Some of the locals here went on a ride in the mountains today. I had stuff to do and the forecast called for rain so I skipped the ride this time. Got a call this afternoon saying that my friend, Mark went down on his CBR XX and was at the ER. I headed that way to help get the bike home and to check on him. He took a pretty good lick to the lid. Ruined his new Arai... but hopefully that saved his noggin'. He is experiencing short term memory loss tonight. It's getting better, but just after the get off his memory cycle was maybe 3 minutes according to other friends. He would ask something and after no more than 3 minutes he was asking the same question again like he had never asked it. By the time I left the hospital tonight at almost midnight he was remembering things that we were talking about there for closer to an hour. I think he will be fine in a couple days, but I'm still sending a prayer up. Those blows to the head can be nasty.
Nobody was with him when he went down. Seems he had split off from the group to run back through a road they had just ran. I think this was his first time on that particular road. Nobody is 100% certain what happened but they said the section he crashed on had a short string of small hillcrests and just over the last one the road disappears to the left. I've ridden that section several times and it can sneak up on you. There were no skids on the roadway so we don't know if he drove straight off without braking or whether he maybe floated the front coming over the hillcrest on the gas and rode off the road before he had time to react. It looked like he started sliding (maybe a lowside) in the grass and hit a huge rock with the front tire sending the bike (and him we assume) airborn and into some trees. The bike ended up wedged between two trees and he was sitting on a log in a daze when they finally went back looking for him and found him there. They said he was probably down for 20 minutes or so before they found him. I thank God that he wasn't hurt bad enough to expire before being found. My absolute WORST fear when riding with others is having one of my riding friends go down and nobody knowing it or finding them to be there with them, especially if they're hurt really bad. I wasn't even on this ride and just the thought of my friend being there not knowing WTF just happened and being by himself makes me sick to my stomache...
I just wanted to take this time to again tell all my friends here and everyone else as well to be careful out there. And if you're riding with someone, don't ever leave a riding partner behind.
Here are a few pics I snapped at the park where we went to get his bike. Some people who were camping there had came by just after the wreck and they hauled his bike to their campsite for us until we could get a truck and trailer over there to get it. Good folks.
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Nobody was with him when he went down. Seems he had split off from the group to run back through a road they had just ran. I think this was his first time on that particular road. Nobody is 100% certain what happened but they said the section he crashed on had a short string of small hillcrests and just over the last one the road disappears to the left. I've ridden that section several times and it can sneak up on you. There were no skids on the roadway so we don't know if he drove straight off without braking or whether he maybe floated the front coming over the hillcrest on the gas and rode off the road before he had time to react. It looked like he started sliding (maybe a lowside) in the grass and hit a huge rock with the front tire sending the bike (and him we assume) airborn and into some trees. The bike ended up wedged between two trees and he was sitting on a log in a daze when they finally went back looking for him and found him there. They said he was probably down for 20 minutes or so before they found him. I thank God that he wasn't hurt bad enough to expire before being found. My absolute WORST fear when riding with others is having one of my riding friends go down and nobody knowing it or finding them to be there with them, especially if they're hurt really bad. I wasn't even on this ride and just the thought of my friend being there not knowing WTF just happened and being by himself makes me sick to my stomache...
I just wanted to take this time to again tell all my friends here and everyone else as well to be careful out there. And if you're riding with someone, don't ever leave a riding partner behind.
Here are a few pics I snapped at the park where we went to get his bike. Some people who were camping there had came by just after the wreck and they hauled his bike to their campsite for us until we could get a truck and trailer over there to get it. Good folks.
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