thoughts after falling off

[AndyBrad]

Alright then folks as im sure you know I fell off the bikethe other week. As im sat here, not feeling sorry for myself but feeling sorryfor those around me im wondering what your thoughts are on hurting yourself onyour bike?

I fell off at (im guessing) 10 mph and ive broken ribs onboth sides and my collar bone quite badly. I also got concussion so whatactually happened im not 100% about. Im guessing that ive been quite unlucky inwhats happened and I was fully kitted up at the time. God knows what would havehappened if it had been 50 or even 80 mph through the dales?!

So im thinking what do I do now and was wondering what otherfolks thought when they have been in a similar situation. i.e. ride again orpack it all in. I don’t feel worried about getting back on a bike at all. Howeverthe thing that’s really upset me was arriving in A+E with both sets of parentsthere and my better half crying her eyes out. (maybe I should point out thatkat was one of the first on the scene and saw me talking gibberish as well asthe bike in the middle of the road so was obviously quite distressed) am I rightto put her through this again? Is biking selfish? Or should I do what I believeto be the right thing and sell the bike and look back on my time as lots of funand a nice hobby for a few years.

Now im sat here hoping that im be going back to my job inthe near future (theres a clause In my contract that means I potentially don’t getsick pay for motorcycle accidents and the boss has urged me to pack it inbefore) and that the family and more importantly our lass will forgive me for puttingthem through a lot of anguish.



So just after reading the do you ride in fear thread imcurious as to peoples thoughts.

[Dicky Ticker]

Like you say it is not always speed that results in an accident but motorbiking is a high risk pastime with consequences.
How much do you value your loved ones and how much do they love you is your question [I think] and is it worth putting them through the anguish of you getting back on a bike.
Sorry matey but only you can answer that question but you are not the first and I respect people who can put others first

[BBadger]

Same sort of situation that happened to me but i was going about 20 and broke my tibia.
The family ( mother to be precise ) didnt want me back on the bike ever but dad, grandad even my gf who i wasnt with at the time said i should and fully supported and put up with me hobbling around the garage getting the thing back to a ridable state so i could get back out on it.
If you are really having doubts try some time off the bike but don't chuck it in just yet i would say.
I think you'll soon miss it and get the urge to get back in the saddle, but priorities of family and job could come first.

[Nobbylad]

Up to you in the end of the day kidda and I'm sure there'll be lots of different opinions given shortly.

I've been knocked off previously, binned it on the track and had a stupid fall off in the work's car park, however I still ride because I love it so much.

The wife hated the idea of me getting back in the saddle after ditching bikes years ago when the kids were born. We both know that it's another risk in our lives and with 4 x kids as well, some might say I'm selfish. But then, we've lost a lot of friends/rellies over the years through one thing or another and our (shared) view is you only live once and you should make the most of it while you're around.

Good luck with whatever you decided, you can walk away from it now, but you can always get back in the saddle in the future.

Hope you heal quick too!

[Owenski]

My first thought is drink some bloody milk man!

My second is, everyone I've spoken to about an off has echo'd your thoughts, most do return to bikes but some choose not to (at least for now).
You're not a wreckless rider and the assumption that most people have is that all riders are nutters with a death wish, your employer will be aware of the increased likely hood that you're going to be injured in an RTC compared to those in cars but in all honesty **** em, Ive got no time for bosses opinions because in honesty they don't give a monkies about you, they're only concerned about your absence.

Now the family/misses, thats a different story - she/they care for Andy and if they're going to be ill with worry about if Andy is coming home then yeah you've got to weigh that up. Abi has told me outright that she'll never ask me to stop riding but will be over the moon the day i do and this weighs heavy on my mind.
However I do find this mind set illogical, we're not all riding with a ticking clock on our backs. Yes **** can happen and when it does its usually bad **** but such is life. People still do die in car wrecks, people still do get seriously hurt whilst riding a push bike, if I were to give up motorcycling I'd find something else to enjoy and that too would no doubt have risks.
That said the majority of our partners are not riders and I suppose they doesn't know the reality of riding, only the media spin and the words of bad news. For example I never come home to tell her that "Andy rode to work today, got home perfectly safe and uneventful" but I did tell her you'd had an off and now had a broken collar bone. You get what I mean?

Take a few weeks to heal up, get the bike either fixed or sold but don't make a YES/NO decision on it just yet pal.

[Whitty]

Sorry to here about your off mate. I had a spell off bikes years ago after my mate was killed. Problem is if its in your blood the 'need' will come back. I did 2 years then had to get one. My Outlook now is I commute only on old gpz. Pleasure riding of purely on track either racing or track days. My logic is if I come off at least there are no dry stone walls,etc and there are medical staff track side. You're not lying in a ditch on yorkshire dales unconcious!

