Scary Moments on the Bike

[Tango]

Have you had a moment or moments in your biking time that you look back on and think "how the hell did I get away with that!"?

[Six30]

On an off road bike , an old ts 125, must of been about 14, was on a private road that belonged to The Empire paper Mills that led to a busy main road , fuck knows what i done , just going to fast , grabbed hand full of front brake went over the handle bars and me and the bike ended up in the middle of the main road, lucky no cars or lorries coming .... didn't even have a lid on ... sore and bruised for the next few days , but it could of been a lot worse.

[XTreme]

Loads! Here's one:

Coming back from Carmarthen heading towards Swansea on my SS180 Vespa in 1971.....I was only 17 at the time.

Started overtaking a truck and it was longer than I thought and I started running out of momentum to complete the pass! Then another truck appeared coming the other way heading towards me.

The oncoming truck didn't slow he just kept coming.......and I was passing the truck in my lane literally an inch or two at a time.

My thought was slam on and try and drop behind, but I was a novice and I was worried I'd end up under his wheels. So I kept inching forward on the overtake!

Obviously I made it through, but it was literally inches either side with neither truck giving any ground.

I realised then that there are other road users who won't think twice about killing you.

[Tango]

I've always worn a full face lid, but in my younger days I always rode with the visor open. 

Back in the early '80s I had an XS1100 and my mate had a CBX1000 and we used to head out into Kent for a blast a couple of times a week after work. One evening we'd been for a blast and were heading back to our hometown up the M20 on the London bound side. It was late evening and getting pretty dark, but the motorway was empty so we weren't hanging about when something fairly large hit me in my left eye. I guess it was probably a large moth or something like that, but for a second or two I didn't know where I was. I probably blacked out for a second or so! Fortunately we were on a straight stretch of motorway with no other traffic around so, once I got my senses back, I backed the throttle off and pulled over. I composed myself for a short while and then carried on home at a much lower speed.........and with my visor shut!

I never ride with the visor open since that incident!

[Catteeclan]

48 minutes ago, Tango said:

I've always worn a full face lid, but in my younger days I always rode with the visor open. 

Back in the early '80s I had an XS1100 and my mate had a CBX1000 and we used to head out into Kent for a blast a couple of times a week after work. One evening we'd been for a blast and were heading back to our hometown up the M20 on the London bound side. It was late evening and getting pretty dark, but the motorway was empty so we weren't hanging about when something fairly large hit me in my left eye. I guess it was probably a large moth or something like that, but for a second or two I didn't know where I was. I probably blacked out for a second or so! Fortunately we were on a straight stretch of motorway with no other traffic around so, once I got my senses back, I backed the throttle off and pulled over. I composed myself for a short while and then carried on home at a much lower speed.........and with my visor shut!

I never ride with the visor open since that incident!

Had a very similar one. Friends bike, girl on the back and me with no helmet. Fly went into my eye. Got the bike to the side of the road somehow. Shit it hurt and I got the dead fly out in several bits. Eye took a while to recover too. 

[Pedro]

6 minutes ago, Catteeclan said:

Had a very similar one. Friends bike, girl on the back and me with no helmet. Fly went into my eye. Got the bike to the side of the road somehow. Shit it hurt and I got the dead fly out in several bits. Eye took a while to recover too. 

Strange name for a girl, Eye

 

 

Almost ran over a kid once, he just suddenly ran to cross the street and away from his mother, it was a quiet country street with little traffic and I was going downhill so not making a lot of noise. I stopped from about 70 or 80kmh a meter or so before I hit him. Probably the scariest moment for me.

 

[Catteeclan]

4 minutes ago, Pedro said:

Strange name for a girl, Eye

stop it

 

 

[boboneleg]

I ran out of brakes on my Gilera SP180 approaching a set of traffic lights on the Portway in Bristol . At the time they were doing roadworks so I rammed all the temporary road bollards to slow down,  scattering them in all directions.  These bollards were the big 3 foot tall jobs, feck me they hurt my bloody hands but did the job.  I got some real dirty looks from the car drivers all around me 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

1 hour ago, boboneleg said:

I ran out of brakes on my Gilera SP180 approaching a set of traffic lights on the Portway in Bristol . At the time they were doing roadworks so I rammed all the temporary road bollards to slow down,  scattering them in all directions.  These bollards were the big 3 foot tall jobs, feck me they hurt my bloody hands but did the job.  I got some real dirty looks from the car drivers all around me 

Ive come off on the Portway! Although you skilfully executed a saving manoeuvre after suffering mechanical failure where as I ungraciously tipped off my bike coming to a stop

I was so embarrassed, Id only been riding a week or so and really hadn’t mastered the slow control needed to filter in that environment but decided to man up and go down the centre of the two lanes anyway then the gap closed, I did some pretty incompetent braking and toppled off in the centre of the two lanes. 

Then it got scary because the traffic started moving again and no feckers stopped, they were driving around me either side at increasing speed as the traffic cleared and I couldnt pick the bike up because the cars were squeezing by so close. In the end I managed to get it upright, I half closed my eyes expecting to get hit by a car but somehow it was dandy and the bike was fine but my god I felt a prize prat, a lucky undamaged prize prat but way up there on the Richter scale of a dumbquake

[boboneleg]

All it needed was a road side camera and you’d have been guaranteed £250 from Harry Hill for that sort of manoeuvre

[yen_powell]

Going too fast on my CX500 on a dual carriageway, saw a queue and started braking, brakes not up to it so carried on down the middle still braking like mad, reckon I passed about 15 cars before I got to the speed I should have been filtering at.

Riding into the Blackwall Tunnel when a metal hub cap came flying at my face from traffic going the opposite way. I jerked my head so quickly to avoid getting knocked out I had a bad neck for about a week afterwards.

On my GPz750 late at night, I came flying round a corner on a dual carriageway hill in town. Two cars had stopped for no apparent reason so I braked and came to a nice controlled stop. Looking in my mirror I saw a Ford XR3 Turbo thing with all its wheels locked up screeching up behind me. I clenched everything and it stopped gently touching my number plate.

[XTreme]

Just now, yen_powell said:

Going too fast on my CX500

[yen_powell]

Oh yeah,

Riding my XL250R along a city street and there was a man standing with his back to the kerb looking at his roof. Just as I passed he stepped back to get a better look and my left handlebar gave him a crack and I wobbled to a stop fighting my handlebars which were going everywhere.

On my FJ1200 riding along a busy shopping street just coming up to a zebra crossing. From behind me on the right a large dog was running like a loon. He passed me and turned suddenly left across the zebra. Just as I was thinking, 'I'm going to hit him', a car coming the opposite way ran him over, went over his back legs and belly. I stopped the other side of the crossing shaking like a leaf, when I looked round the dog had got up and was running in circles yelping. Pedestrians dragged it into the vets right next to the crossing, no idea what became of him.

[Pedro]

October 2016 or 2017, coming back from Morocco: night time, tired, hungry and cold arriving in Lisbon in the rain, my more than half worn Heidenau K60 on a loaded bike letting me know at every motorway offramp and expansion joint why they are known to be shit in the rain. I swear I thought we were going down every time I had to put the slightest amount of lean into a corner. 

[Tango]

I was at college in Lewisham, SE London during the winter of '76/'77. It was a bitterly cold day and during the late afternoon there was a bit of snow started to fall, so I decided to bail out of college and head for home in Kent. I was on my RD350B and the journey started OK, but as it went on the snow got worse. By the time I got to about 10 miles from home I was riding in the ruts left by cars, with both feet down! My visor wouldn't stay open because of the ice on my lid and I couldn't ride with the visor down because it was steamed up and the snow was just sticking to it. In the end I ripped the visor off and slung it. My mum and dad lived at the bottom of a hill on a housing estate. I took a look at the hill when I got there and decided that I'd leave the bike at the top of the hill and walk the last bit home. The journey, which normally took me about 30-40 minutes had taken not short of 1.5hrs and I was frozen to the marrow by the time I got home. 

[Rob M]

One springs to mind and also one I've never admitted to...until now. Was on a trip to Germany in 2016 and left early on a Saturday morning to head back to the UK from Neuerburg on my own, leaving the others at the hotel. Leaving the town, there were roadworks so I stopped at the red light and then went on the green as usual. Thing is, the roadworks lane was on the left and when I set off I stayed in that lane and headed down the road totally forgetting where I was until a van came towards me flashing it's lights and beeping it's horn. In a split second I realised I was on the wrong side of the road and moved the bike across to the right so quickly I ended up riding on a grass verge and nearly binned it before pulling over and spending a minute nearly throwing up with the shock. Anyway, got back to Calais in less than 4 hours so the day turned out alright in the end 

 

 

[Buckster]

I saw a ginger once.

[Tango]

A few years back we went up to Squires cafe in early March for a meet up in remembrance of a young lad we knew who'd been killed in an accident on his bike. The run up there was cold, but ok. 

On the way back,  on the A1 just north of Grantham it sleeted really hard and it was like marbles all over the road. I was in front and Mandy was following on her Bonneville. The temperature drop was really sudden. My visor steamed up and it was literally like riding on marbles. Visibility dropped to nearly nothing too. I really couldn't see much either in front or behind. It was like that for about 10 miles. Once I'd got through it I realised that Mandy wasn't behind me any more. I stopped and checked my phone and had a missed call from her. I called her back and she said that her bike had stopped and she had to try to push it off the road, which wasn't easy because it was up a slight gradient and the road was covered with these beads of sleet/snow. Fortunately she wasn't too far from an exit off the A1 and a guy in a car had stopped and helped her push the bike to safety. I said that the best bet was for me to carry on for home and then pick up some tools and head back up in the car to sort her bike out.

