bike story (no new tale to tell) w/ v.s. thanks to b00 for asking...

okeley dokely. so....i have 2 bikes right now -a disassembled but free 77 harley sportster which was given to me for a previous article i had published in the horse backstreet choppers magazine. and my everyday, much beloved but needing a new tire honda rebel 250. (the titular rebel of my screen name lol.)

setup: coworker guy who rides a beautiful custom crotch rocket got married. he is really into biking, and even has a gang or club or whatever. (-the bosshole and 2 other techs also ride) well steve got married in like april? and had an honest to yaweh biker wedding procession replete with police escort all the way to the reception.

oh MAN, it was soooo freaking cool! we had cops stopping traffic for at least a 15 mile ride circling the city on streets freeway and then back onto the streets again. we didnt have to brake for any lights-like a funeral procession and it pretty much rocked. weather was warm, sunny and pristine but as you will see just a bit TOO windy for me... i am in many ways, a fruity little freak, lol. i like wearing legwarmers, thigh high boots, cat ears and i really want a pair of black contact lenses. im not goth per se, i like tye dye fer crying out loud. i can be goth and legit but im not 24/7. i like pink, i like blue and purple! thats not goth! no, to me, i am just "quirky"

thus, as a card carrying quirky person i rode my rebel to a wedding, dressed appropriately....for a wedding. i rode sporting my favorite little black cocktail dress, black thigh high stockings and lol emily the strange type shoes. oh and my leather jacket and helmet of course. im silly but not mental.

and honestly, no problem really, im an excellent rider--i rode my rebel (little buddha)to south carolina and back wearing a sarong half the time. i can ride for pretty good distances hands free, standing, all kinds of wacky shit. honestly thats probably the closest thing i have to a gift.
(vis rainman: "im an excellent driver") if i had made it out to LA earlier in my life i probably could have been a stunt driver. but i digress...

so what did i say? no problem? yeah....no problem that is, unless of course, the wind catches the gossamer train thing that i had tied securely around my waist and it gets snagged in the rear spoke of my bike. at that point, then ok with the problem.

carpe panic.

lucky for me it was after the certain death freeway portion of the loop had ended, so we were only cruising about 30 mph or so on the streets, and freaking hell! only about 5 blocks from the freaking reception.

it was also fortunate that i rode basically at the tail end of the procession. i honestly didnt know anyone else there there except the groom and my boss and well, the groom was just a trifle busy and my boss? frankly, id prefer another concrete kiss than ick, ride with captain imbecile.


as far as the other riders went, im a girl on what, stylistically amounts to a lawn mower in the estimation of crotch rocket riders so i'm like one of those vaguely distasteful sub-species of biker. theres a huge climate of choppers vs crotch rockets. whatever. i like riding. when i had a mini van i didn't drive around dissing the people in competitor vans, you just do what can you do, yo....
(can't we all just get along?)

apparently. so thats aiight, that didnt last for long....unbeknownst to me i was riding towards epic popularity at the reception. so im picking up the rear so to speak and following behind me, the rest of the guests in cars and trucks. the guys in the truck directly behind me were pals of the groom who were video taping the whole thing for wedding posterity.

they assured me it was more impressive looking than it felt, lol. sadly what they did catch is not much to see-if there was a god the video person would have caught it all in gleaming technicolor instead of just barely catching SOME of the top of my head/helmet before and then nothing as i actually went down and out of frame.
some excellent colorful metaphors though...

SOOO....here's the thing about clothes getting caught in a bike spoke... when they twist around the big wheel that keeps on turning, (and there is NOTHING sweet about alabama fyi) they tend to grab and pull on those clothes. for the purpose of this epic tale pull=rend, shred, tear, rip.
use the thesaurus and pick one.
now i know i hit my head but i'm still certain i was wearing the dress when i went through the light, lol and when it started to catch then shimmy, i actually managed to fight the bike and brake some, weave it back and forth before gravity and physics gave me the collective finger.

but when i went down, (in the very bad way) i discovered i was now pretty much wearing only a leather jacket, some now ex-lacy underwear, most of my stockings and natch, my shoes!!
i actually slid out sideways before it toppled and since i had practised that on grass before, i was gratified to actually have a slight measure of control-(relative to none, anyway) and since i actually am pretty spry, i managed to extract almost all of me from under the bike frame before toppling down on me, which is why i did not have any leg burns to add to the fun. (if yr wearing stockings, you *really* don't want a leg burn!) really! just visualize melting nylon and open wounds. just SO not on my list of two great things that go great together.
so it felt something akin to a slow motion glide, only fear stricken....sort of like surfing, only instead of on a board you are on a bike.
and instead of water, concrete.

my ass and the left side of my leg took the brunt of the slide. i felt pretty. OH so pretty.
the absolute worst part was my ankle which was the only part of me to get caught-so it ALL looked bad for several months but ankle is really the only really obvious scar type "gift with purchase." that i managed to keep.
i call it that since imho lol i bought it....there are some others-little scars,, but faint.

as for my little buddha, he was lucky too. except for engine flooding, some bits broken off the edges of my handlebar, and a tiny dent in the tank, there was no real damage. when i immediately righted it and tried to fire it up but couldnt, i started to get freaked. the freaked didn't last long. why, you might ask?

well, just then i looked around and noticed that there were like, easily a dozen plus guys hangin out windows in the lovely section 8 housing complex i'd wiped out in front of, and yay! pretty much all of them were holding up cell phones, snapping pictures!

awesome!

now, when i see someone lay down a bike, or trip & fall--or just get hurt in general, im sorry my first instinct isn't to capture their misfortune on cam for kicks. its nutty i know, but i tend to think hey, there is someone who needs help. or if it's not serious i use the golden rule and do what i'd want, which is to pretend i didn't notice, look away and let them recover some semblance of pride in peace. (i meant to do that....)

yeah, not everyone seems to think that way. so while chivalry may not yet be dead, i can say with some surety that it definitely does not live on macon road in memphis.

now you know, im clearly vain. if yr gonna take a pic i want it to be a good one. bloody and limping -even half naked, is simply just not me at my best. since the kind folks in the pickup truck behind me were generous enough to stop, i was assertive enough to climb in and say"hi im bleeding a lot and almost naked, im getting in here now". so i smiled at my newly found fan base and gave them all a good long finger wave before leaving my bike to the guys who were putting it in the truck bed.

"quit looking at me, swan!!!"

but mostly i was mostly upset about my poor buddha. luckily that was not necessary.
long story short i rodeit home almost the same way i rode it there, by my own damn self! the critical diff of course was that i was now sporting just my jacket and some borrowed man-pants that the obliging cinematographer dude had in his truck.

the healing process suuucked. but i'm fine now and just a wee bit more cautious.

now i have pics, because you know i had to record that shit for gasping rights.but they are iiiicky and i dont know anyone's quease factor so im disinclined to just automatically post or include them. if you are one of those people wanting to gross yourself out, let me know and i'll be delighted to forward you complimentary online emesis service!!!:)