[Small Clanger]

I met my wife after her brother, a mate of mine, had been killed on his motorbike, a particularly nasty accident and the truck driver did'nt stop.
The first thing she did was go out and buy a bike, along with some lurid green Kawasaki racing leathers that went well (not!) with her carrot-coloured hair. Bikes have been an integral part of our lives and although we've lost other friends through biking accidents, we've also lost dear friends and family who've had nothing to do with biking.
What I'm trying to say is, you've got to live your life. What happens, happens. She's been through Leukeamia and survived, absolutely nothing to do with biking, just life. If I binned the Ducati tomorrow or if I'd wrapped myself and the SV around the Armco at Snetterton, she'd be there to sort me out and/or bury the bits. That's how it goes.
If biking is important to you, if it's part of "who you are" and something you're happy doing, your family and friends will realise that. If they have misgivings after your accident, hopefully they'll tell you. Ask them.

You're bound to be a bit pi55ed off and you're bound to be feeling sorry for yourself, that's what blokes do.
Don't worry, you'll get over it :D keep smiling. It's how you deal with the sh#t times that make good times better.

What's happened to the bike? is it a total?

[Bri w]

Only you can reconcile your conscience on this one. My better half hates the thought of me riding, and I receive texts/calls every time I'm out, and she panics like hell if she doesn't get a reply. I totally understand where she's coming from, being involved in an accident in which a biker died has left her with scars. In truth I'm being selfish carrying on but salve my conscience by riding conservatively most of the time.

Am I being fair? Bluntly, no. Should I stop riding? Yes, its not fair on her. Will I? Its not a question I want to visit just yet.

[AndyBrad]

bikes fine really. broken headlamp exhaust and footpeg. i had to stick it through the insurance though because of massive recovery charges :( would have been back on road in an hour! grrr

basically thats where im at bri. If i sell the bike ill be looking for a classic or tvr so bikes probably safter tbh.

[Bri w]

basically thats where im at bri. If i sell the bike ill be looking for a classic or tvr so bikes probably safter tbh.

I borrowed my brother-in-law's classic MGB a few Sundays back and loved it. Didn't have to kit up, and could take HID with me. Old fashioned engine I could work on. Enjoyed the low ride, giving a better impression of speed. And no one worried about me.

Took the bike up the Moors afterwards - bike wins but only by a very narrow margin. And Barb was chain smoking when I got in...

[Jayneflakes]

I think that you may need to have a good talk with your family about why you ride bikes and go from there.

A few years ago I had a girlfriend who was a very ill alcoholic, she was drinking herself to death and if I am honest, it scared me. I begged and pleaded with her to stop drinking and she never could. I was a mad keen climber and I loved solo climbing most of all, this is climbing without the benefit of a safety line or harness attached to anyone. If I fell off, I was hitting the floor. My girlfriend could never understand why I loved this aspect of the sport and she only saw it as hugely dangerous. She begged and pleaded with me to give it up, but if I had done so, I never could have coped with her illness.

Sometimes, the people you love have to accept that you enjoy something that has an associated risk, be it drinking heavily or dangerous sports. However sometimes, you have to accept that they have a strong point and you need to reign it in. This is why you need to talk to your loved ones, if you give up something that you really love, it could make family life harder for you all because you miss something so badly.

Heal from your injuries and think seriously. If either the wife or I crashed, I know we would support each other to get back on as soon as we could, but then we ride together as part of our relationship. We still worry about each other though and that is because of our love for each other

[Vulcan]

Probably my first post on the forum after being a long-time lurker, but I felt I had to reply to this thread as I'm in a very similar situation myself. It's good to hear you're on the mend.

I had a bad accident at the end of September last year where I was knocked off my SV. I can't remember any of the accident, and very little of the day and week previous. I was air lifted to hospital, and spent 8 days in an induced coma, 5 weeks in hospital in total and a long list of fractures and injuries, some I won't fully recover from and I am still yet to return to work.

I have asked myself the same question if I'm honest, and I've decided that for now, I'm going to stick to 4 wheels. I only just got away from the accident with my life, so I wouldn't put myself in the situation where potentially, it could happen again, as next time I might not be so lucky. Then there's everything my family and friends went through whilst I was in ICU/hospital. My closest friend was on his SV behind me and saw it all, and he went through hell, and still does, as he has to live with those images for the rest of his life. So personally, I would feel selfish getting on another bike for it to potentially happen again.

As already said by other members though, only you can make the final decision.

Joe

[-Ralph-]

As said, nobody can deal with this but you, but I'll repeat my story briefly in case you haven't read it before, and in the hope that in some way it helps.

I went through the same thoughts, after an accident that left me with little more than muscular/bruising/strain type wrist injuries, a cosmetic gash in my knee and a few other bruises. It wasn't a serious accident, but it made me realise that of the three (relatively consequence free) accidents I had, any one of them could have put me in my final resting place.

