Was tempted not to post this report as I really do not like to make myself look like an idiot. But something may be learned from it so here goes. Pretty weak on exciting crash pics as it happened at night so you will have to bear with my scintillating prose. Had left Bangkok early to head up to Chiang Mai with my newest Africa Twin. Smooth ride, about 8 hours. Once there did a bit of work and then jumped on my KTM.
Plan was to ride about 5 hours east to a small town called Dan Sai to meet my friend David Unkovich for a festival there. Did not leave until about 5 o'clock in the afternoon so knowingly went into the ride with night time riding hours...... Had been on most of the road before so was not really worried about it. About half the way over I decided to take a shortcut over the mountains as it would cut off a lot of time. It was a good two lane highway with very limited traffic. Was about 25 kilometers away from Dan Sai and riding a bit faster than I should have. Because of the darkness was a bit more difficult to judge speed. Came up over a rise, and then there was long slightly downhill section where my speed picked up unknowingly to me. Next thing I know there is a sharp right hand curve at the end of the straight away.
Pic above: The sharp? right hand curve. Note the missing concrete guide posts. (Captions by David Unk)
Was in a sort of forested area with underbrush along the side of the road. All along the outside of the turn were three foot high cement posts spaced about every couple of yards. Locked the wheel briefly which started to fishtail the rear. Figured I would be better off going into them with some control instead of sliding into them. My last thought before I hit them at perhaps 100 kph was that I was well and truly ****ed this time.
Woke up in the dark, in pain beyond belief, broken motorcycle bits all around me, the front of my helmet smashed off, and unable to get up. The bike was lying 5 meters away with the headlight still on pointing away from me. My right eye was almost swollen shut, and my back felt like the mafia spent a day working me over with base ball bats. Did not even know where the road was, but cleverly reasoned it must be above me. So crawled on my hands and knees up to the road and and waited long periods until a car would come come by. Tried to sort of crouch upright and wave my broken helmet at cars to get them to stop. At this time was about 10 pm at night. No one would stop. Realized at this point things were getting a bit serious as the bike could not be seen from the road, and I was worried about going into shock from the pain. Crawled back to the bike to get the flash light from the tank bag and went back to the road. Now finally a truck full of local villagers stopped when they saw me waving the flashlight . They did not speak a word of english, and my Thai was not working too well as they spoke a sort of local dialect. My phone, cash, and passport were in a sort of fanny pack which was located in my left side Jesse bag. That bag took a direct hit on one of the posts, was smashed open, and all the contents strewn over the underbrush. Potentially a ugly scene as I cannot communicate what I wish to the the villagers, which is to sort of secure the bike and get to the hospital in Dan Sai before I pass out. In my sort of fogged out brain I realize I must find the small green fanny pack to get the ball rolling because of the phone.
At this point I can stand a little bit with lots of pain. So in a sort of comedy scene myself and some of the villagers scour all around for 15 minutes until I find the green bag in the green underbrush. Thank god, phone time!! A quick call to my friend David, who speaks very good Thai and now things were rolling. Sorted out a local guy to spend the night with the bike, jumped into their truck, and then off to the Dan Sai hospital where David was waiting for me to show up. A very nice small regional hospital, much better than you would expect in a small town. Took pelvic x rays which showed nothing broken. Had a huge black eye from the helmet coming apart and my face hitting something. Looking at the helmet I think I think my face went into one of the posts. Other than that, nothing........
Oh wait, lots and lots of pain. My back looked like it had only a small bruise on it while at the hospital. Was not until the next day my whole ass turned blue....Spent the night there, and then called another friend of mine named David who was in Chiang Mai. Sorted him to come out in my truck and pick me up along with the broken bike. He showed up in the afternoon, so all of us then went out to the crash site. The local guy was still waiting there the next day, and he had carefully covered the bike up. Bike was sitting upright from salvage effort from the night before, so just sort of dragged it up the embankment onto the road, and then dead lifted it ( not me ) into the truck.
By this time a sort of crowd of local villagers had gathered. They were looking at the cement posts that were knocked over and the smashed up bike, and kept asking her where the dead foreigner was. When my girlfriend pointed to me helping to load the bike onto the truck , they just shook their heads and kept saying amazing that I had life in me. Think they are right.
Looks from the scratches of the front of the shield my face went
directly into one of the posts. Think I am lucky to still have a face.
Winner !!!! Yeah baby kicked some ass on that post.....
Price my Jesse bag had to pay for killing the post
Price my butt paid. I think if it had hit a couple of inches higher it would have crushed my spine leaving me shopping for a KTM wheelchair for life...I suspect you have to hit
something pretty hard to create that level of bruising. No wonder I hurt so much in the hospital.....
During the bike salvage effort the next day my girlfriend kept telling me to hurry up on the loading of the bike. If the police came by and saw the broken post they would have charged me for it, about 300 baht.........
Lessons???
