Return-Path: From: east@big.att.com Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 12:00:41 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: east@big.att.com Sender: east@big.att.com Original-From: Ryan Montieth Gill To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Natchez Trace X-Comment: East Coast Motorcyclists Mailing List On Thu, 27 Jun 1996 east@big.att.com wrote: > You should know. :-) I guess I was the only one besides you to see > Gilles crash on Saturday. I din't catch all of it. I just saw as I > came around the corner Gilles sliding towards the left edge of the > pavement and you moving to the left to get around him. He stopped with > a few feet to spare and you squeezed by between him and the guard > rail. What you may not have seen was Gilles stopping on his stomach > and looking up. What he saw was Ryan's crash bar headed towards the > space he was lifting his face into, causing him to flinch and bang his > head once again into the pavement. Yeah, there I was just having finished my breaking and my transition from the Apex about to start straightening things completely out and I hear a faint screech and than see Gilles' bike tuck dropping him to the ground. At this point I his bike and his body are occupying the place that I was planning on exiting the corner from. At that point I started thinking "Ohhhh Sh_t.... I'm gonna Crash!...Bugger bugger bugger..." So, I apply the state of the art in breaking technology (OK for 1969, but hey its got steel lines! Now I know how the Captain of the Titanic felt, "Engine room all back flank!!! Rudder hard starboard! Sound Collision") at bringing all 600+ lbs of Honda and me to a halt before I run over Gilles' head. His bike begins to pull away, but then I notice that he is on an intercept course with me. Damn frenchman you'd think he'd have the courtesy to slide the other direction! I kept putting little bits-o- pressure on the left bar to tweak me left every other heart beat. So the front is starting to haul things to a stop and my crew is despartly trying to stop the late 1960s technology drum rear from locking me up and making me join Gille's on the pavement, and I finnaly clear his head. Of course I knew this because I watched him tumble a couple times and with my whole bridge crew thinking "we don't want to be there!" I follow his head as it passes under my nice solid crash bar and right side foot peg. Just foot's clearance from the tires.... not bad.... After that stopping before the guard rail was a piece of cake. Luckily I managed to put the sidestand down in the gravel without dropping the bike onto the guard rail and denting the now irreplaceable orange tank that I had just managed to avoid destroying in a low or high side. Gilles was surprisingly unhurt but seemed to find god for a little bit, presumably because he saw my great orange barge headed for his head. Part of the congtingent gathered around him to comfort and tend to him while the other gathered his bike up and began to sort out the problems on his Honda. - Ryan Montieth Gill /|\ Scotland Forever DoD# 0780/AMA/SOHC - - _ryan.gill@turner.com or labrg@emory.edu_ '85 CB700S 'Mehev' - - I speak not for CNN, nor they for me. '72 CB750K 'The Barge' - - '76 MonteCarlo 'Bumblecrow' -