Top 10 Excuses For Crashing
There are reasons for crashing, and then there are excuses. If you’ve ever dumped a motorcycle due to something silly or careless, then you probably know the difference. You feel stupid and embarrassed, and there’s no way you want to admit to your buddies, your significant other, or your insurance company just what it was you did, exactly. So, you make something up.
For this week’s Top 10, we explore our favorite excuses for crashing. Some of these are choice words we’ve used ourselves, while others are words we’ve overheard along the years and are too good not to share. Got a great excuse of your own? Share it with us in the comments section.
10. Birds
“I swear it came out of nowhere! I was just riding along, minding my own business, then suddenly a seagull flew right into me as I was turning this corner. He knocked my arm off the bars and I fell.”
“I can’t believe there’s no feathers anywhere.”
9. Gravel
“I get my knee down on that freeway onramp everyday on my way to work, so I know what I’m doing. But this time there was gravel where my front tire was, and I lowsided right into the wall.”
8. Cars
“I can’t believe that car swerved right into me as I was lane splitting!”
“How fast were you going?”
“I dunno, like, 70.”
“How fast were the cars going?”
“Like, 20.”
“Are you sure it was really the driver’s fault?”
7. Glare
“I clipped the side of that car because there was glare in my eyes, and I couldn’t see it.”
6. Wrong Bike
“That’s why I don’t ride other people’s bikes anymore. I borrowed Jeff’s bike, and it didn’t handle like my bike. If it were my bike, I could have made that stoppie. Easy.”
5. 600s vs. 1000s
“I had to rev my CBR600 so much just to get it to wheelie, that’s why I crashed. Because I revved it too much one time and it flipped over. Now, I don’t have to rev my CBR1000 that much to wheelie.”
4. Coworkers
“I wouldn’t have crashed, but my coworker slid across the pavement right into me.”
3. Ice
“Black ice in Southern California?! When is there ever ice on the roads here?!?!”
2. Oil
“One minute I see all the pretty colors of the rainbow, the next minute I’m falling because of someone else’s oil. If only they had moved out of the way.”
1. Tires
And my all-time favorite crash excuse: “I couldn’t break-in my tires in the B group, so that’s why I crashed in the A group.”
Yes, I really did hear this.
Troy's been riding motorcycles and writing about them since 2006, getting his start at Rider Magazine. From there, he moved to Sport Rider Magazine before finally landing at Motorcycle.com in 2011. A lifelong gearhead who didn't fully immerse himself in motorcycles until his teenage years, Troy's interests have always been in technology, performance, and going fast. Naturally, racing was the perfect avenue to combine all three. Troy has been racing nearly as long as he's been riding and has competed at the AMA national level. He's also won multiple club races throughout the country, culminating in a Utah Sport Bike Association championship in 2011. He has been invited as a guest instructor for the Yamaha Champions Riding School, and when he's not out riding, he's either wrenching on bikes or watching MotoGP.
More by Troy Siahaan
Comments
Join the conversation
Funny how almost no one ever just admits the truth, "I screwed up"!
No excuse, but I did have a get-off caused by a tire. Specifically, a tire I drug out from under my workbench and slapped on the front of my bike, without stopping to consider just how long that tire had been gathering dust under there. Cold December morning, I spun around the neighborhood a few times to warm the tires and shakedown the bike, and then hit the road. A quarter-mile later, attempting to loop under the Interstate, I literally hit the road. That tire was so old it was rock-hard. I could have spent an hour riding warm-up laps, and it STILL wouldn't have been soft enough to grip that well-worn, baby-smooth asphalt!
My fault, entirely. I wasn’t paying attention, got careless, and hurt myself and my bike as a result. And this after 30+ years of riding!
Never too old to be stupid, and never too old to learn.