End of January, riding home (Sacramento) from San Diego. Coming into Santa Clarita and need gas. Dial up an ARCO on the GPS and it gives me an exit in a few miles. Pull into the right lane, cruising politely at about 65 as there is a car in front of me and thinking about the next 350 miles home. Car in front of me starts to annoy at this speed and I think about going around but decide to be cool and wait.
Car pulls over one lane, I smile, start to roll on the gas and out of the corner of my eye I see something large, heavy and shiny flip out from under their right front wheel and head my direction. Now mind you this whole even took a fraction of a second to develop and fewer than 5 seconds total.
I start to pull right instinctively, my front wheel hits whatever this is and then I feel my left foot ripped into the air off my peg and back above and behind my panniers. The bike elevates off the ground and lands in a speed wobble. I land back on the seat, my foot is screaming in pain and I can’t find my foot peg to set my foot on. I sneak a look down and see my foot (good thing), no peg and what appears to be a scrambled shifter.
By this time I am pretty much at the exit and I pull off and head for the gas station. Crawl off the bike which is hard with no left peg and a banged up foot. Amazingly I see no other damage, not even scratch to the panniers drive train or cases and the shifter is fine. However my tool tube attached to my crash bars has been destroyed leaving my tools on the freeway.
To shorten this part I got back to the freeway, found my tools one lane out on Interstate 5 and had given up going after them until a CHP (motor officer)came along and took pity on me and stopped the traffic so I could get the tools back.
It was a 6 hour plus ride home with a throbbing foot and no foot peg. Used the crash bar, the rear peg and the left case alternating positions on the way home.
At the next gas stop as I pulled off the freeway I found the front tire flat. Seems I had dented the wheel and not noticed it. Got the compressor out and pumped it up and refilled it a couple of times over the next 150 miles.
I left the boot on until I got home; I knew if it was real bad I did not want to see it until I got home and figured if it took it out of my boot I would not get it back in again. At home the result was one ugly foot. The entire front of my foot was red/purple and swollen with some blood blister. It was a 65mph impact with a heavy object with enough force to shear off the foot peg. Blunt trauma. Two months later the swelling was mostly gone.
I have never not seen an obstacle in time to avoid it but this one was concealed by the car in front of me. Gives me a whole new perspective on how exposed we can be at times. Always wear great protective gear and in this case steel toed waterproof Gaerne riding boots on my feet. I am sure that boot saved my foot
Not posting the picture of my foot.
