Testimonials / Letters - Letter 70

Jan 2007

My experience in a motorcycle fall.

As with many a weekend, I went out for a ride with some people who are motorcycle lovers like myself. I have a Honda 600 Naked which I like to enjoy on outings with my friends.
We were going from Barcelona to Basella and we were on our way back. In Basella, the group had divided itself into two and some of us had in mind to keep on riding until the evening.
A few kilometers after having morning tea, I had a problem with a left hand curve in the road that had no shoulder only a guardrail.

I did not enter the correct line for the curve and I saw myself heading towards the guardrail.  I tried to recover and I almost made it, but exiting the bend there was no shoulder on the road that would allow me to stay on my bike.
Because I could not totally correct it, and I was heading towards the guardrail, I tried to lift the bike upright, so that most of the impact would be on the side of the bike, and that way would also avoid myself sliding under the guardrail.
The result was that the motorcycle impacted sideways against the guardrail, squashing the bottom half of my leg (saved by the boot) and pushing the radiator in on that side. After the impact the bike and I were thrown towards the wrong side of the road, luckily no one was coming that way and the bike behind could avoid me.

The bike skidded on its left side for about 20 metres and myself, I was dragged about 10-15 metres on the asphalt.
The gear I was wearing was the following:  Dainese Boots that held together perfectly and I still use them, Draggin Jeans Pants that only had a small perforation in the knee, Dainese cordura Jacket that disintergrated on the left sleeve and Shoei XR-1000 Helmet that held together perfectly, and although it ended up completely scratched on one side, the visor stayed on and was not broken.

I will explain my fall in a little further detail, so that you can see my experience with my equipment, in particular Draggin Jeans pants.
After impacting the guardrail where the right leg of my pants ended up scraped on the guardrail and at the same time got caught between the guardrail and the boot, I was sent flying and fell on my left side, dragging  my leg, left arm and my head. I had bruises on these parts of my body due to the impact. The pants were almost completely intact with only a small hole in the denim, the size of a finger (as you can see in the photos).
After I rolled over and went skidding on my back where the back of the jacket and the protections, did their job perfectly and suffered little damage. The jeans were dragged as well and the mark on the denim from my wallet can be seen on the right back pocket.

I am very happy with the result from the equipment I had on, that made the fall no more than a fright and a few bruises from the impact (apart from fixing the bike).
I think I was very lucky and am convinced that the equipment helped me, so I will keep using similar gear. The only difference is that now I have added protections to my Draggin Jeans to minimize the damage from hard impacts should I fall again.

I’m writing this experience so that people can be more conscious of the importance of wearing the right equipment and also in appreciation from Luis of Draggin Jeans, for the professionalism that he showed me when I bought my first pair of Draggin Jeans.

Fernando G

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