Some motorcycle rides go perfectly. This episode is NOT about those rides. This is about the near misses, unexpected mishaps, and the dumb luck that saved the day. From a near collision due to a missing headset to a sketchy off-road detour, we’re sharing the close calls that could have ended badly—but didn’t.

In this episode:

Teaser: “They say communication is key… also helpful for not turning your buddy into a speed bump.”

Bottom Line: Stay aware, ride smart, and do your pre-trip maintenance.

Mile Marker: The almost-collision that convinced Mike to buy a headset.

Toolkit: Essential gear for avoiding disaster (or at least being prepared).

Links Mentioned:

Best Motorcycle Roads Podcast: https://bestmotorcycleroads.com/podcast/

BMR Rider Alert Sign-Up: https://bestmotorcycleroads.com/rideralert/

🔧 Toolkit - Gear & Resources from This Episode:

Sena & Cardo Headsets – Because hearing your buddy yell “STOP!” is useful:

- https://amzn.to/41lIWJr

- https://amzn.to/41lIWJr

Battery Jump Pack – Avoid getting stranded with a dead battery: https://amzn.to/41lIWJr

Motorcycle Tool Kit – Because things break: https://amzn.to/4i1UE3b

Modular-Face Helmets – Protect your face when luck runs out: https://amzn.to/41CZ7Ue

Portable Air Compressor – Keep your tires from becoming another ‘dumb luck’ story:https://amzn.to/3EX3v7t

Affiliate Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means we may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no extra cost to you. This helps support the podcast—thank you for your support!

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⏰ Timecodes:

0:00 Teaser & Why These Close Calls Stick With Us

3:00 Mike’s Near-Miss & Why Headsets Matter

7:00 The Unplanned Detour That Turned Into an Off-Road Adventure

12:00 The Sketchy Battery Fail That Became a Classic Story

18:00 Toolkit: The Gear That Could Have Prevented These Fails

Episode 059 - Close Calls & Dumb Luck: The Motorcycle Mishaps That Almost Went Wrong

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The bottom line is you must keep your head on a swivel and just make sure you do your pre-trip maintenance before you get into a trip. That's right. Um, I guess we're calling this one close calls and dumb luck,~ uh,~ because there's been a few rides where things probably could have been pretty bad. Mm-hmm.

Um, but with, I think Luck stepped in and saved the day. Faith, whatever you wanna call it. We had somebody watching out for us. So the first story I was thinking we could talk about is,~ uh,~ the Mike's near Miss.

Mm-hmm.

tom: Um. I, I don't remember if it was in Wisconsin or not. You thought maybe it was down south too, but Yeah, I'm thinking south.

But

tom: sure. Um, and most of us have this point in time of our rides. I've been using,~ uh,~ Inna headsets just works so good to call out, you know, here's some gravel, here's something, Hey, we're taking a left.

You know? Yeah, I see this. I see that. So,

yep.

tom: We were, um, cruising down the road and I, I do remember this. We had gotten to a point, and I think, you know, sometimes even when you're trying to follow the GPS, you know, you get a bad signal. Mm-hmm. And it's a little behind and pretty soon, boom, it pops at your turning in, you know, 0.22.

Yeah.

tom: And so Brad said, Hey, taking a right. Taking a right. You know, and, um, I think Chris was right on, on his tail and, um. Chris didn't, wasn't gonna make the turn. So like he had kind of said, Hey, I'm not making the turn. You know, everyone pay attention. ~Uh, ~so they, the headsets were there. I was on the brakes.

And again, we were kind of in a, I wouldn't call emergency stop. But we were, we were stopping

Todd: quick. You know, it, it was a hard Yeah. 'cause you're having to make a hard right turn and Yeah. That can happen. I mean, your, your mind just wanders. You look off into the distance or you see something cool, see something on the side of the road, whatever.

tom: Right. Well, Mike didn't see that. Oh no. And so when he figured it out, he was going in full break and block up mode. Yeah. Um, and when he came to a stop and thank goodness,~ uh,~ Chris didn't turn,~ uh,~ because Chris just kind of. Stopped and didn't move.

Mm-hmm.

tom: And Mike came up hot. He just, he came up right in his back pocket and it happened so fast.

Nothing you can do. I mean, I'm yelling in the headset, but the guy that needs to hear it doesn't have the headset that went on.

