The New Rider w/ The Gixxer 1000 Crashed
If you remember one of my posts from a couple of months back, I talked about a new rider I know that bought a GSX-R1000 for his first bike. He crashed (low-sided) yesterday after hitting some gravel mid-turn. Fortunately he's not hurt at all thanks to the excellent safety gear he was wearing (full leathers) and the bike has only cosmetic damage.
Just as a reminder to any novice riders out there, take three things from this:
- Wear good safety gear. The rider I'm talking about here was wearing a full leather race suit and escaped with no injuries at all. No road rash, no burns, nothing. You don't have to have full race leathers to be well protected at street speeds, but make sure you're doing enough to prevent unnecessary pain and hospital visits.
- When riding a twisty canyon road, control your speed so that you can give yourself enough time to react if you do see gravel in the road. This means being especially careful on right-hand turns, which are often blind in this situation. Only go as fast as your safe field of vision will allow.
- If you ride a sport bike, get frame sliders. They're a small investment in money and time but will save you big in case your bike does go down.