Snow Fall

[emptysea]

For those of you who do not follow the "Today's Weather" thread, I dropped my bike yesterday at about 4:45 in the middle of a.... well, the beginning of a snow storm. Thank you for all the kind and encouraging comments made in that thread (Ferret/Cormanus: feel free to move the comments in that thread over to this one, if you can or want to).

Snow was in the forecast, so I can't use surprise as an explanation of why I was out riding on icy roads, but as you will see, I will use surprise as part of the explanation. Yes, it was supposed to snow about 1-5" overnight starting at about 4:00pm local time Tuesday. Yes, the forecast was clear that the snowfall would be heavy at times. And finally, yes, I was aware of this and had planned my day accordingly. I could have taken my Jeep to work as my friend Cormanus suggested, but it was a beautiful winter morning, the streets were dry at 8:00am and were not expected to get wet until after 4:00. I'm lucky enough to own my own business so I just decided to skip lunch and leave at 4:00 unless the storm came in earlier, in which case I would leave work earlier.

Morning Glory


3:45pm - The weather radar predicted snow starting at 4:00.

4:05pm - At my bike strapping my gear bag to my rack when I noticed the first little snakes of snow starting to blow across the asphalt parking lot, reminding me a bit of how sea-foam chases its host wave as it recedes across the sand. Still, though, the ground was dry and the snow was light and I decided to take a longer loop home; about 10 miles (or about 1/2 hour). I'd probably run into deteriorating conditions, I thought, but they won't be that bad in a half-hour and I can probably capture some nice photos. I was correct only about the photos.

4:14pm - This is Campground Road. It's about 1 mile from my office. A couple of things to notice: 1) My trip odo is at 14 miles (which includes the roughly 13 miles I did before work) 2) My clock is not set to the correct time so ignore it 3) the roadbed had less snow on it than it appears in the photo (which still appears to be a light dusting). The reflection from my head light makes it look worse than it was and you will see in later photos what "worse" really looks like.



4:24pm - Arrived at Beck Lake. I've been posting some pictures of the lake to this forum over the last few weeks and thought adding a couple more while it was snowing would offer a nice contrast to the earlier photo-posts.

The snow on the instrument cluster is very light and airy. Not at all the kind of snow that typically falls or accumulates quickly.



Like in the Campground Road photo, it might appear that the road is slick here, but actually there was almost no snow at all on it. In fact, less snow here than on Campground Road 10 minutes and 4 miles earlier



Those that know me might see a look of surprise in my eyes in this photo. When I looked at my phone/viewfinder in selfie mode, I noticed for the first time that conditions were noticeably worse than just one minute ago. Part of that may be the depth of field defaults on my camera in selfie mode versus those in regular mode. I don't know, but it suddenly looked pretty bad. So, yes, I actually was surprised.



4:29pm - East River Road/Central Road intersection. This is a triggered light and I wound up stuck here for a solid 3 minutes, enough time to take my last photo of the ride. You can plainly see that the roads are now much more covered and that the snow is coming down faster. At this point I'm almost exactly 6 miles and on a better day, 15 minutes from home.



4:40pm (approximate) - I turned left off of Potter Road and onto Busse Hwy., which is a highway in name only with a speed limit of 35mph. The left turn was easy enough, although the rear tire slipped enough to catch my attention, and then I proceeded slowly on Busse. I noticed that the car behind me had dropped well back when I fishtailed at the intersection and I recall thinking he or she was very considerate. That's the last thought I had before the bike slid out from under me to the right. I do not recall doing anything in particular to cause this, but I'm sure I did something.

I believe that my left knee hit the ground first. I guess I can tell people that I've "dragged a knee" on my CB1100. My knee hit hard, it's swollen and has a half-dollar shaped scrape on it, but interestingly enough my Levis don't have a mark on them.

My shoulder hit next, then my head. The thud I heard in my helmet upon impact scared me more than anything else that had happened on this ride. I wondered all the things one wonders when they see an NFL football player's head bounce off the turf after a particularly violent tackle. We all know what those thoughts are and they are too fresh in my mind to articulate them precisely at this time. I will just say that I remained conscious and coherent throughout and the paramedics that arrived in short order left the option of going to the hospital up to me. I opted have Cheryl pick me up.

