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Damn !

First DS outing and my wife took a good spill. We were leaving Humbolt and encountered a washed out road facing at a concrete bridge. I was surprised by it, got off the saddle and road through at about 35... then signaled "LEG OUT" for the hazard. My wife (who just finished the MSF beginners course) did not know what I was signaling..... She went down hard when she hit the concrete bridge edge. She was wearing upper body armor so only her knee ended up getting a nasty goose egg. Being the troop that she is, she got back on and road the 20+ miles home. Needless to say, I wrote a bitch-o-gram to the KS Dept of Ed person responsible for training at KCCC and kick myself for not double checking signals before leaving home. Here is my question for you crash monkeys. We are now ordering lower body armor for the legs and wonder what everyone likes the best. We're both getting armor...

Her new nick name (at least this week) is Festus !!! She did have a smile on her face when we got home.

Will

Maybe it's not covered in the beginners course. It's too bad it happened but we are all responsible to ride within our limits and at a speed that we can react to any road hazards. I don't think I'd take it up with the safety course people past maybe recommending adding it to the course. Once again, glad she's not seriously hurt.

I'm sorry to hear about the accident. Glad she is OK.

I wear these and like then quite a bit. http://www.motorcyclecloseouts.com/off+ ... +overpants

Thanks for the link Eddie, the wifes sitting reading along.

I think the real sad part is that last year's course at Burlington High School (I attended) covered signaling, group riding and actually took class members out to practice group riding. My wife said that the course in KC did not cover anything about signaling while riding, just the course instructor's signals. MSF's basic course has a chapter on group riding and signaling. I guess the instructors did not find it important.

I seem to have about 20 pairs of knee guards laying around

In the quest to find the most comfortable these won out:

http://www.sixsixone.com/Catalog_661Mot ... 447e5468f6

SixSixOne Tomcat Knee in case the URL above gets mangled.

My suggestion would be go to a store like MC Closeouts and try the different guards. I would think she will need a pair of MC pants ... Klim makes some nice ones for males that are over the boot, not motocross style ... not sure of female fitment. These pants have roon on the leg for the knee guard to go under the pant. The other issue I have found is that my knee guards slide down unless I am wearing my MC boots.

I agree that some sort of signaling review would be in order.

Glad to hear your wife is okay after the spill.

I'm just wondering what kind of signals you guys use. Although I've had street bikes for nearly 10 years, I never took a safety course and only recently started dual sport riding (and even riding in groups for that matter).

Thanks.

reddof wrote:I'm just wondering what kind of signals you guys use.

Check out the safety page at this site: http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/index2.htm

ajayhawkfan wrote:Check out the safety page at this site: http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/index2.htm

Thanks. That's some great information. Now that I see those signals I realize I've seen people do some of them and didn't know it at the time. I knew or could guess a couple of them. I haven't heard the term ballerina troupes before though. What is that exactly? Google didn't turn up anything.

reddof wrote:

ajayhawkfan wrote:Check out the safety page at this site: http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/index2.htm

I haven't heard the term ballerina troupes before though. What is that exactly?

Ever sense the fall of the Soviet Union you find wild Russian ballerina troupes in the most un-likely places. If you don't watch out you could end up in dangerous pirouette.

We wondered about the ballerina signal also. We figured it meant you had a TICK in your shorts and it just bit you in a sensitive spot or FANCY MOVE AHEAD!!!!

Two signals we use alot that are not on the list are the ASL symbols for "eat" and "drink". EAT = Pretend your holding a hambuger with your hand and shove it into your face shield. Drink = Pretend your holding a cup and act like your drinking from it.

Last weekend we rode northern Allen and north east Woodson county from Kincaid to Yates Center. Miles of the best PURE dirt roads around. The county commisioner closed a road on our route and we ended up crossing open roads through an oil field to get from point A to B. Wifey was like, What The HecK!

I've seen the piroutte twice in my dual-sporting career. Once was a little over a year ago when Troy did one coming up a steep incline down behind David Hemphill's place south of Lawrence. The second time was just last weekend when King David himself showed us all how to exit from the back of a Husquvarna. He just forgot to let go.