Three Flags Classic Tour 2008

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All done - the finishers banquet was last night in Nanaimo and we had a beautiful ride home today. 4,343 miles in the last 10 days, just about 8,000 since I picked up the new bike 3 weeks ago!

211 bikes finshed of which 14 were Yamahas (almost all FJR's). Honda accounted for an even 100, the majority of which were Wings, but at least a dozen ST13's too.

Route was great, but the coast riding in northern Oregon got more than a little nippy and damp, but our new Motoport gear and electric clothing did us very proud.

 
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Man, what a flashback!

The 3 Flags Classic 2000 was the last one I rode! 500 participants entered and ALL departed from the Tijuana Grand Hotel, Tijuana, Mexico, all the way up the continental divide to Edmond, Alberta, Canada. 10 days and 6,477 miles from my home in Cen Cal round trip. Still got the belt buckle! Did it on a ZG 1000 Concours.

Great ride! Maybe next year?

 
There was at least one death during this year's 3-Flags that I know of......

It was a cruiser dude.... he has crashed just shortly after the start. A single-vehicle accident, where he had apparently exceeded the performance envelope of his Hardley. He simply failed to negotiate a curve. A couple well-known LDRiders came upon the scene even before the cops arrived.

They said there was nothing to be done anyway; they saw that the dude apparently wasn't wearing a helmet (or maybe had one of those dumb-ass novelty buckets that fly off when 1.1 G's are applied). From the disposition of the bike, it appeared to have cartwheeled a few times.

RIP, Harley dude....

 
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Syl and I came upon that crash site within 10 minutes after his off. The rider died in the medevac chopper but apparently of complications from the heart attack which he was probably in the throes of when he crashed. (rider had a long history of serious heart issues).

I don't mean to contradict any of your LD friends Dale, but where he offed was on a long straight at least 1/4 mile after the last of a series of downhill sweepers. It looked so bland that Sylvia immediately thought that the rider had either had some sort of attack or I thought he had just fallen asleep and run off the road into a foot of soft gravel (3 AM starts from Mexicali will do that for you).

No doubt in my mind that his chances of survival if it had only been from a straight-forward get-off would have been much better if ATGATT.

A couple that we met on a Harley pulling a trailer also had an accident just after the second checkpoint in Brookings, OR. A car in front of them signalled right, pulled to the right then (as the Harley started to pass) swung hard left right into them. The bike went down, the trailer flipped onto its roof, but they were able to put it all back together and finish - although the lady pillion was badly bruised. They were in full leathers and quality full-face helmets...

A lady M/C instructor from Alberta threw it away in a decreasing radius turn on Highway 36 near the CA coast. She slid away from her bike, but under the guardrails. The only thing that kept her from going down a 200 foot cliff was that her full-face helmet wedged under the bottom guardrail! Separated shoulder, broken collarbone and DNF for sure, but she'll live to ride another day, even if her bike probably won't.

So the first crash was the only fatality and the only one of the three not ATGATT - I'm just sayin...

 
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