Todd: Did, do you remember, did he lock up the back brake even? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, he skid the back of the Oh yeah. Motorcycle. Yeah. That's scary. Yeah. And yeah, you feel helpless 'cause you're, you're squeezing that front brake.

You're pushing the brake well, and Chris can't hear

tom: him. No. So he's blind to it all. Yeah. He doesn't know he's coming. Yeah. Yeah. He can't see anything. And,~ uh,~ then he just, you know, then it was like, boom, we're stopped. And then Chris was like, whoa. And Mike was a little, you know, he was shake up of course.

Sure. ~Uh, ~but the first thing he did when Mike got home was when now all of a sudden he has heads, he has headset now. So he bought it the next day, didn't he? So, I mean, we, we talk about the enjoyment that we have 'cause we're just bantering so much on the, on the headsets. But really, I mean, there is a safety concern that really does help.

Unplanned detour. Um, so this one, I believe we were in Missouri and it was a really nice road, I think, and it was again, another great day. Mm-hmm. We were riding some gentle curves back and forth. Everything was going well. Mm-hmm. And sometimes, you know, and you'll come up on these once in a while. And,~ uh,~ the one of these turns will be just a little tighter than the others.

Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah, I think this is where I think he, did he come into the corner a little hot? Yeah, he

Todd: came in a little hot. He didn't really set his body up for it, Uhhuh, he didn't realize it was there. And by the time the curve was on him, he found a little gravel on that curve. Yeah, because I remember, I, I went to the inside of it.

tom: you start to pucker a little at that point.

Todd: That's a good way to put it.

You ~uh, ~you think, I don't wanna turn like now really try and grab onto it. 'cause there's gravel here. Right. So.

tom: Well, and the other thing that people don't realize is that like motorcycles have more grip. On their tires when they turn, when they don't. So, yeah. So the ~uh, ~amount of tire that's touching the road is actually greater when you're in a corner than when you're sitting straight up.

Yeah. Now granted there was some gravel, so that's a whole nother Right. But I think you'll see these, you'll watch these videos of these people that, that wreck like just go tail of the dragon Rex. Oh yeah. And. You're just like, why are you not leaning? I mean, I think, yeah, and there's times when it's counterintuitive how to turn a motorcycle.

tom: the reason why is 'cause then the dimensions of your tire actually get smaller on the inside.

So you end up leaning, which. You know, it's a whole nother physics lesson.

Todd: It's got the whole gyroscope effect. Yes, exactly. With with exactly, with the two tires spinning. Yeah. So I, you know, that was just it, you know, the poor guy came, didn't, didn't have his body ready to, you know, to turn. Yeah. And, you know, the, the, he came in hot and there was gravel and it was just, and then he was puckered and then he was puckered at that point.

And,~ uh,~ we were. He was last in line. Yes. And we all had headsets. Yes. At that point. And all of a sudden, what? What do we hear over the headset? Boom. Well, we hear shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Chip. Yeah. Yeah. Coming over that. And I just remember looking in the back. Yeah. You saw him actually. And you

tom: could see some dust.

I'm like, oh, good lord.

Todd: Yeah. Chris went in the ditch. He, well,

tom: and then I think he went silent just because he's. You know, he, he's not describing this to us, and I'm like,~ uh,~ Chris went in the ditch. Yeah. I'm

Is the bike hurt? Right. Did I break a leg? Yeah. Yeah.

tom: So thankfully he, he, he kind of drove it into the ditch. He did. Yeah. Which was smart. I think. It wasn't a. It wasn't a big ditch. I think it was just a, it was a ni it was probably the perfect place that this could have happened. It, it was, yeah. And,~ uh,~ so he took a little bit of an unplanned offroad, a detour.

~Uh, ~

Todd: and luckily there was, there weren't cars coming the other direction. Nope. You know, 'cause he had to cross oncoming traffic Yes. Going into the ditch. Right. Thank God, you know, we were the only ones out there that day, but, and he's, I'm okay. I'm okay. And we're like, yeah, finally we, we turned around and yeah.

U-turns. And on our way back, he was like, I'm all right. I'm all right. I'm. It, it did bend, you know, it bend it had some damage. Not even damage like the windshield came off, but it was like, oh, that's great. A quick release. But then the,~ uh,~ the, his,~ uh,~ footrest, you know, was kind of bent uped up. Yeah. We were able to kinda highway peg.

Yeah. Probably wouldn't mean

tom: what it was supposed to.

