Never having my own bike, or my endorsement, so far I’ve had to rely on other people in my life to take me out, and have always been grateful for it. This past summer I met who I like to call the “Most Amazing Man Ever”, and by chance, he just happened to ride a street bike. Towards the end of our first date he ended up taking me to the hospital because I had dislocated knee (I tripped over his foot prior to heading out for a game of pool with a girlfriend and her significant other, and I fell just the right way, dislocating my kneecap), so it ended up being about a week and a half before he took me out riding.

He was riding his 1996 Honda ST1100 then, and I can say that it was probably some of the best time we had together. For the next few weeks our schedules didn’t really match up and he had purchased a 2003 Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird over that time. One night he stopped by to take me out and it was really amazing to be on the newer bike. We were having a great time together at a sports bar that we went to, laughing the majority of the time that we were there. Later on, he was taking me home and the last thing I remember is sitting behind him on the bike, waiting for a break in traffic so we could leave the parking lot.

The last clear memory that I have was lying on my back, lights surrounding and blinding me, and me asking people around me just where Chris was. I knew that if I was there, he would be, too.

When they told me that Chris had died, I felt the fight in my leave. I was then sedated and when I came to, I was in surgery, and I passed out from the pain. We were leaving the bar, on my way to my house, when Chris decided that she should go for a ride. I accepted, of course. We made a left turn down a road that had a S curve marked for 50km/h a kilometer or two down and for whatever reason, he failed to negotiate the turns and we ended up crashing through very large rocks, an unbarbed fence, and finally, a street sign, flying into an open field.

Chris was found about 80 feet from the road, I was found another 15 feet further out from him. The bike was found about 50 yards from us in the opposing direction. One of the witnesses said that if he hadn’t crashed into the field, there would have been a head on collision with a vehicle that was turning onto the road. Of course I’ll never know exactly what happened, or why he was going so fast in the first place.

He was a terrific rider, having been on motorcycles for more than 25 years (he was only 38) and the previous year he had hit a deer while going 110km/h, keeping the bike upright. I don’t think he did this on purpose, but unfortunately I’ll never understand what happened on that night.

The injuries I sustained were numerous. My right humerous was broken in 2 places an inch apart about 3 inches from my elbow, so now I have a metal plate with 9 screws holding my arm together. My left arm was dislocated at the elbow, with my humerous almost to my wrist and my elbow close to my armpit, my radial head was shattered, and they had to give me a titanium joint.

My right leg was almost severed at the knee – the unbarbed wire fence severed my patellar tendon completely (the thing that holds the knee cap in place) and I’m told that they couldn’t find my knee cap at the scene. Most of it was hiding in my knee and a portion of it was left in the field somewhere. Five of my ribs were broken on my right side, perforating my liver and spleen and puncturing my right lung.

My right kidney was so badly damaged and swollen they were talking about removing it altogether (they talked about removing my lung as well), but I was lucky enough to keep all of my own body parts, as well as the metal that helps to hold me together.

I’m lucky to be in one piece.

Appreciate what you’ve got, you never know when it will be taken away.

Sarah Kieler
Ontario, Canada

At the time, I was on a Bultaco race bike doing roughly 65mph when a fellow racer lost control of his bike. I don’t know how, but he ended up doing a 180 degree turn and was flying toward me! There wasn’t time to react, and his bike jumped the berm and hit me.

His motorcycle actually climbed up my right front fork and bounced off my helmet. Honestly, if I hadn’t have been wearing my Bellstar full face helmet, I wouldn’t be typing this now, I would be dead, for sure. Afterwards, you could see the skid marks off the face of the helmet, it was that bad. The impact was so hard that it cracked the helmet from the eye hole to the top.

I ended up suffering a compound fracture in my arm, a concussion, and spent 2 weeks in the hospital. I couldn’t talk for 3 days due to the swelling in my throat from the helmet strap. The worst part of all of this is that the other guy didn’t bail off the bike, and his handlebars ended up smashing him in the chest, bruising his heart. He died on the way to the hospital.

I don’t remember the crash at all, which is good, I guess. Plenty of people filled me in later; it was just one of those freak accidents. Tracks these days tend to be safer; lots of hay bales help to prevent this kind of thing.

Ride safe everyone,

Jeff Osgoode
Fort Worth, Texas, USA

I was on my motorcycle heading back to my college apartment after a lovely weekend with my family, about 30 miles away or so. It was barely twilight. A woman turned left in front of me, clearly didn’t see me (she didn’t look), and I hit her car roughly at her back wheel, was launched over the car, and literally landed on my face. Three of my teeth were broken, my knee was split open, and I broke a small bone in my foot that required me to get around with a cane for 4 months.

No serious accidents since then, though! That single incident made me paranoid. Now I think that car drivers are out to get me, so I assume that I’m invisible to them. It’s worked well so far.

A friend of mine got in a real bad accident, mainly caused by his own stupidity. He would race through intersections. What he’d do was sit at a red light, and watch the light in the opposing direction go from green to yellow to red. Then it was about to switch to red, he’d gun the bike and fly through the intersection like a drag race. This is pretty stupid, since we all know that intersections are where all the bad stuff happens, where car drivers don’t “see” you.

So, he tried this one time too many. It was around twilight again. He ripped it right into the intersection and got t-boned by an old man who sped up to grab the light. My buddy’s leg was smashed to pieces. When he finally came back to work, he brought an x-ray and showed us all the screws and strapping and bailing wire that they used to put the bones back together.

And he walks real funny now.

Mike LaFontaine
Montreal, Quebec, Canada