1. No fool like an old fool
2. Do not ride at night
3. Ride fast for what???
4. Riding alone adds to risks if problems come up
5. 13 hours of riding on short sleep dramatically affects judgement
Here is a link to all the photos:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/roberthie ... /my_photos[]
Plan was to ride about 5 hours east to a small town called Dan Sai to meet my friend David Unkovich for a festival there. Did not leave until about 5 o'clock in the afternoon so knowingly went into the ride with night time riding hours...... Had been on most of the road before so was not really worried about it. About half the way over I decided to take a shortcut over the mountains as it would cut off a lot of time. It was a good two lane highway with very limited traffic. Was about 25 kilometers away from Dan Sai and riding a bit faster than I should have. Because of the darkness was a bit more difficult to judge speed. Came up over a rise, and then there was long slightly downhill section where my speed picked up unknowingly to me. Next thing I know there is a sharp right hand curve at the end of the straight away.
Pic above: The sharp? right hand curve. Note the missing concrete guide posts. (Captions by David Unk)
Was in a sort of forested area with underbrush along the side of the road. All along the outside of the turn were three foot high cement posts spaced about every couple of yards. Locked the wheel briefly which started to fishtail the rear. Figured I would be better off going into them with some control instead of sliding into them. My last thought before I hit them at perhaps 100 kph was that I was well and truly ****ed this time.
Woke up in the dark, in pain beyond belief, broken motorcycle bits all around me, the front of my helmet smashed off, and unable to get up. The bike was lying 5 meters away with the headlight still on pointing away from me. My right eye was almost swollen shut, and my back felt like the mafia spent a day working me over with base ball bats. Did not even know where the road was, but cleverly reasoned it must be above me. So crawled on my hands and knees up to the road and and waited long periods until a car would come come by. Tried to sort of crouch upright and wave my broken helmet at cars to get them to stop. At this time was about 10 pm at night. No one would stop. Realized at this point things were getting a bit serious as the bike could not be seen from the road, and I was worried about going into shock from the pain. Crawled back to the bike to get the flash light from the tank bag and went back to the road. Now finally a truck full of local villagers stopped when they saw me waving the flashlight . They did not speak a word of english, and my Thai was not working too well as they spoke a sort of local dialect. My phone, cash, and passport were in a sort of fanny pack which was located in my left side Jesse bag. That bag took a direct hit on one of the posts, was smashed open, and all the contents strewn over the underbrush. Potentially a ugly scene as I cannot communicate what I wish to the the villagers, which is to sort of secure the bike and get to the hospital in Dan Sai before I pass out. In my sort of fogged out brain I realize I must find the small green fanny pack to get the ball rolling because of the phone.
At this point I can stand a little bit with lots of pain. So in a sort of comedy scene myself and some of the villagers scour all around for 15 minutes until I find the green bag in the green underbrush. Thank god, phone time!! A quick call to my friend David, who speaks very good Thai and now things were rolling. Sorted out a local guy to spend the night with the bike, jumped into their truck, and then off to the Dan Sai hospital where David was waiting for me to show up. A very nice small regional hospital, much better than you would expect in a small town. Took pelvic x rays which showed nothing broken. Had a huge black eye from the helmet coming apart and my face hitting something. Looking at the helmet I think I think my face went into one of the posts. Other than that, nothing........
Oh wait, lots and lots of pain. My back looked like it had only a small bruise on it while at the hospital. Was not until the next day my whole ass turned blue....Spent the night there, and then called another friend of mine named David who was in Chiang Mai. Sorted him to come out in my truck and pick me up along with the broken bike. He showed up in the afternoon, so all of us then went out to the crash site. The local guy was still waiting there the next day, and he had carefully covered the bike up. Bike was sitting upright from salvage effort from the night before, so just sort of dragged it up the embankment onto the road, and then dead lifted it ( not me ) into the truck.
By this time a sort of crowd of local villagers had gathered. They were looking at the cement posts that were knocked over and the smashed up bike, and kept asking her where the dead foreigner was. When my girlfriend pointed to me helping to load the bike onto the truck , they just shook their heads and kept saying amazing that I had life in me. Think they are right.
Looks from the scratches of the front of the shield my face went
directly into one of the posts. Think I am lucky to still have a face.
Winner !!!! Yeah baby kicked some ass on that post.....
Price my Jesse bag had to pay for killing the post
Price my butt paid. I think if it had hit a couple of inches higher it would have crushed my spine leaving me shopping for a KTM wheelchair for life...I suspect you have to hit
something pretty hard to create that level of bruising. No wonder I hurt so much in the hospital.....
During the bike salvage effort the next day my girlfriend kept telling me to hurry up on the loading of the bike. If the police came by and saw the broken post they would have charged me for it, about 300 baht.........
Lessons???
1. No fool like an old fool
2. Do not ride at night
3. Ride fast for what???
4. Riding alone adds to risks if problems come up
5. 13 hours of riding on short sleep dramatically affects judgement
Here is a link to all the photos:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/roberthie ... /my_photos[
]
