My wife and I had a wonderful trip down the Rhine last fall, although much of the weather was cool and damp. After we got home, November 7 to be exact, it was a beautiful Indian summer morning in St Louis. Having been away from my GSA1250 for a couple weeks, I could almost hear it calling me from the garage! A perfect day to go for a ride, after a couple weeks of German drizzle and overcast. My go-to ride is a 50 mile loop starting at 141 and Meramec Station Rd. The Sandy Creek Covered Bridge is exactly halfway. It’s a wonderful route with lots of turns and elevation change, and very little traffic; been a long time favorite when there’s not time for an extended ride.
It was 10:30 AM and relatively early in the ride on High Ridge Blvd, when the car in front of me, stopped short to make a left hand turn. I was probably going 40 mph, and hit the brakes fairly hard expecting to come to a smooth, controlled ABS stop, as I have many times in the past. Instead I felt a hard pull to the left and violently hit the tarmac. I found myself scraping along the pavement with the bike on top of me. To this day, I don’t know exactly what happened. Did the motorcycle malfunction? I did have the bike in Dynamic Pro mode, which disables the ABS in the rear, but it should work on the front wheel. I can’t emphasize enough how fast this unfolded. To this day, I don’t know exactly what happened. I crawled to the side of the road, was able to stand up and with the help of a couple guys that witnessed the accident, was able to right the bike. I could tell my collarbone was broken as I’ve broken both collarbones long ago in separate bicycle wrecks. Neither of these incidents were my fault. Unfortunately, I can’t claim that here! After an ambulance ride to Mercy South and an overnight stay, diagnoses were a broken left clavicle and three fractured ribs.
I was actually wearing a Helite Airbag vest which did NOT deploy. I sent it back to Helite for evaluation. They claimed after inspection that it did deploy. Before I bought the vest at the Springfield MOA rally, i was wearing one for a demo. I well remember the loud pop, the cocoon that instantly formed around me and the length of time it took to deflate. I experienced none of that. In all honesty, I doubt that had the vest worked, it wouldn’t have made a difference with the shoulder injury. It would have protected the ribs. Helite has a new model coming out this spring, and they promised to send me one. I was also wearing a kevlar Motoport suit. As a result i had no road rash, just major bruising around my shoulder. I’ll spare you the photo!
During the accident, the moto scraped along the pavement on its left side, then flipped over and did the same on the right. Adding up all the deeply scratched up parts resulted in a totaled motorcycle. These replacement parts are hugely expensive! The bike was transported to Gateway. Both Zach and Shannon were extremely helpful in getting parts off the bike. My plan is to get another 1250. My assumption is that as the new 1300’s become more plentiful, guys will be trading in their 1250s.
At this point, I’m in “discussion” with my wife, daughter and sister-in-law. I had bikes back 40 years ago (the last, a gorgeous ’75 Norton Commando). Once we started having kids, I promised my wife I would not touch a motorcycle until both kids were college grads. I kept my promise, and have had 3 BMW’s since. Now I have twin 7 year old grandsons and an 18 month old granddaughter and I’m crazy about all 3 of them. I’m once again getting extreme pressure to make the 1250 my last bike. We’ll see.