F R I C T I O N Z O N E - Your motorcycle information source


	What's New \| Ride Schedule \| Ride Reports \| Photos \| Downloads




	Pull out time was at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday April 29, 2001 where we left from Hooters located at Nasa Rd and I-45. From there we rode to Texas World Speedway in College Station taking some winding back roads along the way. From there it was smooth sailing all the way down I-45, not a lot of traffic to worry about on an early Sunday morning. Along the way a few other bikes meet up with us along the way on our trip up towards Conroe. Before long it was time for the wheelies to come to an end and exit onto 1488. By then it was time to top off the tank, because soon we would finally be hitting a small set of twisties to warm up the tires on or so we thought. We finally came upon the twisties at Honea Eygpt when about half way through we came up on a group of sport touring riders going about 15 mph under speed limit. Ohhh well, more curves were ahead in our future anyhow. After Honea Eygpt, it was time to let the wheelies once again begin, for it was time to go down straight and wide open Hwy 105 for a short period. Next right was 149 though, where it was time to keep those front wheels on the ground and wear those tires to their edges. After 149, it was down 3090, the last of the curves for after this it was down Hwy 6 to Texas World Speedway. Well, 3090 has some pretty technical curves, such as decreasing radius curves which are difficult for even the experienced canyon carver. Follow the Leader (Wreakage) Well the saying that you go where you look definately holds true once again. One bike ran wide in a decreasing radius curve and two other bikes followed right behind. Luckily the bikes took the brunt of the damage and no one was seriously injured in their get-off. The leader of this pack was a Suzuki GSXR-750, which essentially was the one who took the most damage when it came to the bike. As you can see in the pictures, the front is maimed and the tank took some pretty hard knocks also. The 3 day old Yamaha R1 followed right behind the Gixxer 750 and also sustained a substantial amount of damage. The owner of this bike said that he just bought this bike Thursday only 3 days before this nasty incident, it even still has the paper dealer tag on it. From the pictures you can tell that the front fairing is smashed up and something is definately misaligned by looking at the left side headlight. The last bike to go down for the day was a brand new 2001 Suzuki Gixxer 1000. The rider of this bike was probably the one who was the worst injured, but his bike wasn't in that bad of condition. The fairings were a little cracked and scratched up but there was no tank damage what so ever. The shifter linkage was bent and tore to shit also, but easily repairable. The rider however more and likely spranged his ankle when he went down. A pickup truck arrived shortly after and all the wrecked bikes were loaded up. For the rest of us, who were left, we continued down 3090 with caution towards Texas World Speedway. A Days End After only 10 more miles down Highway 6 and we were finally at Texas World Speedway. We never did make it in time for the spectator lap but all in all it was a great ride there, but I wasn't really looking forward to the long ride back. Going back we just took straight good old 290, since the majority of us were tired and didn't have the energy to ride the curves back. Plus, I think we had enough crashes for the day.