What did you do on or to your CB 1100 today

[MagnaRider]

On Friday, my CB1100 brought me some mental solace, along with a bleeding skull and visual distraction for work.

Friday started out as a an easy run with an anticipated early end, which would have ended with a long bike ride to the beach. But, an emergency call right after I finished my sandwich around the corner from our drop-off point at a medical research center kicked the day into a 350 mile, eight-hour stint in the saddle. Along the way, I saw something my mind couldn't shake loose.
A few locals will know where I'm talking about, but The 134 freeway narrows a bit and forms a chicane where it swings under The 5, and it's a magnet for accidents. I imagine cars going too fast in the middle of the night are caught unaware by the quick right turn and lose control. More than once, I've been stopped by CHP in that spot as they hold up all traffic to let a tow truck drag a wrecked car away. But Friday the sight was horrific. A low-boy flatbed and a crane on the shoulder, reaching for something that must have crashed hard enough to have gone into the bushes away from the roadway into a shallow ravine. One lane on the left side was open, and as I crawled past, concentrating on the cars to either side of me, I caught a glimpse of a mashed up wad of something dark blue being brought up by the crane. For a solid 1/8 mile past the spot pushed to the right shoulder was a strewn mess of suspension parts, wheels, shattered plastic and other bits.

Moved on past the mess and made my delivery. The emergency call turned me around to head back in the other direction, and I started rolling. When I was about 15 miles East of the accident site, I came up behind that low-boy flatbed truck from earlier, being escorted by two CHP cars, one in front and one behind. On the truck was a twisted mass that, to my best guess, was once a pick-up truck. I'm a truck guy and I couldn't tell what kind it used to be. I could tell that resuers had peeled sheet metal away from what was the cab to extract the occupants. I used to be an insurance accident scene investigaor many, many moons ago, and am a bit jaded when it comes to car crashes, but this image shook me.

Got home at the end of the day, and all I wanted was some garage therapy to clear my mid of that image. What better way than to polish the headers on my CB. I hadn't since the DGR, and the gold tinge was starting to give way to those tiny little black dots. Grabbed a rag and my Blue Magic, leaned over, and thunk. Yup, banged my head into a fin on the cylinder head. I have the worst up-close depth perception. I bang my head a lot. But 20 minutes later, my pipes looked sweeter than ever, and I felt pretty good!

Having been in the fire service now for over a year I have seen some not so nice car accidents, just had one last night in 95 deg Wisconsin weather. Can't imagine how the emergency responders feel in your area Gone, those men and women must be 100% sweat after a call like that.
Seeing car accidents is no joke, it all happens so fast. The heaviest traffic I have been in is around the phoenix Arizona area with what feels like 10 lane traffic with everyone cruising at 90 mph and was very thankful every time I made it back to our hotel safely. 
One thing I have noticed on car accident scenes as a firefighter is the amount of oil, coolant and other fluids that come from a car that's been wrecked, as well as the billion little plastic and glass pieces that scatter around the road. We try to do our best job on scene to clean up the roadway for vehicles to pass through once we are done, using floor dry for spills and trying our best to get all of the debris picked up and off the road. The point I am getting at is we never are able to truly get it perfect. After my first accident I was at all I could think of is if I came through that area afterwards on my motorcycle, potentially hitting and oil slick or puncturing a tire from car debris. Last night's accident the oil pan shattered on one of the cars leaving a large oil slick on a curved area of the road. I mentioned to my captain we should try to clean up the oil since if a motorcycle came through, I have no doubt they would potentially crash their bike. We were able to get most of the oil cleaned up and bagged for disposal, but still the roadway was not perfectly clean. Something to keep in the back of your mind riding a motorcycle, areas from a previous accident can have debris & fluids around for long time. Another reason to keep your head on a swivel and pay good attention to the road and its conditions.  
Glad you made it home safe Gone, as well as anyone else here whenever they ride. It's a blessing to be able to ride a beautiful bike like the CB and even more of a blessing to return home to loved ones afterwards.

[Nachodaddy]

Good points, MagnaRider. I live in the Phoenix area and the streets and especially the freeways are fast, furious and dangerous. Ladders, wheelbarrows, mattresses and all other sorts of debris are common on the freeways and cause no end of excitement and the occasional wreck. Added to my advancing years (85) the driving conditions here took the fun out of riding.

