over one's head

All those SV650's with nasty frontal prangs make me very glad I only had a slow speed collision. Still has shot confidence a bit, not very manly that is it? Anyone else feel a bit, shall we say, out of their depth when they got back on their bike after a crash or am I alone here? I must admit getting the rear tyre changed while bike was repaired has certainly exacerbated notions of bike being out to get me, slippery SV ****! Ah the foolish post crash paranoia blossoming.

Fear is good, fear is your friend, fear keeps you alive.

Feeling shaken after a prang shows that you have a healthy respect for your own life - just don't let it take control.

IAM training almost encourages healthy paranoia! It teaches you to look at everything around you and imagine the most horrendous 'what ifs'... and then ride to minimise potential dangers whilst still enjoying yourself.

The none serious, none fault accident i was involved in last year has taught me loads. Someone pulled out of a carpark and attempted to join the flow of busy traffic heading in the opposite direction to me but couldnt so blocked my lane. Matter of seconds, literally.

Admittedly i was nervous when i road a bike two days later (courtesy). That subsided more and more as time passed. I now find myself being a better rider. I still do the odd silly thing and am as impatient as ever with overtaking etc. BUT my observation and foward planning skills have improved tremendously.

Stick at it, everything will fall into place.

If you ride you're going to go down... I've ridden well over 100,000 miles and have been down soooo many times.

You kind of get used to it after a while. I went down on Christmas eve 2002, my jacket pulled up and my right side got extremely scraped up... I didn't want to tell my Mom so I just bandaged myself up and dealt with the pain every time a relative went to hug me... It hurt a bit but I was still riding the same day

You should see some racers out there... I've seen some of these guys break limbs and cut off their casts to keep racing. Very, very sick people.

If you are not scared getting back onto a bike after crashing, you need your head seen to

It scared the **** out of me

Took me about a month to feel comfy again after my crash, still don't like riding at night anymore or the twisties as much but am ok for everything else now

you'll get there, just take it at your own pace

[northwind]

The 2 times I binned it on the SV Ecosse rideouts I got back on and carried on, and was fine... Really slow and shaken for the rest of the day but no problems at all after. But when i lost the front end on braking at Knockhill at speed it really took a bite out of my confidence... I was absolutely rubbish on the front brake for about a month after in the wet. Eventually I just changed a load of settings about- moved the levers etc, changed the pads back to stock for a while- and that changed things enough that I got comfy with it again.

It's perfectly natural, especially if you couldn't get straight back on.

Thanks for those replies, reassuring to know I've not lost it entirely. Hopefully weekend will furnish us with some fine weather and I'll return to bike and see how it feels.

There is a big difference between being cautious and being scared,if you are scared of the bike after your incident try going back to the "classroom"
for a days refresher If you only fell a bit "timid" allow yourself s bit of time to gain your 100% confidence back,but don,t rush it
We have nearly all been there and put it down to bikings learning curve

CA,CANNY good luck

i agree, a half day/day refresher on an er5 was what got me back on the bike. still felt nervous and dint enjoy it much to start with, but after a couple of hours i felt better and starting enjoying it again.

just take it easy, frost warning on tv for this weekend.