Not me, I would have though. I was in a group of about 8 riders. Bringing up the rear. Newly paved road, really sticky stuff. It was real easy to go fast and it was a nice country road, very twisty. It was a blind corner sweeping to the right, downhill, and gardually getting sharper. Another rider and myself were stuck behind a car that was going 15 miles an hour right before the turn so we were going pretty slow for this corner luckily. The car came to a complete stop and we went around and saw the rider down. When they repaved this road they also put a little shoulder on the road but it was a gravel shoulder. It's this gray gravel that they place in the shoulder. I guess the truck that was putting it in the shoulder decided to drop a big pile of it in the worst spot in the corner on the road. Cars had spread it out across the road but it was deeper in some spots. It was in a shadow just over the crest of the bind spot of the road. This rider just took an unlucky line and had a Lorenzo highside. There was a rider pretty close behind but was taking a more outside line. Anyways, we roll up and park our bikes and this dude (name is Art)appears to be in good shape. He sitting up talking and asking what happned. That's when I see his ankle sitting on the road right next to him. I kid you not the bone had been ripped from him and was lying next to him. I looked at his leg and you could see the blood pouring out of his foot. It just so happens that the people in the car were pretty highly trained in first aid and had a pretty good sized kit. They placed the bone on ice immediately and began to stabalize his leg. It took 45 minutes for a fire truck to arrive and about an hour for an ambulence to arrive. We made Art feel as comfortable as possible and he never complained of any pain. He never saw his bone on the ground and no one told him how bad it was. I was just updated that they were able to put his bone back in and re attach the ligaments now they are monitoring for infection.
A couple things that I learned.
-Don't ride fast on a newly paved road till you ride it once slow.
-Wear full gear all the time. Art was wearing a leather jacket, ridnig jeans, and some crappy boots. If he was wearing good riding boots he would have walked away with a couple scratches and a concussion. He has good riding boots, don't knwo why they wern't on.
-Kiss your wife and kid every night
I am still a little shaken by today's events. It was not a pretty site. Art wasn't riding out of control, infact he was taking it rather easy. He hit the gravel that would take an expert to have a chance to make it out of if at all. It could have been anyone and that is real scarey for me. A couple of riders said that they had a few moments from gravel before that turn but I didn't see it at all. It's just an unlucky day.
And one that will play in my mind for a while. I did not enjoy the ride home.
A couple things that I learned.
-Don't ride fast on a newly paved road till you ride it once slow.
-Wear full gear all the time. Art was wearing a leather jacket, ridnig jeans, and some crappy boots. If he was wearing good riding boots he would have walked away with a couple scratches and a concussion. He has good riding boots, don't knwo why they wern't on.
-Kiss your wife and kid every night
I am still a little shaken by today's events. It was not a pretty site. Art wasn't riding out of control, infact he was taking it rather easy. He hit the gravel that would take an expert to have a chance to make it out of if at all. It could have been anyone and that is real scarey for me. A couple of riders said that they had a few moments from gravel before that turn but I didn't see it at all. It's just an unlucky day.
