It was a ride of good and bad luck.  The good luck came in the form of the weather.  The remnants of Hurricane Ian hit our area Friday but, with some patience Saturday morning, the roads dried out enough to make our ride possible.  The bad luck struck soon after.

            I was astride the Ducati and turning it around in the driveway to take it down to the street.  Turning it around meant backing it up at a 90-degree angle, turning it, and heading down the driveway.  I backed it up well enough and had started to turn it to head down the driveway which was a huge mistake.  What I should have done was walk the bike back again at a slight angle with the front wheel angled toward the street.  Instead, I turned the front wheel and immediately unbalanced the motorcycle.  I was dumped over in the yard next to the driveway and, since I had already attached my Helite vest, deployed the vest.

            As the drop happened, I had the sensation of desperately trying to get my right foot under me to keep the bike upright.  Because I was on the driveway, and my parents’ driveway is very steep, by the time my foot connected with the concrete, the motorcycle was past the point of recovery.  I dumped out into the yard and had a momentary panic.  All I could think was that something was wrong because my core was being squeezed.  I felt the back protector in my Alpinestars shirt shoving into my ribs.  It was at that point I realized that my Helite vest, an airbag vest, had deployed.  You can see the vest in action here: https://youtu.be/Q_6-MlqYpYw but essentially what it does is act as an airbag for the body when a rider comes off the motorcycle.

            I came out of this drop in way better shape than my motorcycle.  It landed on the right side, which meant the exhaust heat shield scraped on the concrete as did the right peg.  My clumsiness comes just as we are starting to seriously look at trading in the Fasthaus Scrambler for a new motorcycle.  Needless to say, I felt rotten, and I cast a pall on the ride.  We sat in the garage to let me shake off my fall.  I wanted to get out and ride to make sure I hadn’t done any unseen damage that affected the handling or running of the bike. 

            As we waited, a large monarch butterfly fluttered by overhead, and I took that as an omen that the day would only get better.  Soon after seeing the butterfly, we headed out onto the storm-debris strewn roads.  The fallen leaves, branches, and pinecones just added more to be aware of as we rode.  The day was comfortably cool for cruising with temperatures in the mid-70s.  The storm impacted the area as we rode past large branches downed and even some trees including a large pine that had fallen across the walking path near the pool and was propped up by the branches of other trees.

            We rode past several tree removal services in the ritzy neighborhood next door.  We were even stopped for a bit while a small backhoe attempted to load a large tree trunk onto a truck.  I say attempted because, while we watched, the trunk dropped onto the truck and immediately rolled out the other side.

            One obstacle Bill pointed out to me was placing our feet down on sticks in the road.  As we sat at the stop sign, he pointed down to his boot resting on a stick and demonstrated how easily the stick could roll out from under foot.  Unsure footing is a good way to drop the bike.

            We didn’t get any gravel lot practice as there were workers setting up for a wedding, but we did do some slow speed drills.  As I was working on straightening up from a curve to a stop, I started to feel the heat from the engine and changed tactics to a large loping figure 8 to generate some wind.  Because of the storm, R Nine T practice was out as the field was a muddy mess.  As I had hoped, the ride helped alleviate the bad mojo of my earlier drop, and we ended our ride smiling. 

            I did see one other butterfly during the ride.  It was a small black one with bright blue coloring at the bottom edge of the wings.  I think it might have been a pipevine swallowtail, but it may have been a juvenile red-spotted purple admiral.  Whatever it was, it brought a bittersweet smile to my face as I realized the rides with the butterflies would come to an end for this year.  However, we do get the cool autumn weather to ride in beginning next Saturday and the awesome fall foliage to look at.