Death of a beautiful 400 :( my story...

[Danman109]

Pictures will follow is the first thing to say but im lying in bed with nothing else to do but feel sorry for myself so here goes:

It is with my regret i have to post that another ZXR 400 L9 2001 bites the dust as i was exiting a roundabout and a car cuts in front of me:



Road rash on my left knee, my right foot must have been trapped between the car and my bike as it is severely bruised and luckily not fractured..

Damage to the bike? (this is what ive been told, the last time I saw her she was dissapearing underneath me )

Front wheel embedded in rad, rad embedded in downpipes,oil cooler obliterated, square fronted frame with a headstock angle of -30 degrees, balls of steel dent in the tank, front plastics ruined, rear plastics scratched, coolant bottle smashed.. a right mess

I'm ok... but im sure you guys can all feel my pain in losing my beloved 400

[Mori Man]

Gawd damn bloody cagers :smt013

Glad to hear your doing OK though , rest up and think of that "fighter" you can now build

[masterofinsanity]

damn bad luck mate, glad you're ok tho'

[Danman109]

Bike arrived back at my garage today first picture



poor girl

[Danman109]

After having had a look over the bike, very little will be salvagable the steering stop sheered off the bottom yoke, the forks have gone into the frame (bent back a bit for recovering the bike) the front of the frame has buckled, the tank has creased, radiator split, downpipes dented, oil filter squashed, speedo smashed when the steering went too far round.. Only real salvagable parts are the subframe, rear wheel and possibly engine.. swing arm was dented when the exhaust went into it.. couldnt be worse really

[stonemonkey]

sorry to hear about that mate. Was a nice looking bike

[Danman109]

Everything seems to be happening quite fast, two days have past, (im now very stiff all over) my right foot is alot better, i can put full weight on it, my left knee needed the bandages changed thanks to the bandage being soaked through and making a mess..

My bike is due to be collected today and my hire bike (an undisclosed 600) will arrive tomorrow.. I did a quick estimate on repairs based on ebay spares... the total cost came to £1700 or more so even salvaging the engine might not be worth it.. i'll see what the buy back offer is and maybe i'll be able to offer someone a dyno proved 62.4 bhp engine.. we'll see

[Danman109]

sorry to hear about that mate. Was a nice looking bike

Thanks..

[Mori Man]

Been looking at your diagram again so need to ask:

1) Your positioning into the bend says your travelling at 100MPH , otherwise your way to close to the kerb for 30~50mph

On these types of urban settings you should almost be hogging the outer White line - big wide lanes with plenty visual scope.

2) Your crash damage also suggests you were also well above the limit - do not disclose, no need to know.

Where there skid marks left ? What have the fed's said to it all ? I hit a car " T-bone" at 30mph and the damage was no where as impressive as that , not only was my story collaborated by witnesses but the carsh scene unit also determined my blind panic skid marks were made at around 30MPH , the conclusion of their report was " The rider stood no chance " which were the same words echo'd by the attending officers at my hospital bedside.

My bike was written off because of age and what the evaluator had put in his report In his own words " Before crash, this bike was in showroom condition and can not be easily replaced ", he valued the bike 600GBP more than I had paid for it 5 yrs previous neither insurers fought this but made my salvage buy back higher. They bike had been sitting outside for over 8 weeks before he saw it and the shop had said " any rust has been from it sitting here " - 8 weeks in Glasgow means pissin down rain !!

MM!

[Danman109]

hopefully this is a little clearer.. unfortunately no skid marks i didnt have time to think about the rear brake but as you can see the cable tie on the forks was just about bottomed out.. i was aware that i wasnt braking 100% because i was also fixated on turning the bike as much as possible towards the gap that might have been left between the front of her car and the tree IF she stopped... she diddn't In hindsight i probably could have braked harder in a straight line and hit the passenger door a bit more gently? or turned right to go behind the car (her 9month old baby was in the passenger side rear seat so thank god the littlun was ok)
or maybe i could have turned faster with the amount i was braking? all futile now.. what happened, happened.. i felt like i was at 85% braking on the front and 10% turning (always room for more i guess)

[Danman109]

Where there skid marks left ? What have the fed's said to it all ? I hit a car " T-bone" at 30mph and the damage was no where as impressive as that , not only was my story collaborated by witnesses but the carsh scene unit also determined my blind panic skid marks were made at around 30MPH , the conclusion of their report was " The rider stood no chance " which were the same words echo'd by the attending officers at my hospital bedside.

There was a witness in the car behind me who was the first person at my side, he was a biker himself and said he would be my chief witness and that i had done nothin wrong, im sure he must have spoken to the police because as soon as i left in the ambulance (maybe 10-15mins after the accident) my friend came to recover the bike and the police left without taking any pictures or 'evidence gathering' as such, they just took details and statements. which was a suprise to myself and my friend however if the driver had admitted blame was there much point?.. in addition to this, while i was lying on a stretcher the police offered to recover the bike for me at the cost of £150GBP.. naturally i choked and politely refused. i was still shaking from shock i didnt really feel it was a good time to ask.. they could have asked me in hospital once i had been checked over? never mind no hard feelings..

[Mori Man]

Didn't mean to imply you had were in the wrong just your riding style isn't defensive enough, in an ideal world I would drive anywhwere I want within my my white lines and be in the right but if I do that I leave myself open to abuse

As a cager you can be lazy but on two wheels you need to extend beyong the box and keep yourself safe.

Yup, feds while I was drugged up in hospital murmoured about picking the bike up - being twated I agreed then realised the bill afterwards :smt013

Like I said just glad you walked away but you do need to study what you were doing , although nothing wrong it didn't work ? BTW, nice you look out for others but see when they fuk up - look aftyer yourself first, you can be a teacher too !

MM!

[Danman109]

Didn't mean to imply you had were in the wrong just your riding style isn't defensive enough, in an ideal world I would drive anywhwere I want within my my white lines and be in the right but if I do that I leave myself open to abuse

yes you are right i could have ridden a little more defensively i.e taking the wider line next to the island when exiting.. im used to following the centre of my lane when on the roundabout as the cages have a habit of wandering or changing their mind.. and i continued this into the exit of the roundabout. yeah i can learn from this still

[extreme601]

End of an era. I loved that bike, made my blood run cold to see that picture (used to be mine for anyone wondering).

Glad you're okay, real shame about what happened. Keep us updated on the progress.

[Jamz]

Unlucky - but glad you're ok!

Did you have the camera on the bike??

What I can't work out is how you couldn't avoid the car? Did you target fixate and just try your best to brake to safety? Was there oncoming traffic to stop you going around the car?

Hope you get it all sorted out soon!