Just the other day a young man in my team crashed his bike head-on into a moving car and got severely bruised… His bike was almost totaled and it took him quite a lot of cash and time to bring both his ride and himself back on track.I was talking to him a few evenings ago and told him the importance of having proper riding gear. Since I am older and a bit more experienced in the riding scene, I almost bragged about my vast array of riding gear… from multiple pairs of gloves to a few riding jackets; a couple of riding pants to the set of knee & shin protector and my collection of various helmets…
The morning after this talk to him, I was getting ready to go to work as usual. The weather in Bangalore is slightly different these days, it’s been raining on and off (sort of reminds me of Seattle, only dirtier and more crowded) It has been my daily regime since a few weeks that I wear my knee & shin guard along with my city riding jacket, gloves and helmet every time I ride out of the house…
This morning, I was feeling cocky and decided that I don’t need to wear the knee & shin guard since they need to be worn over my office pants and they spoil the LOOK! (Big Mistake!) I rode the bike out from my house to the open road, it was still drizzling and the roads were all covered in slush, I reach the first main road crossing and as usual took the showoff lean turn, the bike was impressively tilted at low speeds on the busy crowded area… I noticed a few people admiring me and smiled at myself and my skills inside the helmet… just a split second of attention diffusion… and suddenly in the turn I notice a car blocking the onwards road and I panicked (another big mistake) I hit the front brake hard and the bike spilled taking me along… all the show that I was giving just a second ago had turned into a crash. Thankfully RedEye seems to have a mind of her own, she didn’t give a very fabulous looking crash with sparks flying all over, she just dipped and dropped on her side… this was one of my crashes where I actually got thrown away from the bike and sprawled on the road.
A few guys huddled around me and pulled me to my feet; two of them even used some brut force and pulled RedEye on her feet. They asked me to sit down for a while and assess the damages done to me and RedEye… I was hurt, not physically but my ego was totally shattered… how can an experienced biker like me crash?!! Why didn’t I wear my Knee guard? Coz my left knee was bruised pretty bad. I got on the bike to notice that she had done some damage to herself just to ensure that I am safe… her foot rests were broken.
I managed anyway to get her running and took her to a garage on my way to work. Got her damage fixed, while the mech was doing what he does best, I realized that just a little bit of cockiness and overconfidence and bring you down bad…
Now, I am back to normal with my feet firmly on the ground… the bruise and the pain in my left knee reminding me that it’s human to be humble… and I am thanking RedEye for being the beauty she is… She has saved me and my grace so many times…
(Image Courtesy: T. McCracken http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mchumor.com/00images/7783_accident_cartoon.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.mchumor.com/accident2_bframe.html&usg=__A1v_VQPsZZD2zGtF8i80QZ0sq40=&h=435&w=330&sz=34&hl=en&start=8&tbnid=9mdjUAKDh24R2M:&tbnh=126&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmotorcycle%2Baccident%2Bcartoon%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den )
