3 on a match?

[azure]

Below is a note to 2 friends, who each fell with severe consequences, in the last 2 weeks.
First, Gene fell off of his deck, landing face first on a piece of protruding rebar. He has had several surgeries so far.
Then last week our mutual friend Candida fell at work fracturing her kneecap. My situation was not nearly as dire, at least as embarrassing, and somewhat topical for this forum.

Good morning M and G,

Let me tell you a little story which illustrates how we are all connected!


So I went out to Sterling, which Martha resolutely refers to as SkyCrest, yesterday to load in my new tractor, actually a 1979 Simplicity 7018, with mower deck, and snowblower, and cut down my first tree there with my brand spanking new Husquvarna 460 Rancher. Lovely time, Yadda yadda.


It's such a beaut of a day, I decide that I will run home to grab my old BMW, as it needs some work, and there is plenty of work space in Sterling. Going to be great, as Martha, Becca, and Leo are headed out there, and we are all going to spend the remainder of the afternoon together, and have dinner. An added plus on finally arriving was that Dave Barron was there too.


BMW batteries, made by Varta,  which cost three times as much as any other battery, used to be good batteries, but now fail terribly quickly. On attempting to fire up the old girl, my  BMW, she have no juice.


The warmth of the day beginning to fade, and the idea of a cold wind on my exposed and otherwise not-as-insulated-as-they-used-to-be body parts looming, I though I will jump start the sucker.


We have a small hill at the bottom of our street, and after several attempts, no fruitful result. I am getting tired, but try one last time, which is equally disappointing, only on this occasion I realize as I get off the bike that my left sneaker lace is somehow caught in some part of the engine. As I am standing in the middle of the street, tethered and trying to figure out how to extricate myself without losing my balance and having the motorcycle fall on me, it does exactly that. I am now lying in the middle of the road, with my left foot pinned under the bike.  Gasoline is flowing over my pantleg and shoe, and I cannot reach the ignition switch to turn it off. I am able to turn the petcock on the gas tank off, which does eventually stop my continuing smelly shower.


My first thought is not of my current predicament, but what seems on reflection, a similar occurence, when my friend Jim made an early attempt at coordinated sailing in an International 210, near the shining shores of Lake Cochituate. He lost control of the main sail, and the boom hit me so hard that it knocked me out of the little boat. I tried to swim the half mile to shore, but the weight of my retained clothes and shoes tired me quickly. By the point I decided to jettison clothes and shoes, I was concerned that I was too fatigued to do so and stay afloat. The last thing I saw was Jim flailing around trying to get the boat under control. From below the surface, I saw one of the sail lines, that all together looked like Medusa's hair, come within grabbing distance, and was able to get to it, pull my head out of the water, and hold on until close enough to shore.


The idea of being helplessly immolated because of a shoelace seemed equally pathetic to drowning in dinky little Lake Cochituate.


From my position, I could raise the bike somewhat, but doing so puts more pressure on my foot, and I am sure it will be crushed by the 500 lb moto, as people who have rushed out of cars, try to help in an uncoordinated fashion, initially trying to get the machine off of me. I wave them off, with effusive thanks, as they have stopped rather than run me over, or even worse stare at my sprawled form, as they drive by, and eventually am able to pull my foot out towards me, taking with it the grossly distorted part that has snared my shoelace.


On righting the bike, I reshape the float bowl retaining clip, and replace it along with the float bowl, left pitifully lying in the road, along with my cap and cell phone. I can walk! I push the bike up the hill slowly, get it home, use a power pack to start it, which I should have tried in the first place, but was afraid of grounding the positive terminal, causing the battery to explode, which had occurred once before, causing irritreavable battery acid damage to my Stevie Ray Vaughan RIP tee shirt and jeans.


