Day two:
Things didn't go so well today. We were pretty excited as we had planned a nice route to meet Phantom in Pine Valley via all back country roads. 90 miles total and it should of taken us around 2 hours +
Weather was perfect and we got an early start with brunch in mind. We were taking it easy today as well and had gotten about half way to our destination when my lil bro had a get off on Old Julian Highway.
Sometimes I would let him lead and other times he would follow, both a learning experience. From behind I can watch and give advice, from the front he can see what I am doing and copy or ask questions later.
No less than 1 mile into OJH and I was looking in my mirror for the headlight like I always do to ensure there were no problems. This time when I looked all I saw was a bike sliding into and out of my mirror followed by my lil bro. I turned around and before I even began to start in his direction he was up and trying to pick up the bike. I pulled up and told him to leave it so I could help. We got the bike up and checked him out, he had some rash on his knee and a little on his side from the jacket riding up.
For the last several months I have been talking to him about wearing all the gear and I was able to round up everything except a pair of leather pants. We had many talks and I know now he understands the importance of gear. So lesson learned on his part and little to no damage to himself, he got off cheap.
The bike needs about $500 in parts and I will do the work, after all he is my lil bro. Needs blinker, lever, gas tank, shift lever, passenger peg, headlight and headlight fairing.
I am not glad he wrecked but I am glad of the lessons he learned today at little to no cost. Still not sure why he wrecked but I have a really good hunch. I was running around 35-40 mph and he was several hundred feet back at an ever slower speed (he thinks 20 mph) and I think he panicked because he felt he was going to fast and he grabbed a handful shortly after his turn in point and the front end said no thank you.
After talking with him he is not sure what he did or whether or not he grabbed the brake. He may be embarrassed, I am not sure. At any rate I have told him its a right of passage and he joined an elite club of riders who have crashed which is most of us. I told him take it as a learning lesson and become a better rider because of the accident.
The bike was not rideable at first but after some rigging I got it going, he rode the busa and I rode the rigged shift lever SV half way where me met pops in my pick-up.
All in all we still had a good day and he didn't get hurt and he sure learned a lot.
We were approaching where I was standing when I took this picture. The bike ended up past the concrete under the guardrail, wedged underneath the last few towers of the guardrail.
This is the direction we were heading
You can see some of the scrape marks in the pavement here.
And the poor SV that I just finished re-doing.........looks like I get to work on her again.