June 19, 2004 North Cascades Hwy & Crash
Doreen getting her ass kicked
Patrick and Doreen at the Diablo Lake overlook
Diablo Lake
Doreen and Adam
East of Washington Pass, looking west. The hairpin turn, visible in the lower left corner, is where the crash occurred.
One of the contributing factors that makes highway 20 the best ride in Washington
Patrick and Adam a few minutes before the crash
The ST came to rest on its left side, a few feet behind the spot shown here. You can see the gas stain where it came to rest right at the edge of the asphalt. For those of you familiar with Washington Pass we were headed west, up the pass, and were riding through the 180 degree, right hand sweeper. Just as we were exiting the last bit of the turn, the rear wheel slid on some transmission fluid that had been deposited in the lane. I was already looking up the following straight away as the rear wheel began to slide out to the left. The last thing Doreen remembers hearing was me saying some like, “what the heck”, as I realized the rear wheel was washing out. I <thought> we were going to just low side, but judging from the damage to the bike and the tumble I took, I’m assuming I hung on until the high-sided while Doreen came of during the low side. Doreen slide feet first, face down up the road. Her jacket slid up pretty high resulting in road rash on her stomach and chest. I don’t remember much after thinking I was going to low side. I do remember my head hitting several times and my limbs flailing as I rolled. I was seeing road-sky-road-sky and was just thinking to myself, “don’t reach out and try and stop this” and “when am I going to stop?”. The left side is pretty much crunched from the mirror to the left luggage box and the GIVI.
We put Doreen in the shade of this boat that was parked by the side of the road near the crash site. It was quite hot in the sun. We covered her with jackets as she was showing minor signs of shock. Since we had no cell phone reception in this area we had to rely on a passing motorist to drive down the road and call 911. Once I was sure Doreen was relatively OK I took these pictures. Notice something in these pictures? That line in the sand is transmission fluid from the truck that left the boat there. The guy that owned the boat showed up after the crash. At first he thought we were looting his boat. After I told him what happened, he felt pretty guilty.
I walked down the road and found that the transmission fluid continues well beyond where our slide started. I was riding the inside half of the inside lane. It would appear my rear wheel drifted into the oil line and transmission fluid in the center of the lane, or the transmission fluid may have been right of the oil line. I didn’t walk that far back down the road to check.
Here you can see the skid marks from both the front and rear tires. Front is near the rail, rear to the right. I assume the ‘high side’ occurred where the skids end.
This picture is taken from the end of the guard rail looking back down the road. If Doreen and I left the bike at the end of the skid marks it looks like we slid quite a ways! See the picture below.
Here’s the view from a spot near the end of the guard rail looking up the road. Doreen came to rest next to the bike, I ended up a few feet to the right of them.
Front end of the bike. Looks like much of the left side fairing is damaged!
Rear damage. More detailed damage photos here.
More rear damage! After waiting about an hour for an ambulance to arrive, Doreen and I were taken for a 1 hour ride to the closest hospital in Brewster, WA. X-rays confirmed neither one of us have any broken bones and for the <most> part our safety equipment performed well. Doreen got the worst of it as she appears to have slid feet first, face down, for a while. Her jacket slid up her waist and she had road rash from her belly button to her upper chest. Along with that she has a bruised right elbow and left shoulder. I have about a 6″ round road rash/bump on my left hip and a smaller version on my left elbow. All in all, we were pretty lucky.
Adam’s helmet
Looks like it bounced a few times!
Doreen’s helmet. A couple of impacts.
Check out the chin guard on Doreen’s helmet. It scooped gravel as she slid backwards.