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Today I went to an open house/demo day at a motorcycle dealer owned by a good friend. I arrived on my SV650 wearing work boots, jeans, my Fieldsheer textile jacket, armored leather gloves and an HJC full face helmet. I've been riding 5 years, with no accidents. After a bit of encouragement, I agreed to take him up on a demo ride of a new Benelli TNT 1130. I was a bit nervous riding an expensive unfamiliar bike that doesn't belong to me. I should mention that this bike was brand new, particularly the tires. I rode to the stop sign to get out of the dealership and went to make a right turn into traffic. I gently let out the clutch and rolled on the throttle, much more timidly than I would on my SV. Almost instantly the back tire spun and I was down, watching the bike slide away from me. I was going 10 mph, tops. It happened so fast I never had a chance to try to do any kind of correction. I landed on my shoulder and slid on my forearm a few feet. Traffic stopped while I angrily got up, picked the bike up, and pushed it off to the side. For damage, I scraped up the side fairing, brake lever, foot peg and a spot on the swingarm. My shoulder is really stiff and hurts a bit. The slide wore small hole in the forearm of my jacket. I'm still awash in shame. The owner didn't seem to care, telling me that's what insurance is for, and laughed off my apologies and offer to pay to repair the damage. While the tires were cold and not scrubbed in, and I may have hit some sand, I still feel like the accident was my fault and that I should have been able to avoid it. Lesson learned: be extremely careful with throttle control when turning from a stop, especially on an unfamiliar bike. Sorry, no pics. The bike doesn't belong to me, so it's not in my garage at home, and I was too shaken up and embarrassed to take any at the time.
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Sep 26, 2009 19:02
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 05:29 |
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