1. Black ice, through a barbed wire fence, into a field. Internal and external bruising and a couple of broken ribs. A split second earlier/later, or had the farmer put the fence posts in a different place, I could have hit one.

2. Lowside on left hand bend on Hartside pass, slid to the other side of the road, Luckypants stopped alongside me and a car coming down the hill pulled to a stop in front of him. Had that car been a few seconds further along the road, I could have gone right under it.

3. Highside on a right hand bend, over the handlebars, faceplanted the tarmac, hurt my wrists as I put my hands out to save my neck, gash in knee as I slid down the road on my belly, with knees and feet dragging behind me. That night a friend told me one of his mates caught his belly on the bar end during a highside, ruptured his spleen and died.

I couldn't give up biking, I didn't tell my mother about the second two, and my wife's approach after a couple of weeks to calm down was, "If you love it, then you should do it, and I couldn't live with you not biking anyway because you'd be too much of a miserable cnut". She sends me out on my bike when she sees me in a mood, over stressed or feeling out of sorts, because I feel so much better when I come back.

So I decided to carry on.

I don't want to die and widow my wife and kid either, or get disabled, I want to enjoy the rest of my life. So it was as much me worrying about getting back on, as anybody else worrying about me getting back on (although my wife was worried, she wasn't going to try and stop me). So I promised myself that if I got back on the bike, that I would do everything I could to make my riding as safe as possible. That's why even as an experienced rider, I'm doing ROSPA now, if I already know 90% of what they can teach me, then it's worth learning the other 10% (I know you've already done it). Also as any of the Madlanders will tell you, I'm a very different rider on my Daytona, than I was on my SV. I used to be at the front of every rideout going flat out, and now although I've lead one or two rideouts recently (as there were no volunteers), I don't like doing it and they probably weren't VERY fast rideouts. Nowadays I'm much more middle of the pack or nearer the back. Going slower gives you more time to react to hazards, and nowadays it's rare to see me over 80mph in a 60 limit, and my cornering is limited by how far I can see, not by how fast I can get round it.

I used to think that so long as an accident didn't kill me or permanently disable me, that was OK, a few months of healing was worth the love of riding bikes. Since I realised that any of the above three accidents could have killed me (and look at what happened to Reeder - a tiny tree), I changed my stance on that and reached the conclusion that there is no such thing as a safe motorbike accident. You can't control what you hit after you come off, so the only answer is DON'T CRASH.

We all know DON'T CRASH is unrealistic, you don't choose when you crash. But if you have done absolutely everything you could possibly do to prevent it, then it's an accident that you couldn't forsee or prevent. You can have an accident in a car, or you could get cancer, or you could be in a bus when a bomb goes off, or you could be shot in a mugging. You can't live your life worrying about any of the above things happening to you, or you'd never leave the house.

First of all, IMO, you need to decide whether or not YOU want to carry on riding (for your own reasons, which will no doubt include wanting to do the right thing for your family). If the answer is no, then this discussion is over. If the answer is yes, then you need to talk to your missus and family about it and see how they feel, but TBH, I'd give it a couple of weeks first. If YOU have decided you want to carry on, explain this to them and why.

Don't forget though, that it is YOUR life. Lets just pretend for instance your mother was single, and found a new bloke that you really didn't like, and you asked her to leave him as you thought he wasn't good for her. What would she say? Would she do that for you, or would she tell you to bugger off because it's her life and she's perfectly capable of making her own judgements and decisions. There are certain decisions in life that YOU have to make, for your own reasons, and your family have to accept whether they like it or not.

Your missus if she really doesn't like it is a different kettle of fish, but that doesn't mean she has the last word on the subject.

My missus worries when I'm out on the bike, but I give her a kiss, tell her that I AM coming home again, and she puts it to the back of her mind until I get back.

Besides this little guy sits on my throttle cables nowadays and tells me off if he feels me twist them too hard ;-)

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd82/colinbal4/456774_3476291699585_1032790736_o.jpg

[ChrisCurvyS]

The reality and shock of your first crash is horrible - came off in first gear on a 125 and that was bad enough.

But there's a lot of wisdom on the page above - as with Jayne's free climbing, it's all about the enjoyment justifying the risk. That's what you've got to ask yourself.

I work in the field of organ donation and while we do deal with the odd donor who's died a bike crash, a hell of a lot more just collapse one day out of the blue or get some random illness after leading perfectly healthy and risk-free lives.

A lot of people just are just in the wrong place at the wrong time too - take the case of this poor lad who just walked into a public toilet:

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2012/06/18/the-gift-of-life-man-who-died-after-huddersfield-attack-saves-four-others-with-organ-donation-86081-31204264/

TBH I'm more on edge walking through a town centre on a Friday night than I am riding the bike.