| I crashed my R1 on a 270 degrees corner on a highway. I was a little lost on my way home while riding on some nice dike roads, so I decided to take a little piece of highway to get to a known road. When I had to go left (which turns 270 to the right), I went into the corner at moderate speed (had done that corner much faster before). Past halfway through the corner, the front tire suddenly slid away and I was touching the asphalt. I slid onto the grass, just missing a lantarn pole and a lot of trees.
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Ok, that wasn't that bad. The protective clothing I was wearing had done a good job. I hadn't broken anything, skin undamaged, only some bruises to my ankle (on which the motorcycle landed when the front tire decided to take another direction). It did take a while before I could walk normally again, but it wasn't that bad considering I could have hit a tree out there. I could pick up my R1 to see what damage had been done to it.
The whole right side, front and back of the fairing of my R1 was damaged, and about everything else on the right side (like the enormous carbonfiber silencer) was badly damaged. It didn't have any big collission though, so the rest of the bike was undamaged, most of it was optical (but well, Japanese plastic is expensive..).
There must have been a slippery spot on the road where my front tire gave up. It had been raining earlier and the road had dried up mostly, so there could have been a wet spot, combined with some diesel spillage or other slippery stuff. Under normal circumstances, the tire would have never lost grip this abruptly. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Just well balanced, not moving around, slightly accellerating through the corner.
 | | Crashed R1 (front view) | large» |
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A couple of weeks later, I could drive again, and my R1 was repaired. All damaged parts were replaced with original parts, except for the carbon muffler, which was replaced by an Akrapovic titanium slip-on. It looks better, sounds better, performs better and is lighter than the original muffler. (See also: Modifications).
Unfortunately, only 7 weeks after my crash, I had another accident. While I was overtaking a car, that dumb-ass suddenly changed lanes without watching out for other traffic. I couldn't brake in time so I tried to avoid the car, but then it moved lanes again. I hit the car on it's right side, mostly with my left leg. I only hit the car, I didn't fall off my bike, so this time my R1 only had some scratches. The left side of the fairing was scratched, and the left footpeg was bent, but now my left leg was seriously hurt. So again I couldn't drive for a while...:-(
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