couldn't believe that I had fallen. When the bike wouldn't start, it was just insult to injury. I know that plastic is expensive, but If I did anything to the motor, then it would have been through the roof.

I still can't believe how fast I went down. I always pictured that things would go into slow motion and I would see everything as it happened. I guess I watch too much TV because one second I was complaining that my feet were getting wet and the next thing I know, I'm picking up my bike.

At least it was just a low speed drop and not flying off some road in Big Bend....
 
Man HC,

That sucks. I know two others who have had problems down there on WC Loop. Gret ride, but man those creeks get really slimy and any little gig, intentional or not, can just send your rear end down. Really glad to here you are ok though. Hope you can get the ST in riding shape soon.
 
Bill,

Glad to hear you're okay. I've never hit one of those slimy crossings on a motorcycle, but I hit one on a road bicycle back in high school. With the little skinny slick racing tires, it fishtailed all over the place and I almost went through a barbed wire fence. It was in the valley between two steep hills, so like a moron from the flat lands I blasted down the first to coast up the second. I ended up walking the bike back up the hill... :oops:
Sorry to hear about the bike but thanks for the tip. I'm sure those of us who have never encountered this will be extra careful now. I know I sure will. Hope you get the bike back up to snuff without too much drama. :)
 
Hmmmm, I wonder if this was the demon crossing on the WC loop that bit you, too:

(Edit: whoops, forgot about the fricking 350 wide rule on twt, click here instead )

It seemed to be the only one that was particularly slimy.

Our group ride leader, on a big tourer with a trailer, slid through this crossing (I think that's Andy in the background). The rest of us were very, er, cautious, going through that one...
 
So, what *IS* the best way to proceed across one of these things, anyway? Set up a ramp & go Kneivel? Is killing the bike & walking it (while sitting on it) an option? If things are slimy, seems to me like any torque applied to the rear wheel would send the rearend sliding, but then again footing probably sucks, too. Thoughts?
 
The next time I come to one, I don't care how wet my feet get, I'm dragging them as I go VERY slowy across. Being a little shook up, I didn't want to ride across to head out, so I sat on the bike, and tried to gently walk across. Right in the middle, I didn't have enough grip to keep walking (If I would have dropped it again, you would have been reading of a suicide). I had to start it up and very gently ride across.

I think the big thing is to stop and check it out before you cross. If I had, things probably would have turned out differently. As I came up to it, I could see that it was very shallow and like I said, I've done this at least a dozen times over the past year (thanks to all the flooding we had down here).

I've only been riding two years with 12K miles under my belt. I'd sure like to hear what what of the veteran riders has to say.

Bill
 
arcangel said:
So, what *IS* the best way to proceed across one of these things, anyway? Set up a ramp & go Kneivel? Is killing the bike & walking it (while sitting on it) an option? If things are slimy, seems to me like any torque applied to the rear wheel would send the rearend sliding, but then again footing probably sucks, too. Thoughts?

One thing I have found on this particular location (and I assume it works in most other similar conditions) is to stop and take a look at the crossing first if you are unsure and plan out where you think the best place to cross is, then grab a little throttle (just enough to keep you moving forward smoothly) and try to hold it constant all the way through. Keeping your feet down might help, but if you put your foot down on a slimy part it probably wont make any difference.

HC, glad that we werent reading about a suicide.
 
hillcountry said:
When the bike wouldn't start, it was just insult to injury. I know that plastic is expensive, but If I did anything to the motor, then it would have been through the roof.

I may have some bad news for you. If the bike was laying on its left side with the engine running, it sucked oil up the crankcase breather tube and into the airbox. From there, it probably ran down into the top end of the #1 cylinder.

There's a chance that if you tried to start the bike without waiting at least 10mins, the oil in the cylinder caused a hydraulic lock. (the puff of smoke after you got it running was that oil being burned, most likely) This can weaken the connecting rod, and your engine might go kaboom sometime in the future when that rod lets go. Happened to my Sprint when the previous owner had it (and the engine was rebuilt).

This is known but little publicized weakness about the 955 engine.
 
Brian,

You're full of good news for me this morning :?

I knew that going down on the left side was bad for the Triumph, but I couldn't remember why...thanks for reminding me :( .

I think I remember reading about you on triumphnet on the listserv. I honestly don't know how long I waited before I tried to start it but it was only down a couple minutes (not that it probably matters). I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that everything turned out alright.

Bill
 
Sorry that happened to you :(
At least you are OK and the bike is rideable. In the grand scheme of things that could go wrong while riding this one isn't that bad.

Those low water crossings will definitely get your attention. A few months ago my riding buddy went down on one near Kerrville.

I was following him, it happened very quickly and it didn't look like he did anything wrong, just boom and he was down. He is a very experienced rider and was going a nice slow speed. It just reched up and bit him.

He was OK but he had to get a new front lower for his Blackbird, I think it was $300 or so.

The only tips I know are:
Go as slow as you can while maintaining speed, try to keep a constant attitude and very low throttle. I like to dangle my feet off the pegs, although on a real slippery one I doubt this would help much if you start to go down...

Stay in one of the wheeltracks from the cars (if there are any) as they usually have better grip.

Pushing with your feet is usually not an option, they are too slippery for that.

Every time I hear of low water accidents I start thinking about putting frame sliders on the Falco, they would probably help a bit in a low speed drop like that.
 
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