My motorcycle accident this weekend

[vividpixel]

Backstory: Friday, I was leaving work in the BMW Z4 and failed to avoid some piece of metal in the road. Two popped tires, one bent wheel that Discount Tire has been trying to get from the manufacturer (Drag).

Buddy from work had invited me to a restaurant on Sunday to celebrate his promotion, and I had no other option but to ride the Templar X. It was an overcast day with a breeze so I was enjoying the ride! Being that I have poor navigational abilities, I stopped a few times to double-check myself.

If only I had been more confident, because the last stop I made was very close to the destination. I pulled into an empty parking lot to check GPS, then was preparing to leave the parking lot. Either used a little too much throttle or was on paint, but the rear tire slid out so quickly I didn't have time to do anything but fall right there in the parking lot. Right onto my left hip. EMT guy rolled the gurney right into my leg.

I had surgery Monday morning for my shattered hip, getting a titanium implant. Today I was finally able to get out of the hospital bed, but it's been an agonizing experience and I've never had so much pain in my life--nor such persistent pain.

The first night in this hospital I was stuck on my side in a fetal position, and remained stuck in that position until surgery. The morning of surgery, a nurse comes in and yoinks the blanket off my left leg. My screams woke up my girlfriend who already had to listen to me in agony nearly all night. Oh, and they don't allow you to eat or drink the day before surgery, so after my 50+ minute ride in over 100 degree weather to a restaurant that I was saving my appetite for, I had to remain absolutely starving and dehydrated.

Waking up in pain over and over again, begging for some type of relief... it has been a real treat of existence. Wear hip armor, get GPS talking into your ear, whichever lesson you want to learn from me to avoid getting into this situation. Can't wait to see all that medical debt that we fortunate Americans can never avoid!

[bigdano711]

So sorry about this, man. Get well soon.

[Bikenut]

Yikes! Hang in there.

[cheesy]

Ow. Always sorry to hear things like this.
As much as this is going to suck and you’ll hate doing it, take your Drs advice to heart and do not scrimp on the PT.

[Texas Pete]

You poor guy, hip fractures are the worst.

Originally Posted by vividpixel

Wear hip armor, get GPS talking into your ear, whichever lesson you want to learn from me to avoid getting into this situation.

This is what I’ve done. Didn’t leave the motorcycle store with the riding gear without buying all the missing armors in both pants and jacket.

For the audio solution you mention I’ve done this already, sharing what I did. This is the best quality audio you can listen to music if you want in helmet and get amazing sound quality way above two way radio systems. But this is a very inexpensive setup for receiving audio from your phone via Bluetooth so you can stop looking and being distracted by a screen.

This will save you a lot of time searching and studying for a solution when you get back to riding.

Bluetooth receiver. Can confirm works with apple phone and android tablet.

Bluetooth 5.0 Receiver

Over the ear headphone monitors they come with different sizes and go in ear so they double as ear plugs for hearing protection. I ride a lot more with no audio at all just with these ear plugs in under my helmet.

Over the ear earplugs

The way you put your helmet on when you have these in your ears and looped over them is to just hold the chin straps of the helmet in both hands and pull them outwards precompressing the foam which lets it slip more easily over your ears with less pressure.

[vividpixel]

With as little riding experience as I have, these tires can only be compared with the dual sport ones on the TT250, but knobbier. I don't know what exactly happened to cause the traction loss but I wonder if the tire is really DOT-approved considering I never saw a front stamp for it. Rear has a DOT stamp, though. Usually I haven't cared about such a thing but I ride the street enough for it to matter.

[Boatguy]

These things can happen. It’s hard to analyze what makes the pavement slippery sometimes. You may never know.

I had a similar event where the back wheel went around behind me on completely dry and debris free pavement. I was taking a turn into a grocery store. There wasn’t even an oil slick or anything.

Back wheel came way out and tried to pass me. I just changed the front wheel orientation and luckily was balanced correctly to steer into the skid and even more luckily it didn’t catch and slowly went back to normal traction. If it caught I would have high sided for sure. But it didn’t. So I was able to slide and then keep going without falling.

I’m going to guess it with my chain lube or something. There was nothing on that road

[Thumper]

Originally Posted by vividpixel

With as little riding experience as I have, these tires can only be compared with the dual sport ones on the TT250, but knobbier. I don't know what exactly happened to cause the traction loss but I wonder if the tire is really DOT-approved considering I never saw a front stamp for it. Rear has a DOT stamp, though. Usually I haven't cared about such a thing but I ride the street enough for it to matter.

How are you progressing on the healing process Vidpix?

That was a bad break. I hope you are getting around and mostly out of the worst of it. I tore up my left rotator cuff last Christmas when I fell down the front cement steps with tree in right hand, stupidly tried to fend off the driveway with my left arm. The right rotator cuff was blown out in '96 on a GS1100, then aggravated when I hit a stealthy telephone pole lying horizontal in deep grass last Summer. This certainly changed my life.

Now my knees are both beginning to crumble. So all at once. Crap! I am riding my bicycle daily now trying to see what I can do about all of this! I am starting to feel old

[Bikenut]

Thumper... growing old are not the golden years. Not only are they the years your body deserts you but to add insult to injury they are also the years when you have no gold.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Bikenut

Thumper... growing old are not the golden years. Not only are they the years your body deserts you but to add insult to injury they are also the years when you have no gold.

Ain’t that the truth. I’m a teenager in an AARP body.

Thumper-Keep on the bike, low gears and spin.

[Zapkin]

Just saw this thread, hope you are doing better. Take care bud.

[pete]

get well soon sport ...

I am very aware of my age now..
I just don't bounce like I use to..


.

[vividpixel]

Hey everybody. I dropped off the face of the forum for a bit but I've been functionally recovered for quite some time. Just been focused on other things. Haven't had to think much of the leg except when people bring it up at work and ask how it's doing--they mean well, but jeez, I am more than just a crippled leg!

This weekend I had a nice e-bike ride around the neighborhood and then into the desert past sundown, fat tires but no suspension, and still had a pleasant ride and got to see the twinkles of all those Vegas lights across the horizon. It felt good to be out there again. And especially so quietly...an electric dirtbike would really be suhhhweeeeet!

I didn't keep track of when it happened but I was able to ditch the cane quite a ways back, limped a bit, but not for long. I do think driving a manual transmission to work every day helped to strengthen back up (not like I had a choice). I realized a while back that I could finally lift my leg while seated, which was my last real evidence of injury. There's some little bone that got broken in addition to the hip which is the one that needed to heal up to fix that leg lifting capability (and you may not realize the importance of this one, but any time you get your last leg into the car, or you rotate out of bed and let your legs drop down, that is something I was having to support my leg with my hands to handle).

This week I'll be having my 3-months-post-surgery followup and then I am in the clear to hop on the Templar again! I am so ready.