I don't have any pictures to verify this unbelievable but true story.
I might be the only person you'll ever meet who's fallen asleep on a motorcycle, going around 110mph..... while steering with his feet. I swear this is a true story.
I went through a 1000cc (naked) Goldwing phase. I had around a dozen of them through the early 90's to early 2000's. I was living in Houston, and had a girlfriend in Dallas. I would drive back and forth once or twice a week to hang out with her and her older brother, my best friend. It was around 250 miles each way.
Well, old GoldWings are only so fast, but one day I figured out that if I set the friction cruise control with the throttle pinned, laid back on the big, plush seat with my head by the tail light and my feet up on the handlebars, the aerodynamics were so much better that I could gain 1500 RPM and around 12mph on the top end.
So I did this. A LOT.
Basically I would blast back and forth across the great state of Texas in the evenings after work to hang out with the folks that mattered most. We'd stay up all night, then race home again to get back in time for work the next morning. Ah! to be young, invulnerable and full of spit.
I don't know how many thousands of miles I drove going around 110, steering with my feet. You could say that I did it until it seemed like a normal thing to do....
One day I was just too tired. I had been awake for about 48 hours straight. While I was in Dallas we all went on a long bike ride, and now it was dawn, around 6:00 am on a cool Autumn morning. I was blasting home from Dallas, utterly exhausted. I was somewhere near College Station, when I suddenly woke up with a jerk and a start -- I was about 300' from rear-ending one of those late-1970's little Datsun Pickups. It was yellow. I think my Guardian Angle prodded me with a stick to wake me up: I was going full-speed and closing in on him fast. Later he would tell the police that the lapels of my jacket hit his truck -- I was that close to hitting him.
But I missed. I swerved (with my feet) with all my might, leaning deep and shot right around him, popped back up to a sitting position and tried to collect my wits. I had been on a long, straight section of road, and I have no idea how long I was asleep.
Many of you are familiar with that metallic taste you get in your mouth when you are baselining adrenalin just after a near-death experience. My hands were shaking, and I was pretty much 100% freaked out and completely awake. I decided I'd pull over and get a cup of coffee at the next stop, sober up, and I still could make it home, clean up, and get to work in Katy (West Houston) on time at 7:30.
So here's the weird part. I was completely awake, trying shake off the freak out, and I just kind of drifted to the left, into the huge grassy median. I totally hit the dirt at 80 mph, crashed hard and totaled the bike. To this day I have one of those movie-like slow motion memories of drifting into in the wet grass (I still don't really know why), thinking I could just ride it out, gently easing on to the breaks, and the bike just flipping down under me. We hit the ground and slid very far in first light of the early morning. I remember everything in my body going snap crackle pop as I hit the ground. I remember the bike spinning and sliding along next to me, toward me, when a footrest on the crash bars caught the moist dirt, dug in and the bike started tumbling and flipping at me as I slid along, slowly rotating as I slid in my leathers......
This eventually ended, and once I stopped I was afraid to move, thinking I broke my neck. SO I just laid there. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep again. (I WAS super tired....)
The rest is not too important.... My hands and feet were all tingling. I remember a middle-aged lady who came running across the median in her heals and business attire, who said she saw the horrific crash. She said she was a Christian and wanted to pray for me. That sounded like a good idea. Then the paramedics came. It turns out I had been laying in a fire ant bed (hence the 'tingles'). They cut off my leathers, put me on a board, rushed me to the hospital. By the time I got there I was awake again. And I was also completely uninjured. Those fire ant bites were by far my worst injury.
I was a little sore for the next few days, but miraculously, I walked away and was just fine. I convinced my Dad to drive me back out there in his new pickup truck, and I bought the bike back from the junk yard, salvaged the good parts, rebuilt it into a cheap replacement frame, and a couple weeks later I was driving back and forth from Dallas again.
I don't remember deciding to stop driving with my feet on the bars. But one day I just kind of realized I had stopped, and that it wasn't fun anymore. I guess that's how life happens. I eventually drifted away from those most dear friends too. I eventually met my wife, and we dated on this same old GoldWing. Life's funny that way.
-fang
