ok here is some more:
Date and time of incident: 8/25/07, approx 2:00 pm
Location: Highway 82, just west of Muenster, TX.
I was leading a group of two riders visiting the area from Austin to a short ride in North Texas. We were headed east from St. Jo to Muenster on Highway 82 where we intended to have lunch. About 5 miles from Muenster, a really heavy rain started. We continued on through the rain toward Muenster where I hoped to find some shelter for the group. As we approached the outskirts of town we entered a very mild left hand curve. My speed at that point was about 40 mph. On corner exit, the back of bike apparently lost traction and slowly started to slide around to the right. Given the road conditions I tried hard to keep my throttle speed constant. It's strange how time really did seem to slow down. I kept trying to come up with possible options to get out of this mess, but I really couldn't come up with any kind of correction at that point that might not make it worse so I steered in direction of slide and just hung on, hoping for the best. It’s difficult to guage the actual amount of time spent in slide versus perceived time, but the bike did travel in that alignment for several feet down the road before it finally went down. I finally got tossed off the bike and slid down the wet asphalt for several feet. The bike came to rest essentially in the same lane it had started in at the time of slide.
My guess is that the loss of traction was due to road oils that were floating on the road surface due to the recent rain. My speed was well below posted speed limits and seemed within reason for the road conditions.
Once I got the bike out of the road, I did a quick check and saw that I had a small coolant leak. I restarted it and was able to ride it into Muenster where I pulled into a shop and managed to make a temporarty repair to the coolant leak and then road the bike home.
I was a little sore on the lower portion of my right ribcage, but all in all walked away pretty much none the worse for the crash. I've got some pictures I'll post up soon.
Pics:
