Hi everyone!

I would like to introduce myself a little here. I purchased a 2010 Ninjette March of last year... however… my riding experience was cut short with a devastating accident in May of 2010. I broke 6 bones, had 2 surgeries and did not touch my Ninjette again until March of this year. I was riding for all the wrong reasons that day, I had a lot on my mind and I lost it on a left hand turn. I had less than 600 miles of riding experience/time at the time of the crash. :(

I've been slowly trying to get over the mental hurdle of riding again, starting back up with just sitting on the bike... progressing to riding the bike down to the empty parking lot near my house and now back on public roads. :eek:

I am still a newbie rider but I did setup a GoPro camera on the bike to help myself review my riding and to edit into little videos for everyone to watch. The videos are sped up a bit so not to get too slow as I am a cruiser personality and enjoy riding at speed limit (or very slightly above).

I have embedded my first canyon ride since the accident (solo ride) and hope that my videos would be able to provide some entertainment for other Ninjette riders. :)

My YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/250Solace) can be found by my username "250Solace" or here (http://www.youtube.com/user/250Solace). Please subscribe to the channel for future rides/videos around the bay.

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Thank you for listening to my story/experience and I will be updating my YouTube page frequently and hope to share enjoyable rides around the Bay Area (California) with everyone else here. I will apologize in advance if the videos are incredibly boring and will listen to all advice for improving the videos!

Thank You,
250Solace

Nice video! Good job, im liking the music.

Redwood is one of my favorite roads to ride on also.

Have you taken skyline towards grizzly to "The Wall" ?

Have you taken skyline towards grizzly to "The Wall" ?

Thank you! I have, i live closer to the Berkeley side and Grizzly is usually my starting point for the beginning of my mountain rides.

I recently visited the bench at the intersection of Pinhurst and Redwood also, took some pictures and left a little mark there along with all the other sketches and writing on the bench.

haha, i just seen that thread on Barf. Havent gotten a chance to see it in person yet.

Sorry to hear about your crash and good to see that you are back..

Yet to see the video.. As in office , i do not have access to youtube..:eek:

To get over you mental hurdle of riding , Watch some riding videos which have more on learning tips.. that what helped me when i had a crash.. Hope it help s you too.

Welcome, and glad you're able to get back on and ride... Great video... :thumbup:

It's great to hear your getting back into riding! That ride looked like a lot of fun! I too find it more enjoyable to ride nice and easy, just cruising around. Goodluck and have fun :thumbup:.

As others have mentioned, sorry to hear of your crash... however, glad to see you getting back on the ride again!! It definitely would have been easy to just give up the sport... it shows real courage to push through... good for you!!! Also, nice video... I need to invest in a GoPro as well :thumbup:

As others have mentioned, sorry to hear of your crash... however, glad to see you getting back on the ride again!! It definitely would have been easy to just give up the sport... it shows real courage to push through... good for you!!! Also, nice video... I need to invest in a GoPro as well :thumbup:

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. I'm still nervous on it most of the time but hopefully will get more comfortable with experience. I will try to post the next interesting video here, might be awhile until then!

Dude I'm sorry about the crash. I'm very curious to know what happened so I can prevent something like that to happen to me, but I understand if you don't want to talk about it.
And welcome back to riding (:

Dude I'm sorry about the crash. I'm very curious to know what happened so I can prevent something like that to happen to me, but I understand if you don't want to talk about it.
And welcome back to riding (:

Hi Kaiserz,

Thank you for the kind words. I will try my best to describe/recall the accident, I am still not fully at peace with things leading up to the accident yet but I will do my best.. as maybe it might help others avoid hurting themselves.

Everything in life was going exactly the way I wanted at the end of 2009 and then something unforeseen happened in the very beginning of 2010 that I still blame myself for to this day(pm me if you need the details). With that guilt still weighing on me , I took a day off from work, went to the local dealership, bought a motorcycle to fulfill my childhood dream. Bought it new, didn't care about the price, had it delivered the same day and started riding (I had my license in 2008).

With less than 2 months and less than 600 miles, I went to my second group ride with the Bay Area Riders forum. I was looking for speed and danger so I could blind myself from life.

It started out ok, I was keeping up with the group and the sweeper (the last guy designated to follow everyone) was always right behind me watching out for me. However, as the day progressed, everyone got faster and faster and during one of the rest/stops, the sweeper went home and left me as the designated sweeper/last guy in the pack.

It was a twisty ride in a very unfamiliar area for me, the riders in the group were going incredibly fast through the twisties (twice the speed limit) and I was struggling to keep up. With my limited riding experience at the time, I was using the person in front of me as a cue for speed and lean angle.

And then here's what happened. During the last portion of the run, before we were heading home, I was struggling to keep up with the person in front of me, in fact, i found myself all alone for a many miles of the ride and was starting to worry that I was going to be lost somewhere unfamiliar.

I started trying to go faster to catch up, going maybe 50-60mph in the straights and still not seeing any riders ahead, I maintain the speed, then i blanked. I thought about everything that weighed on me, the reasons why I was struggling to find joy in anything but riding.

I was approaching a hard left turn, a 90 degree type turn, i was still going 50-60mph, I was still in my own painful thoughts. I didn't have my visual cue of the rider in front of me for speed and angle, I was approaching the left turn way to fast. I tried to brake.. I leaned, I thought I could make it.. but my rear tire slipped out on gravel, i tried to gas out of it, but it was too late.

I was tossed from the bike, landed hard on my left side on the concrete, bounced into a watery ditch. I remember my head and shoulder hitting the ground very hard and was laying there in the cold water. I wiggled my fingers and toes to make sure that I did not paralyze myself and was glad to be able to feel those parts still working. I was fully conscious and did not realize how badly I had injured myself. When I tried to get up, that was when I realized I couldn't.

Since it was a pretty deserted road, I laid there for what seemed like an eternity before a car passed and stopped to see how i was doing. The group that I was riding with did not realize I was missing until much later and came back for me until the ambulance arrived.

The result was:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-mLGLv5cuk7A/TUEHd6XZkbI/AAAAAAAANxc/PazuSLGKU10/s800/shoulder.jpg

Broken collarbone (clavicle) shattered scapula (shoulder blade), 4 broken ribs, fractured hip, and a sprained neck. It took 2 major surgeries, with the risk of me not being able to move my arm again if the surgeries didn't go well. The medical bill would have been $280,000.00+ USD :eek::eek::eek: had it not been for my medical insurance covering all but $8,000.00 or so. A year later, my arm is functional, but every time the weather changes, I ache and cramp up. It's a constant reminder of what had happened.

What did I learn from all this?

1. The most important thing was, buying the bike because I was upset and riding it when I had a lot on my mind with that little experience was a very dangerous thing to do. Make sure that during the ride, your mind is clear and that you are riding for the right reasons, I believed that in my mind I was riding because I felt like I didn't care anymore. Do not ride when angry, upset, depressed or in any other state of mind besides loving to ride.

2. Group rides - make sure that you ride with a group that is more newbie friendly if you are just starting out, and don't try to catch up if you feel lost, ride at your own pace. If you ever feel lost or left behind, just know that the group is waiting for you at the next intersection, Even if you are going half their speed, it's only a matter of a few minutes, less than 5 usually of a wait for them.

3. Always have medical insurance (in the US) if you're going to ride. The medical costs were insane. Had it not been for insurance, I would have been put into a difficult financial situation that would have been nearly impossible to get out of as a single teacher in the US.

Sorry about the long read, if anything was unclear or if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I will try my best to answer questions.

Thank you for sharing, I really appreciate that you took the time to write this so we can learn from what happened. I want to ask more questions like what happened in the very beginning of 2010 but I feel that that's jut gonna be too personal, but if you want to share I'm here to listen, every person goes through something, but life goes on, it's just gonna depend how we spend it. They say that the awareness of death can make people embrace life. I hope everything goes well for you. I know you got this. There's a reason for everything, it's just up to us if we're open to finding it.

Once again thank you for sharing this, I really appreciate it (:

Great info!! Sorry about your crash. i am just getting into riding and i feel like i learned alot from reading your post. Thanks for the tips. Be safe out there. :thumbup: