Nate Hall was in a motorcycle accident

[tannyo]

I received this email just a few minutes ago.

Message
1 Nate is down
Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:59 am (PDT) . Posted by: "Brendan Durrett"

Hi all,

SoCal moto-scene stalwart, congenial enthusiast, and good friend Nate Hall crashed on Angeles Crest Highway over the weekend. He is too stubborn a damn Yankee to be dead though.

He asked me to spread the word. Apparently he hit some unseen gravel in a corner and slid into the mountain wall. This totaled his Ural. As for Nate, he has a broken left arm, leg and wrist. His wrist might never be right again though. For now he is in the Kaiser Baldwin Park hospital but will likely be out this weekend. His cell is (323) 719-2256.

Stay safe everyone,

Brendan

[daysineuropa]

Poor Nate. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

[whitebuffalo]

Get well soon Nate! That darn Russian bike colluded with the American gravel, never a good outcome.

[Steve Simmons]

I guess it could always be worse, but it could be better too. Get well soon!

[VWNate1]

thanx guys ! here's my writeup after the week in hospital, five hours by two surgeons trying to clean up my 'perfect trifecta of ruination" :


on monday 6.26 i saddled up my 2010 Solo sT, topped up the oil and tires, headed north west out of pasadena in the i210 freeway to sand canyon then west on angeles forest highway to fort tejon road to valyermo road to big pines highway to big pines where i turned left onto angeles crest highway, 6 miles into wrightwood, ca, where i topped off the fuel tanks and enjoyed a bright blue cream soda (! the label didn't mention it being any sort of carbonated beverage, i just like blue colored drinks and it was the cheapest @ .99 cents) .

getting back on the a.c.h. i planned to ride to newcomb's ranch for breakfast but discovered 'road closed ' signs slightly after the last place to turn off, made a careful u-turn in a turn out and headed back the way i came up, enjoying the cool fresh country air and being glad that even when riding through santa clarita where big wild fires were burning, i encountered zero smoke .

as the day heated up (it was a scorcher) i kept riding through cool spots here and there and was thinking : back before ac, knowing the cool areas would help choosing where to build your farm/ranch house .

returning to the angeles forest highway i turned south on it and rode to upper big tijunga road, followed that north to the a.c.h. again and took it northeast, almost immediately encountering traffic halts for road repairs where they were clearing minor slides of rocks and gravel plus a few spots were pavement repairs meant no pavement, by 11am i reached world famous newcomb's ranch and had a nice bowl of red with cornbread and several glasses of ice water .

only a few other motocyclists were there, i chatted with the barkeep who's a family friend, he was installing neat new saddle bags to his late model bmw moto ~ they look like jerry cans .

he recently bought an old (pre 1965) vw beetle cut down into a baja bug and told me the shifter bushing i'd suggested he replace, made a YUUGE improvement in shifting ~ apparently he didn't need a new clutch and rebuilt transmission after all (TIP: when a mechanic gives you simple free advice instead of making YOU pay for repair$, try it) .

then i saddled up again and headed back down the a.c.h. to - wards home, at about the mile 29 marker i eased into a left sweeper turn going 42mph in third gear and suddenly realized the fog line was coming up at me fast, no way to avoid crashing ~ my last clear thought before basically riding into the granite mountain @ 40mph was "oh, sh*t ~ here we go" followed by loud banging noises, me cart wheeling a few times, feeling my helmet (ATG,ATT ! hit twice before i was sliding on my back feet first in the s/b lane, seeing my cane go skittering past me .

I was about 12 miles from home, sigh .

the bike is ruined ~ the forks broke from the initial impact, pretty much every mm of the entire bike is smashed, bent, twisted or scraped .

me, i broke my left wrist in what one of my surgeons said was the "perfect trifecta" of ruination . it took slightly over five hours for two surgeons, one a hand specialist to complete the job and both said to expect life long chronic pain and reduction of movement from it .

we'll see .

i also broke the load bearing surfaces on the two long bones in my left gel, tibia and fibula i think they're called .

i just got home from the hospital friday night and am learning to do things with only one arm/leg . whew .

the WAHmbulance crew managed to loose my wallet and everything in it except my driver's license (TIP: be poor and broke when you loose all your credit cards, no cash to loose .

so, that's it for now, i have weekd worth of e-mails to wade through but will be checking in now and then .

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY ! :cheers: .