[Gone in 60]

Thanks for keeping riders and drivers safe in Wisconsin, Magna! My experience with post-crash cleanup was in drag racing. When a race car crashes there's debris, but when a production car crashes, the amount of glass, fluids, shattered plastic, etc makes for quite a lengthy cleanup. I imagine the difference is that on a drag strip, the crews work as fast as they can, but the track surface has to be surgically clean when they're done. The crowd can wait a while. On a roadway, if you're blocking lanes to clear wreckage, you're causing a traffic jam. Good enough, I imagine, has to be the best solution to get traffic flowing again.

Here on the Southern California freeways, the shoulders are strewn with debris that the tow truck drivers either don't want to take, or don't have the ability to take. Mostly bumper covers, with license plates still attached. To Nacho's point, we have armadas of landscapers, contractors and other workers on the highways with all sorts of things hanging off of their trucks. Trimmers, tools, ladders... oh my gosh so many ladders... all over the shoulders.

Interestingly, other debris you'll see can be set by the calendar. At the end of the month, lots of people move as their apartment leases are up. You'll see mattresses, smashed furniture and other household items that fell off of poorly packed trucks, or off the roofs of cars - I often muse that the average person has no idea how the aerodynamics of a mattress on the roof of a car works. Beginning of summer? Start counting folding chairs and barbecues that have come loose from pickup trucks heading to the beach.

Also, and this is most concering to motorcyclists, is blown tires. As we get into summer and the roads heat up, truck tires explode, neglected, seldom-used trailer tires on boats and RVs explode, leaving "road alligators" all over the highways.

Our routing app for medical deliveries kicks over to Waze for navigation, and streams my live position to both our dispatcher and the recipient for the delivery, and the directions are streamed to my helmet. Recently I've gone into Waze settings and have muted the "hazard ahead" and "object on road ahead" alerts, because they were so constant that they were just annoying rather than helpful.

So how does all of this roadside junk get cleaned up? Not sure about other areas, but we have periodic "Sweeper trains", that are rolling blockages of the right or left lanes of freeway traffic and shoulders. Led and followed by CHP cars, with dump trucks, pickup crews and a street sweeper truck, picking up the debris and leaving fairly clean shoulders.

On the one hand, it's a slight bother to come up on a traffic jam caused by a Sweeper Train, but I can slide through fairly easily. On the other hand, as a rider, I appreciate it. If I'm in the left lane at highway speed, it's common for the car in front to drift to the left thinking he's "helping" the rider in case he wants to lane split. These helpers usually run their left tires over the line on the shoulder, and when there's debris, it's kicking up at the rider. Good intentions, but more of a hazard than a help...

[Nachodaddy]

Gone, I lived in Florida until 1975 and frequently saw alligators on the road. Hit one of those and he'll get real mad. I drove a '68 VW Beetle in those days and an alligator could flip a Beetle. It was often difficult to tell if you were approaching a piece of a truck tire or an alligator. We had large turkey buzzards that would sit in the middle of the lane until you were right on top of them and then lift slowly up and up, arriving at just about the windshield height when you hit them. Fortunately, I wasn't riding a motorcycle in those days.

[Gone in 60]

We don't have the real kind in California, just large, alligator-sized chunks of truck tire. I did see an alligator walking down the sidewalk last time I was in Sarasota, and yeah, I wouldn't want to hit that with a car or a bike.

[tommymck]

Not exactly an 1100, but close enough?   I've been working my way towards the back of storage.   Drained the tank and the carbs needed a bit of TLC, but didn't take extraordinary measures to get it running....  After taking a break from this bike for a while, it always surprises me how well the rear drum brake works.

[The A-man]

Absolutely gorgeous, Tommy!

[Cormanus]

The CB750 still looks wonderful to me, even after 50 years. Thanks for looking after it so well tommymck.

[rdprdp01]

Not exactly an 1100, but close enough? 

You have an incredible motorcycle, and it does not surprise me that you could get it tuned up with minimal effort. It will run for another 20 years. I consider your CB750 to be the "OG" of modern motorcycles. I am proud our CB1100s have a direct lineage to it. David