The panic that came with the thud in my helmet was quickly squelched by the pain in my knee and the worry that I was going to get run over while laying in the street. At least four people stopped to help. One was named Jose and he called 911. Another was named Adrian, and he used to right a Nighthawk I think he said as helped me upright my bike. Adrian lives across the street from where I fell and offered his garage to store my bike. I took him on the offer, but the police said it was too slippery to walk the bike across the street and instead, they parked it in Burchard's Cleaners' parking lot while the paramedics took a look at me in the ambulance.



Jose and others, including a lovely young woman who was on the verge of tears from watching this happen (I think she may have been in the car that backed off at the intersection) told me to lay down and not move. I know that that is great advice, but I was freezing. I thought it was shock, but no, it was flipping cold out and I just spent a good minute rolling around on ice. I asked to get into Jose's vehicle to warm up, but he didn't respond. I thought he didn't hear me, but today as I replay this, it was Covid19 that caused him to balk at the idea. And the lovely young women who was asking if I was OK and telling me to lay down did so from a distance. Everyone but Adrian was far away. Adrian had on a mask and I had on my helmet, so it was safe for both of us. He let me sit in the back seat of his car, but by then the paramedics arrived and that was the last I saw of any of them. The others were right for keeping their distance and even at a distance, they calmed me with their expressions of concern and, as it turns out, blocking the lane so that I would not get run over -- didn't notice that until I was walking to the ambulance. I am grateful to all of them for helping me.

5:00PM (precisely) - Phoned Cheryl. Told her I dropped the bike, but I was fine and asked her to come pick me up. While we waited for her, one of the paramedics said that he used to have a bike. He then told me that he replied to the dispatcher with, "Did you say 'motorcycle'?". I explained to him the circumstances as described above and he suggested that I should not ride in a snow storm again.

Cheryl arrived and gave me "the look" and, no, not the look of a person happy to see her husband is alive and relatively unharmed. It was more of the "what were you thinking?" look. She would never admit this, but I think that one of the reasons that she doesn't worry about my safety when I go riding alone is because she can trust that I will make prudent decisions when I'm out there. On the rare occasion that I make a bad choice AND she finds out about that bad choice, it erodes some of that trust away to reveal the worry it was encasing. And so, I got "the look".

5:28pm - Iced knee (won't share the photo). Took some Aleve.

6:30pm - Met another couple for dinner and drinks. In a ventilated tent. Had a great time. Got "the look" from both of them, too.

Smoked Old Fashioned


Update as of 2:55pm Wednesday: My left shoulder is sore now, but the swelling seems to be subsiding on my knee. A friend's brother has a law practice that specializes in motorcycle liability claims. As a community service, they will dispatch a motorcycle tow vehicle for a bike involved in a crash and there is no charge to the rider. I contacted them and they towed my bike to my garage.






As far as I can tell, the left engine guard took the biggest hit, but saved my shift lever and my left peg as well as the engine cover itself. The only other thing I see damaged is the instrument cluster. Honda dealer's closed until Jan 5, so my New Year's ride is not happening. But that's OK, it's supposed to snow that day and as you all know, I never ride in snow.

[Houtman_imp]

I am very sorry to hear about your mishap but glad that you are ok. I wanted to go out this week but there were still icy spots in some places and stayed home. Another example where engine bars saved you from more damage .

[Lord Popgun]

I’m sure glad you are OK MTC.

I like that motorcycle rescue rig. Pretty cool.

[pdedse]

For those of you who do not follow the "Today's Weather" thread, I dropped my bike yesterday at about 4:45 in the middle of a.... well, the beginning of a snow storm. Thank you for all the kind and encouraging comments made in that thread (Ferret/Cormanus: feel free to move the comments in that thread over to this one, if you can or want to).

Snow was in the forecast, so I can't use surprise as an explanation of why I was out riding on icy roads, but as you will see, I will use surprise as part of the explanation. Yes, it was supposed to snow about 1-5" overnight starting at about 4:00pm local time Tuesday. Yes, the forecast was clear that the snowfall would be heavy at times. And finally, yes, I was aware of this and had planned my day accordingly. I could have taken my Jeep to work as my friend Cormanus suggested, but it was a beautiful winter morning, the streets were dry at 8:00am and were not expected to get wet until after 4:00. I'm lucky enough to own my own business so I just decided to skip lunch and leave at 4:00 unless the storm came in earlier, in which case I would leave work earlier.

Morning Glory


3:45pm - The weather radar predicted snow starting at 4:00.

4:05pm - At my bike strapping my gear bag to my rack when I noticed the first little snakes of snow starting to blow across the asphalt parking lot, reminding me a bit of how sea-foam chases its host wave as it recedes across the sand. Still, though, the ground was dry and the snow was light and I decided to take a longer loop home; about 10 miles (or about 1/2 hour). I'd probably run into deteriorating conditions, I thought, but they won't be that bad in a half-hour and I can probably capture some nice photos. I was correct only about the photos.

4:14pm - This is Campground Road. It's about 1 mile from my office. A couple of things to notice: 1) My trip odo is at 14 miles (which includes the roughly 13 miles I did before work) 2) My clock is not set to the correct time so ignore it 3) the roadbed had less snow on it than it appears in the photo (which still appears to be a light dusting). The reflection from my head light makes it look worse than it was and you will see in later photos what "worse" really looks like.



4:24pm - Arrived at Beck Lake. I've been posting some pictures of the lake to this forum over the last few weeks and thought adding a couple more while it was snowing would offer a nice contrast to the earlier photo-posts.

The snow on the instrument cluster is very light and airy. Not at all the kind of snow that typically falls or accumulates quickly.



Like in the Campground Road photo, it might appear that the road is slick here, but actually there was almost no snow at all on it. In fact, less snow here than on Campground Road 10 minutes and 4 miles earlier



Those that know me might see a look of surprise in my eyes in this photo. When I looked at my phone/viewfinder in selfie mode, I noticed for the first time that conditions were noticeably worse than just one minute ago. Part of that may be the depth of field defaults on my camera in selfie mode versus those in regular mode. I don't know, but it suddenly looked pretty bad. So, yes, I actually was surprised.



4:29pm - East River Road/Central Road intersection. This is a triggered light and I wound up stuck here for a solid 3 minutes, enough time to take my last photo of the ride. You can plainly see that the roads are now much more covered and that the snow is coming down faster. At this point I'm almost exactly 6 miles and on a better day, 15 minutes from home.



4:40pm (approximate) - I turned left off of Potter Road and onto Busse Hwy., which is a highway in name only with a speed limit of 35mph. The left turn was easy enough, although the rear tire slipped enough to catch my attention, and then I proceeded slowly on Busse. I noticed that the car behind me had dropped well back when I fishtailed at the intersection and I recall thinking he or she was very considerate. That's the last thought I had before the bike slid out from under me to the right. I do not recall doing anything in particular to cause this, but I'm sure I did something.

I believe that my left knee hit the ground first. I guess I can tell people that I've "dragged a knee" on my CB1100. My knee hit hard, it's swollen and has a half-dollar shaped scrape on it, but interestingly enough my Levis don't have a mark on them.

My shoulder hit next, then my head. The thud I heard in my helmet upon impact scared me more than anything else that had happened on this ride. I wondered all the things one wonders when they see an NFL football player's head bounce off the turf after a particularly violent tackle. We all know what those thoughts are and they are too fresh in my mind to articulate them precisely at this time. I will just say that I remained conscious and coherent throughout and the paramedics that arrived in short order left the option of going to the hospital up to me. I opted have Cheryl pick me up.

The panic that came with the thud in my helmet was quickly squelched by the pain in my knee and the worry that I was going to get run over while laying in the street. At least four people stopped to help. One was named Jose and he called 911. Another was named Adrian, and he used to right a Nighthawk I think he said as helped me upright my bike. Adrian lives across the street from where I fell and offered his garage to store my bike. I took him on the offer, but the police said it was too slippery to walk the bike across the street and instead, they parked it in Burchard's Cleaners' parking lot while the paramedics took a look at me in the ambulance.



Jose and others, including a lovely young woman who was on the verge of tears from watching this happen (I think she may have been in the car that backed off at the intersection) told me to lay down and not move. I know that that is great advice, but I was freezing. I thought it was shock, but no, it was flipping cold out and I just spent a good minute rolling around on ice. I asked to get into Jose's vehicle to warm up, but he didn't respond. I thought he didn't hear me, but today as I replay this, it was Covid19 that caused him to balk at the idea. And the lovely young women who was asking if I was OK and telling me to lay down did so from a distance. Everyone but Adrian was far away. Adrian had on a mask and I had on my helmet, so it was safe for both of us. He let me sit in the back seat of his car, but by then the paramedics arrived and that was the last I saw of any of them. The others were right for keeping their distance and even at a distance, they calmed me with their expressions of concern and, as it turns out, blocking the lane so that I would not get run over -- didn't notice that until I was walking to the ambulance. I am grateful to all of them for helping me.

5:00PM (precisely) - Phoned Cheryl. Told her I dropped the bike, but I was fine and asked her to come pick me up. While we waited for her, one of the paramedics said that he used to have a bike. He then told me that he replied to the dispatcher with, "Did you say 'motorcycle'?". I explained to him the circumstances as described above and he suggested that I should not ride in a snow storm again.

Cheryl arrived and gave me "the look" and, no, not the look of a person happy to see her husband is alive and relatively unharmed. It was more of the "what were you thinking?" look. She would never admit this, but I think that one of the reasons that she doesn't worry about my safety when I go riding alone is because she can trust that I will make prudent decisions when I'm out there. On the rare occasion that I make a bad choice AND she finds out about that bad choice, it erodes some of that trust away to reveal the worry it was encasing. And so, I got "the look".

5:28pm - Iced knee (won't share the photo). Took some Aleve.

6:30pm - Met another couple for dinner and drinks. In a ventilated tent. Had a great time. Got "the look" from both of them, too.

Smoked Old Fashioned


Update as of 2:55pm Wednesday: My left shoulder is sore now, but the swelling seems to be subsiding on my knee. A friend's brother has a law practice that specializes in motorcycle liability claims. As a community service, they will dispatch a motorcycle tow vehicle for a bike involved in a crash and there is no charge to the rider. I contacted them and they towed my bike to my garage.






As far as I can tell, the left engine guard took the biggest hit, but saved my shift lever and my left peg as well as the engine cover itself. The only other thing I see damaged is the instrument cluster. Honda dealer's closed until Jan 5, so my New Year's ride is not happening. But that's OK, it's supposed to snow that day and as you all know, I never ride in snow.

Wow! That's quite a story with photos, timeline and lucid descriptions, a good indication that your helmet worked just fine. : )

I had a spill back in high school where I slid across the pavement, jeans and long-johns were fine but I had a strawberry on my thigh about 5" across--not sure how that happens where clothes stay intact but skin takes it on the chin so to speak.

Oh yeah, "Snow Fall"...is that kind of like James Bond in "Skyfall"?


Snow Fall...oh wait, now I get it.

[redbirds_imp]

Wow Matt, quite a spill. Glad to hear you were not seriously injured. You fellas that live up in snow country take winter head on; we southern boys complain about the cold when the mercury hits 50, lol.

[rickcb]

Glad to hear you're ok. Listen to your wife more?

[Cormanus]

A very sad story very well told. Thanks for sharing MTC.

You say you must have done something to cause the bike to slide out underneath you. I'm sure that's right at some absolute level. In case it's any comfort, my experience when I came off in February was that I thought I was travelling in a straight line and suddenly the bike was wobbling under me. From that moment, I was a goner. Maybe, if I were a better rider, I could have done something to get out of trouble. I'll never know.

I'm sorry you've damaged yourself, and I'm sorry you've damaged the bike. I look forward to you both recovering quickly.

Thanks again for your frank telling of a difficult story.

[Gone in 60]

Wow, the bike doesn't look that bad!

I fear "The Look". Haven't gotten it for a while, and hope I don't any time soon.

Heal up, sounds like you are well on your way.

[GoldOxide_imp]

MTC: Your story reads like I lived it. I know what it is like to suddenly not have a ride below you. Things go "sloo-ow moe-sh-un" and the longest F-bomb emits from the mouth (or at least in the mind).

You will out-live the event and the bike will see countless days ahead.

The real issue will be the ones close who care for you. I am sure you will reassure them all.

Heal fast and well.

[Vic_imp]

Ow! ouch! ow! ow!
so sorry this happened. ow!