Daytona Trip - Last 2 days (for awhile!!!) Part 2 - THE CRASH

It was a cold Sunday morning in Wilmington, NC. Around 37 degrees, so I decided to wait for mid morning for the temps to warm up. It was another sunny clear sky day so that was nice. My wife would be following me in her car as she had been visiting our daughter and helping her out due to the cat bite she had from the week before. The cat bite had got badly infected and the Dr. thought he was going to have to perform surgery at one time. After he put her on three antibiotics the infection started to go away. A cat bite can be very nasty. That was why my wife was there and heading back with me.

We planned to just head up I-40 and I-95 to get home. We were both anxious to get home after being away for almost a week. We took a break and gassed up along I-40. I knew I would need to stop one more time to gas up and planned on Emporia, VA for the final break/gas stop.

As is common on the interstate, especially I95, we were in and out of traffic. Sometimes it would be a string of 4-5 tractor trailers and we would be in the left lane. Other times things would thin out and would be cruising along in the right lane. My normal cruising speed on the interstates are normally 0 to +5mph of the speed limit. When my wife is following me I keep it right on the speed limit, so I had my cruise control set on 70 and so was the speed.

We were in one of those lull traffic periods just south of Roanoke Rapids, NC in the right lane when immediately my bike began a violent wobble and what I had heard described in rare cases as handlebar "tank slapping". There was no perceived warning prior to the violent wobble, My first thought was that I had a tire blow out and had to maintain control of the bike. The first thing I did was very lightly tap the front brake lever to disconnect cruise control. That was good as it sent a signal immediately to my wife that something was wrong and for her to slow down too which she did see and immediately do (she told me later she saw the brake light flash and saw the violent wobble). The wobble and tank slapping did nothing but get more violent and intensify (being an engineer it reminded me of an uncontrollable feedback, it was like it was feeding on itself and getting worse and worse). My last thought was I am going down! From the first indication of a wobble it was only approximately 2-3 seconds until I & and my Ultra were on the pavement on our left side. I do not remember ever going down. This is what my wife behind me told me later that she saw.

When I first "woke up" I was laying on the pavement and saw my wife and lots of other people and cars parked. My wife said I tried to get up then and everybody held me down. I blacked back out and didn't remember anything else until I "woke up" in the emergency room bed with the nurse talking to me. He was a motorcycle rider and I remember he asked me about cutting my clothes off and I asked him not to until we tried to get them off! I didn't want my jacket and heated gear cut!! At that point I was still numb to the pain and we did get my clothes off without cutting anything! That was nice of him!

When through the battery of Xrays and CT scans and they told me I would need to go to a trauma center due to bleeding and contusions around both of my lungs. I was then flown by helicopter to the MCV trauma center in Richmond. I spent only 3 nights there and they let me come home on Wednesday!


The bike is totaled with over $11,000 of damage. All the damage was on the left side as I and the bike stayed on and slid on the left side only. A lot of internal damage to the "front end" such as the front shocks and triple tree. Looks like me and the bike came close to flipping, but we didn't!!

All damage on left side

The tire separating from the rim is what caused the intense wobble/tank slapping at 70 mph. Local dealer that my bike was towed to inspected the tire and did find what appeared to be a puncture in the tread but no sign of what caused it. I am "anal" with my tire inspections. I had 40 psi in the tire that morning and it had between 4/32 and 5/32 of tread depth. I check my tires like this EVERY morning on a trip! I had around 13,000 miles on the tire. The real problem was that the tire immediately detached from the rim throwing the bike into a sever wobble.

I am being repaired and luckly not totaled!! I have 8 broken ribs, 1 broken collar bone, 1 separated shoulder and a bone chipped on my leg tibia. Luckily it was a cold morning (in 30's when I left that morning) so I had insulated underwear, jeans and chaps on my legs. I had a t shirt, long sleeve shirt, Gerbings heated jacket, nylon inner jacket and my HD mesh riding jacket on. Also had my Gerbings heated gloves on. I had NO road rash! HD 3/4 Helmet was ruined with cuts/scratches/gashes all the way around it. The protective gear really did a GREAT job!

That me in the reflection with my arm in sling!

 I was very happy with the HD mesh riding jacket as it had several small tears in the front in my neck upper chest area and in the back around the collar (odd that I have no injuries on my body in those area, not a scratch!)

What was interesting was no tears/cuts where I made the first impact with the road on my shoulder.

Leather on chaps only roughed up. Interesting that Gerbings heated jacket had a 2 inch hole tore in it but did not cut through any of the wires. Tore a hole all the way through the leather of my Cruiserworks boots (don't guess they are waterproof anymore!). Also had the left lens of my Rayban riding glasses scratch up pretty bad. My wife said I was laying face down at the end. I had no scratches on my face though.

Here is a pic 4 days later of the road contact point with my shoulder. This is what did most of the damage to me!

4 days later, road contact point

Now that it is over with, my wife took this picture as she knew I always posted pictures of meals I had on my motorcycle trips. It was appropriate for the first hospital meal in ICU. It was really good since I had not eaten for almost 36 hours at this point (they wouldn't feed me anything until they were sure no immediate surgery would be needed (seemed that it took them a long time to determine that!!)

My first meal in the hospital!!

Anyway, I am doing pretty good and hope to make a full recovery in a "few" weeks. Looking at getting a new 2012 Ultra Limited! For all you fellow riders, just make sure you check those tires. I just don't know what else I could have done to have prevented this accident from happening. It has gone through my mind many times over the past 12 days!

Just want to say how helpful all the people involved have been. My wife said folks stopping at the scene on the interstate were great. They helped her get some of the important stuff off my motorcycle and into her car as well as getting my motorcycle off the travel lane until the towing service got there. The emergency room, hospital staff and copter crew were all great too!