My ride to SkyCrest passes without further difficultly, save for increasing discomfort in my left foot and embarrassingly, my left ass cheek, I drank a better part of 2 bottles of red wine with Dave  to ease the discomfort, ate too much cheese and crackers, and lost 2 games of cribbage. The therapeutic travails of the evening prompting the gout that woke me from sleep at 3 am this morning.


Can I empathize with you both now, even though I have had no ambulance ride, or shared time with personel wearing goofy looking booties and caps?


Lots of love to both of my two slightly unstable partners! ( It has to be the ground that is unstable!)

B

[TexasDave]

Glad there was no major damage to you or the bike. I can relate as I did the same thing with my heavy Harley. Stopped at the end of my friends driveway and tried to put my foot down and the boot lace was hung up on the right side. Of course the bike fell over to the right pinning my leg under it. Most of the weight was on my foot. I don't wear fancy riding boots but steel toe wolverine work boots when I ride. They may be ugly but are indestructible. The boot saved my foot. My friends observed the whole tip over. They came running out to help but I was so damn mad I had the bike up and rode off before they got there. I now remember to tuck the laces into the boots. My friends were laughing their asses off.  Dave

[aviationfred]

Sorry to hear about the incidents. I hope your friends recover well.

On the motorcycle related incidents. Guys.... ATGATT...That means....Motorcycle specific gear IMO, most overlooked items are boots and gloves. Ask yourselves....How many times have you seen riders with an armored jacket, helmet, jeans, sneakers and no gloves??

Everyone speaks of get offs at higher speeds. The need for a helmet, armored jacket and riding paints are invaluable. For slow, low speed tip overs, feet slipping in oil at a traffic light, or getting bumped by a cager, in most cases your hands will instinctively go out to break your fall. Road rash on the palms of your hands has got to be about the worst thing imaginable.

Shoe strings hung up on the gear selector lever has probably caused thousands of tip overs, bruised ankles, broken ankles, broken feet and many bruised ego's. Everyone on this forum has to admit that they have had this happen when riding in sneakers, or boots with long shoe strings.... I know I have. Luckily no tip overs. Motorcycle boots have come a long way in the last 30 years and prices are no longer prohibitive. Cycle Gear, Chaparral Motorsports, Dennis Kirk and eBay are great places to look for boots.

Here are a couple of examples on eBay.

These boots have received rave reviews from riders all over the country.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TOURMASTER-SOLUTION-2-0-WATERPROOF-MOTORCYCLE-BOOTS-NEW-/160605951205?var=&hash=item2564dc54e5:m:mGkkjH9sV3xaah5whW3p2ZA



If you want an awesome touring boot at a steal of a price, and you don't have any problems buying used. Here is a $350.00 boot at a huge bargain.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SIDI-Motorcycle-Riding-Boots-Black-Leather-Sympatex-Size-44-EU-11-US-/141848990406?hash=item2106dbd2c6:g:JqYAAOSwbdpWaI~Y&vxp=mtr



I have a pair of the SIDI On Road boots. I can vouch for the waterproofness of these. A year ago, a ride in up the coast of South Carolina, I road 6 hours in the rain and my feet were dry. The soles ARE replaceable. I have had mine redone once... Cost locally was $60.00.

Fred

[Pat Conlon]

Yep, shoelaces also bit my buddy Paul Lawson. Riding across Calif to the WCR in Porterville, his laces got caught in the shift lever. He managed to not drop the heavy fully laden bike, I don't know how, only his frantic waving alerted me to to his problem (great to ride with a buddy)

That's the last time he wore laces. Lesson learned.

[FJmonkey]

I have cooling fin scars on my Left boot from a low speed tip over. My foot/boot was pined under the cylinder head for just a min or so, but to burn in them scars, happy I was wearing quality boots and not tennis shoes. The boots can and will eventually be replaced, my feet, not so easy.

[azure]

I always ride with m/c boots, have used Tourmasters for quite a few years now, and usually change to bike clothes once I've started whatever bike I am riding. In over 45 years of riding, this is a first for me.