Story by TIM DEGIUSTI

Left: Minutes into the ride, I assess low-side damage to my FJR 1300 and riding pants. Right: GS in happier times.

IT WAS AN ILL- FATED RIDE FROM THE START. I set off to meet my riding buddies before dawn a couple of blocks from my house and slowed to make a left turn. The combination of cold tires, damp pavement, an off- camber turn, plus my momentary lapse of situational awareness resulted in a total loss of traction. I low- sided and slid across the street at less than 10 mph. After picking up the bike and ensuring it was still rideable, I finally arrived at the meet- up spot. There sat the other two members of our little riding club – The Order of St. Columbanus – looking at their watches in exaggerated fashion.“ I just crashed my bike,” I said and recounted the event. After ensuring the damage was only cosmetic, we decided to start our trip that would take us to Moab, the Bonneville Salt Flats, and eventually, Montana.

We spent the first couple days riding to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and Moab, Utah. The other two members of the club, Steve Skinner and Steve Johnson, were on adventure bikes and wanted to put in some off- road time around Moab, so in Arches National Park they peeled off on Salt Valley Road while I headed north on U. S. Route 191 to meet them at the north of the park. But they didn’ t make it that far.

About 45 minutes later I got the distress call from Steve Skinner – they hit some seriously deep sand and both went down hard. Johnson hit his head and seemed to be concussed; the bikes were probably not rideable. Worse still, they weren’ t sure of their exact location, and cell phone signal was spotty. I hustled back to the ranger station to report the crash and get help. Using grid coordinates from Skinner’ s phone, the ranger and I plotted their location on a park map. Help was on the way.

Back out at the crash site to get the bikes, it was clear that the nearly knee- deep, fine sand was incredibly stealthy – it would have been very hard to spot and avoid. Ninja sand.

By late afternoon, the bikes were dropped at a local repair shop. The Steves checked themselves in at the Moab Brewery, strictly for medicinal purposes. By 10 p. m. they reported feeling much better. As it turned out, the bikes could not be repaired within a reasonable time. So the next day, after a group breakfast, I started riding toward Oklahoma, leaving the two Steves to transport their wounded bikes home aboard a U- Haul truck.

Our bad luck hadn’ t run out yet. Near Cuba, New Mexico, the wooden railing inside the truck’ s cargo hold broke.

Skinner’ s Yamaha Super Ténéré fell onto Johnson’ s BMW R 1150 GS, ruining the BMW’ s gas tank and inflicting other, serious damage. The BMW was now a total loss. It was a great and beautiful bike, which Johnson rode with an easy fluidity we all envied. Its loss – a victim of ninja sand and a karate chop from a Yamaha – saddened us all. Like I said, the ride was ill- fated from the start.

The BMW went to the place where insurance companies send formerly beloved motorcycles that had a bad day. The Super T was repaired and is still hauling Steve Skinner around the country – you’ d never know that it had a brush with mechanical death. Most importantly, two members of a very small and close- knit riding club survived a crash without serious injuries, and that’ s all that really matters.

Top: Dazed in the desert. The sand at the crash site was more than a foot deep. Below left: The Super T came to rest perpendicular to the road. Below right: The GS had seen better days.

58 / SEPTEMBER 2026 / RIDERMAGAZINE. COM