Todd: Yeah.

tom: Yeah. So gravel plus speed, plus a slight loss of focus equals pucker. Pucker. Bad combo. Bad combo. So, but you know, I think one thing is to learn, Chris did commit to it, you know? Mm-hmm. And it's kind of, um, like one of those things where it's like. I think him trying to avoid it even more once he got close was probably, it was probably good to just take it.

Mm-hmm. You know? Um, yeah. I suppose that depends on what was in the ditch, but Yeah. You know, so, but I do think it's important to think sometimes, and I don't know Todd when you're riding, but like, just be thinking like, what's my exit plan here? I mean mm-hmm.

I

tom: think about that more when we're riding with more cars because, um, they don't always pay attention.

They're not, yeah. Um, especially like riding through. If we're in towns and people can pull out like they mm-hmm. They just don't always see you.

Todd: They don't see you. So, um, and it happens on rural roads too. I, I know we've been on plenty of straight roads and, you know, there's a, you know, an intersection teeing in and there's someone coming towards us gonna make that left turn and all of a sudden they'll just turn right in front of you.

I always watch the tire. I do too. I look at the tire, I try and look moving. Yeah. Make eye contact. Eye contact. If I can see them looking at me, I know they've seen me, or you know, throw up a hand. Hey. I mean, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

tom: That's right. Um, so the th the third story is probably one of the worst incidents that we've been into.

So we had a bluff on the left and it was kind of, ~uh, ~trees on the right. It was just awesome. I'm, we had just turned a corner, so we had just got on this road and I was, there was three of us. I was riding in the very back and ~uh, ~the gentleman on the Strom was in the front and he got around this corner.

And Stroms don't come factory with a kickstand. Um, or excuse me, they come only with a kickstand.

Okay.

tom: They don't, they come with a,~ uh,~ center. They don't come with a center stand. Oh,

alright.

tom: So what happened was when you put that center stand on there, they hang a little low. Oh, he added it? Yeah. You, well, you have to, there isn't a center stand on a estro, like you have to add the center stand.

Okay. So it's aftermarket. It's aftermarket. Okay. And it does hang down a little bit, but for the most part it's not a problem. Well. He'd gotten into this corner and he needed to dip in a little more than he thought. And he actually apex on the, the center stand wing that, you know, the kind of the Yeah, the foot part of that.

So he slid sideways out. Got it. Oh wow. Centered back up. But when he centered back up, he's over, you know, he's over the edge basically. At that point, this is when I'm coming into view. So my first three, my first look is I come around and I see a rear tire, and then a dude's butt. Like up high in the air, almost like, I mean, it looked like almost like, like it bucked him off.

But it was deep. I mean, if you're standing there, if like for instance, he'd have got knocked out. You were standing right there. Couldn't see him.

Todd: Wow. Like

tom: that's, I mean, he's probably 25 feet, 30 feet down and couldn't see him. I mean, there's small trees, tall

Todd: grass. So really, it was lucky you were as close as you were.

So you did see him go over? 'cause if you, well, yeah. Didn't, you didn't. Brad

tom: was between me and him. So Brad watch more of it. Oh, I see. Okay. But, but like, had we been. Yeah. Yeah. You could have not,~ uh,~ he would've been knocked out, disappeared. Wouldn't have seen him. Yeah, no, he absolutely disappeared. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, nothing. Wow. Yeah, it was crazy. So he hit that grass slid over, but, you know, it was just the craziest thing, but, and he was okay. Full gear. He was fine. Yep. But this is another reason why full phased helmets are it, I mean, he had a really nice rash up on the top left side of his, his, where he hit a tree with his, with his helmet slid through by it.

~Uh, ~broke the left foot peg off is what happened. Wow. But there's no way

Todd: you guys could get the bike outta there. There's no way. Yeah. I mean,

tom: wow. It was at least 25 feet down and then sloped, you know? And then, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I suppose if a guy had some sort of a ratchet strap, I don't know if he could have winched it out of there by hand.

Mm-hmm. But I doubt it. It was. Unbelievable. But,~ uh,~ yeah, that's what, a 500 pound bike anyway, right? Well, no more than that. Probably. Those are probably 6 50, 700 pounds, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, um, you do have to be careful when you're, when you have accessories. I mean, there's some of these things you just gotta make sure you know that.

