Just an update - the concussion turned out to be more serious than previously thought, but my recovery went (and continues to go) well. Have a pinched nerve in my left leg that's slowly getting better, possibly caused by a whiplash type injury or (as I found out later) the end position where the bike landed on me. I spoke with the paramedics who scooped me up and they told me they'd had to lift the bike off my lower body to start working on me. Apparently despite my taking flight for a significant distance and the bike staying ground-bound, we somehow ended up in the same place. Not sure how that works; it's the second time that's happened to me - last time I had a big accident (back in 98 or so,) I did a faceplant and slide into/along a wall on Inwood and the
bike went flying. We (it was a 1975 Honda CB750K5 last time) still ended up in the same place; apparently this is going to be par for the course for large crashes for me. :P
If all goes well, I should be back on two wheels within the next few weeks, with little to no lingering functional issues. Thanks for all the well wishes.
***
Now for the after-action report on the gear I was wearing, for others to use as a data point.
As some of you know, I normally ride around with a GoPro 960 on top of my helmet as a sort of flight data recorder. I had it attached to the top of my helmet with the provided 3M mount. Apparently impact with the road did not do it or any other part of the mount or case any good.
This was the only part they recovered:
The SD card, battery, battery door, polycarbonate outer housing and everything else were missing and have been presumed destroyed either directly by the crash or by other vehicles.
I think I will go with the helmet top camera again, but next time I think I will also have a camera on the bike itself, seeing as how the bike was largely intact. And I'll be working on some method to keep the bloody SD card in the **** GoPro after impact. :P Duct tape, perhaps. I think I will also paint the camera body and SD card bright orange and have a note on top of my tankbag indicating what it was used for and that recovery is extremely important.
For those not familiar with how the roads are in that area now, I recorded this with the 960 a few days prior - it's a ride through the same area several days earlier, going in the opposite direction, to give you an idea of what the roads look like in the vicinity now:
It was a bit windy that day, so my lane discipline wasn't all that great.
The rest of what I was wearing (so you don't have to go look at the prior page):
Helmet: HJC CL-SP
Jacket: Joe Rocket UFO 1.0
Pants: Fieldsheer Four Seasons
Gloves: Knox Biomech
Boots: Sidi Vertigo
I'm between permanent photohosting solutions at the moment, but I've put up pictures of the damaged bike and gear
here. (Please note that once I get a permanent photo-host going again, I will probably come back and post an updated link.)
Summary of the damage to the rest of the gear: the helmet is a throwaway (duh - though I might keep it as the traditional crash souvenir), but so is the jacket (too much fused/melted/compromised mesh, IMHO) and the pants are questionable (waiting to hear back from Fieldsheer if the textile damage can be safely repaired or not.) The boots and gloves are slightly scraped up but can and will be reused. If you're looking at the pics, the helmet is in the same condition that I got it back in - missing external devices and faceshield. My Scala Rider FM was long gone.
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