This is the sixth in a series of posts about life with the Moto Guzzi Breva 1200 Sport. The previous post is here.
On Day 1 I wrote about my ride up from the Moto Guzzi Press Bike Parking area to my work in Santa Barbara and back home. The posting covered the characteristics of the bike and my first encounters with heavy traffic. What I didn’t write about was the BMW 5-series that changed lanes in front of me, causing a low-speed high-side onto the pavement.
There I was, on Los Angeles Avenue in Moorpark, inching between lanes at a red light. I saw a BMW jerk like he was going to change lanes or cut me off, so I grabbed a handful of brake and began to slow to a crawl, taking advantage of the Guzzi’s incredible low-speed characteristics. At that very moment a half-space opened up for the Beemer and he just jerked into it, causing me to panic stop. I was over on the paint stripe with less-than optimal tires — I stopped the bike — the rear wheel skidded and I went high-side over to the right. A guy in a pickup stopped to help me get up. The BMW was gone by the time I had my wits about me. I don’t know if he had done it on purpose or not, and nobody got a license number.
Just in case anyone is curious, a cager purposely turning into someone on a bike that is splitting lanes in California wil be charged with Attempted Murder/Assault with a Deadly Weapon. If you do this and get caught, you can probably plead it down, but you’re going to be out thousands of dollars in the process.
I walked over to the bike, Continue reading “Moto Guzzi Breva – Day 6 – I Get Knocked down, but I get up Again…”