On my way back up she called to say that she had managed to get the bike started and was heading back. I'm guessing that the carbs had iced up due to the sudden temperature drop and whilst the bike was stationary the heat from the engine had thawed them out.

But, riding on that busy road on what felt like riding on marbles, with near zero visibility and then losing Mandy wasn't the most pleasant experience on the bike!

[Sir Fallsalot]

Tango just reminded me of a hairy moment on the bike years ago, i was travelling to work on my old CB750 late as usual so pushing three figure speeds, The morning had a clear blue sky but chilly and the roads were mostly clear of traffic. I'm riding on a concrete duel carriageway  and in the distance i see a police car pulled over with the blue lights on but because i'm focused on him i didn't spot the reason he was there, He was at the end of a freak hail storm that had covered the road, it was white for about a quarter of a mile i just pulled the clutch in and free wheeled while repeating to myself oh shit oh shit, luckily the road was dead straight at this point and i got through ok. It was weird there was a sharp line on the road where it was dry then went white and back to dry almost like it was laid by hand no fade in and out at all.

[Motobiker]

A different kind of scare.

I had to go to the other side of town on an errand and coming back. long(ish) straight road a car coming towards me and passing, suddenly did a fast U turn, I only noticed this because I heard a car horn and saw this silly manoeuvre in my mirrors. This car then followed me, it stuck behind me as much as it could and caught up after lights so it was never more than one car back. It stuck behind me right to the end of my road and then actually continued after me when I turned in. My road is like a letter P. one way in and out and a big crescent. I was more than a little freaked out by this point so, I rode past my house and to a neighbours opposite but a few doors up, the car went past me and pulled over a little up the road. Ive lived on this road for 21 years and know all my neighbours well, I also knew this particular neighbour was out, so I knocked on the door and waited with an eye on the car up the road. No answer (obviously) so a minute for two and back on the bike and I rode back the way I had come, back into town and  after a short merry chase, lost him.

Im absolutely convinced they had targeted my bike and wanted to find out where it lived. So they could come back for it, later.

The scare wasn't so much about being followed, what freaked me out most of all was, "what if I hadn't noticed?"

[XTreme]

12 minutes ago, Motobiker said:

A different kind of scare.

I had to go to the other side of town on an errand and coming back. long(ish) straight road a car coming towards me and passing, suddenly did a fast U turn, I only noticed this because I heard a car horn and saw this silly manoeuvre in my mirrors. This car then followed me, it stuck behind me as much as it could and caught up after lights so it was never more than one car back. It stuck behind me right to the end of my road and then actually continued after me when I turned in. My road is like a letter P. one way in and out and a big crescent. I was more than a little freaked out by this point so, I rode past my house and to a neighbours opposite but a few doors up, the car went past me and pulled over a little up the road. Ive lived on this road for 21 years and know all my neighbours well, I also knew this particular neighbour was out, so I knocked on the door and waited with an eye on the car up the road. No answer (obviously) so a minute for two and back on the bike and I rode back the way I had come, back into town and  after a short merry chase, lost him.

Im absolutely convinced they had targeted my bike and wanted to find out where it lived. So they could come back for it, later.

The scare wasn't so much about being followed, what freaked me out most of all was, "what if I hadn't noticed?"

That's creepy!

[busabeast]

On 15/10/2021 at 12:25, yen_powell said:

Oh yeah,

Riding my XL250R along a city street and there was a man standing with his back to the kerb looking at his roof. Just as I passed he stepped back to get a better look and my left handlebar gave him a crack and I wobbled to a stop fighting my handlebars which were going everywhere.

On my FJ1200 riding along a busy shopping street just coming up to a zebra crossing. From behind me on the right a large dog was running like a loon. He passed me and turned suddenly left across the zebra. Just as I was thinking, 'I'm going to hit him', a car coming the opposite way ran him over, went over his back legs and belly. I stopped the other side of the crossing shaking like a leaf, when I looked round the dog had got up and was running in circles yelping. Pedestrians dragged it into the vets right next to the crossing, no idea what became of him.

What became of him id guess that was the end, or sew him up and but him on a chariot 

[busabeast]

My first scare was 6 days after I started riding, riding through a village called Much Hadham following a car at a good distance and I panic braked for some reason and down I went, I was more than slightly embarrassed but neither I nor the honda were damaged so picked it up from under the rear of the car it had slid under and carried on to work

[busabeast]

Had more than a few close calls whilst working as a motorcycle courier in the lovely winter of 2012, one where the bike turned in to a toboggan as I went down a hill after snow had fallen, how I didn't drop it I have no idea but I went down it with both feet down shouting "oh fuck" all the way down it

[Six30]

28 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

He blocked you when he joined so youre kinda wasting your breath  

you just quoted me