So, yeah, I know he always had

Todd: jacket boots,

tom: the works. Yeah. Gloves,

Todd: all that kind of stuff. I knew he had a helmet on, but,

tom: wow. Yep. So, ~uh, ~just something to think about. Um, you know, in, in kind of a, I would call this about his ordinary, a ride in the morning as you get. Mm-hmm. Um. So,

Todd: yeah, I've heard of people hitting the kickstands and, you know, picking their back tires up or, or sliding

tom: out, but yep.

Um, wow. It can happen. That's scary. So the last one is really pre-trip maintenance. It's Brad versus his battery. We'll call that. He doesn't like the story, but it's, it's a good one. It was our first trip down to the tail of the dragon. Um, Brad Bike was a really nice bike actually. Um. He knew that the battery had probably seen a better day, but it, it, it, it started the bike fine.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and by the time I had gotten back, Mike and Brad had found a friendly crew of Tennessee guys that came back and jump started a with a Dodge truck. So the picture that I have is great, 'cause I have a picture of it and there's just kinda like parts everywhere, like. Because those bikes, um, aren't super easy to get to the battery, but I think wasn't a hundred percent sure what was going on.

I don't know if it was electric or the points or what, but,~ uh,~ but my favorite part of the story is we would, we went downtown Nashville to get some barbecue and it was a great, great barbecue. And Brad not thinking, he flipped the ignition on pulling up the maps on the GPS. Waited a little too long while we're on the side of the road in Nashville and did it again.

Now I know why he doesn't like the story. I see. So, ~uh, ~but,~ uh,~ really, you know, this is why we keep talking about these pre-trip inspections, you know?

Mm-hmm.

tom: You're gonna buy that battery either way, so you may as well get it before you leave I before you go. ~Uh, ~as opposed to after. But also, I mean, as we've found in so many times, Todd is southern hospitality or just people are great.

Mm-hmm. And on batteries, like maybe every three or four years, just put a new one in. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't cost you that much. Yeah. Right. Okay, well for the toolkit then. I don't know if I can ask for people to get jumper cables anymore. 'cause this was quite a few years ago. This is probably 15 years ago now.

I'd say. Make sure you just have a jump pack. Yeah. At least. I mean, that would've been Yeah. ~Uh, ~just as good. That's a lot of weight though, isn't it? Um, adding a jump pack too. It is, but you know, the, the double bonus of the jump pack is, is I've used it more times for. Making sure that my headset was keeping charge.

Oh, that's

Todd: a great idea. They usually do have USBs on 'em, don't they? They do. Yeah. So it's kinda

tom: like you can't complain.

Todd: Yep.

tom: And then, you know, jumper cables are a little, I mean. Even small gauge jumper cables are pretty bulky.

Mm-hmm.

~Uh, ~you know, like all, probably every fifth episode we've said we wouldn't want to do without 'em.

Todd: Yeah. And, and it, you know, we don't specifically talk about one brand. We happen to use Cena or Sena Senna. You know, Cardo Cardos are

tom: popular and there's, you know, if you're just doing your own thing. You know, there's some cheaper ones out there that do work too, but, um, you gotta want to, I, I don't know, we just wouldn't wanna do it without talking to people.

Yeah. Yep. Um, I know it gets boring even last 30 minutes when some people's headsets kick out, you know, when they die a battery, it's like, what the heck? Yeah. Makes that 30 minutes seem like a long, long, long time. But, and then I'll just put a punch in and, you know, it's like wear a helmet if you want to, don't, but.

Mm-hmm. ~Uh, ~you got the helmet up, you probably hook it, you might have hooked it on a tree and ripped it right off your head. So yeah. So it's one of those things. But ~uh, ~yeah, that's, that's the things with the toolkit. Any other thoughts you have there? No, I,

Todd: I, I do. I agree with you on the helmet. I, I have a modular helmet.

Yeah, I think you do too. Yeah. Oh yeah. I like those. So when you're stopping at the gas station, you don't have to take it off. You can just flip the chin bar up and talk just to chat and chat. Nut. Yeah. Yeah. Get something to drink too. A little.

tom: I like it when we get into town. It's been a hot day. You can get a little more air flow too.

Yeah. Um, especially like on your guys' wings where you're not quite as much. Mm-hmm. Wind come around, out the wind, you know? So I usually just lower my windshield. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Well, if you like the podcast today, please like and subscribe. Sign up for our BMR Rider alerts. It's our way of keeping you in the loop.

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