Yes, we had one of those days last weekend 6/7/08. I have a friend I go on dual sport or dual purpose rides. I let him talk me into riding our bikes. I have always trucked my bike/bikes. The group that organized the ride is called Backroads Touring - Kansas.
http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/index.htm I've meet many of the members at the Arkansas Hillbilly dual sport and the Clayton Okla. dual sport rides I have been on. The ride up to Kansas was 4 1/2 hours. And yes my KLR 650 made my butt sore. 73 riders showed up for the event. They had 5 different ride groups. Very aggressive, aggressive, gravel road/minim maintenance road, geo cache/GPS and sight seeing/picture tour. Terry and I were going to ride the most aggressive but it was called off due to the heavy rains in the area North of the main ride area. Our friend that rode up with us did the sight seeing tour because he has not been riding very long. We had 18 riders on our aggressive ride. 10 miles into the ride with the ride leader on point, I was the third rider. The guy in front of me (as he was standing on the pegs) hit a hole in the road. He hit the left side of the hole and it knocked the front wheel violently to the right and slammed him to the ground. We were running about 50 (80km) miles an hour. If I describe how and what happened this story will get long winded. Check here if you want more.
http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/index.htm . I almost hit his bike. After I got stopped I was the first rider back to him. I'm sorry guys but I'm not as strong as I used to be and I waited 6 seconds for one of the guys that stopped behind him to help get the bike off his left leg. I did not want to try to pick up the bike and drop it on him or hurt my back. There was no response, no breathing. I was debating rolling him over and maybe needing to do mouth to mouth when he took a big breath of air and he started breathing on his own. He was unconscious for about 2/3 minutes. He suffered, quote from one of the ride leaders the next day: Speaking with Steve's wife, it looks like Steve has suffered a slight brain contusion, partially collapsed lung, broken collarbone, fractured scapula, and eight cracked/broken ribs. He is scheduled for shoulder surgery at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita .... as soon as his breathing is stabilized.
We had 2 riders go down on our ride group. Our friend Rob that rode up with us also crashed on the sight seeing group. More to come.................
