Soooo maybe I crashed my bike.... no big deal

08/04/2012 1:19 PM

So afternoon in Louang Prabang; picked up my bike this morning. Waited until the rain stopped but the roads were were still wet when I went out. Soooo I crashed the bike. No real damage done. Fortunately I was wearing a jacket which I ended up destroying the sleeve of. For the first time I went out riding with shorts on and not jeans, so I scraped up one of my legs a little bit... nothing too serious. Fortunately, I only slid on the pavement for about 10 feet before landing in some mud. Fortunately that mud saved the bike as well as me some serious injury. A broken headlight, a few scraps, and a sleeve destroyed of my jacket... altogether, I was incredibly lucky. I also learnt my lesson about riding wet roads. 

I took the bike out again this afternoon to make sure everything is running and we are good except for the front turn signal.... which doesn’t really matter. It will cost about $10 to get fixed.... which I may or may not get done tomorrow morning before I head out. I went out riding again this afternoon so as to get my confidence back up. I cannot believe how lucky I was. While this bike is small compared to Western standards, its still a huge step up from the Zongshen I was riding. I am pretty used to it at this point, however, I'm still a bit shaken up from the crash.... Could have been a LOT worse. 

I was riding a corner and was not used to having such powerful brakes... I panicked; hit the brakes too hard and the bike slid out from under me... I could have done so much damage. I cannot say how lucky I was. To some extent I wish I had full leathers... but I don’t really want to spend the cash on it.

So that is that. I learnt my lesson. I’m comfortable on that bike again, aside from the seat being a bit hard... which I don’t think a bit of duct tape and some padding will not fix. Ill head out tomorrow as planned with or without a front turn signal light.  

All for now.