Yah kind of a heavy subject, but I feel like this is a tight small community of riders and I might as well toss this out there for some insight.
I know we all have different points of view and I'm just looking to vent and share my experience,
as well as collect a point of view from others on the forum who have been down this road as well.

My experience:

So about 6 weeks ago I had taken a weekend to go camp near what I consider to be the best canyon road accessible to me within 4 hours.
Bike was a 2009 GSXR 1000 on brand new Q3+'s, new brakes, and I had on full leathers, gloves, etc..
I was timing runs via GPS and logging video with a helmet mounted GoPro.
Saturday was fantastic, honestly I have never felt more comfortable at speed.
I would say I was riding the better part of 95% of my ability.

Sunday I did my first ride of the day and all was right in the world.
On my return trip I noticed a group of sport bike riders at one of the turn-outs but as I was timing the run I carried on to the end of the canyon (my start/finish line for logging).
I made the decision to turn back and go find the sport bikes as I'm always hunting for guys in my area to ride with who might ride at or above my own level.
The guys were at the turn out and just preparing to head off in the direction I was going in to get back to camp.
They were on older bikes and said that they didn't really ride at the pace they saw me doing on my pass by earlier.
I was content to jump in and have a casual ride back to camp.

As we set off I was at the end of the pack and ended up following a female rider that was going Harley speeds as the rest of the group pulled away.
I decided to pick up the pace, pass her and chase down the other riders.
I pushed hard and was making ground but was having to pass some traffic fairly aggressively and decided to one again settle in and just have a calm ride back.
I had settled in behind a little white SUV and was just cruising along comfortably (maybe 35mph).

That was when things turned sour.

I was on a long sweeping left corner and was startled by a Harley with a passenger entering the roadway from the opposite direction and swinging wide into my lane.
I swerved to the outside of my lane and watched over my left shoulder as the bike rode off behind me (back into his lane).
When I looked forward again I knew it was not going to end well, I had been going straight after my swerve but the road was continuing left.
I was on dirt. As soon as I tried to steer the bike it dropped like a rock and my grip on the bars pulled me straight down head first into the ground.

I don't know if I was unconscious or just in shock, but I recall trying to stand up and falling without balance. I collected myself and got up more carefully.
Several of the vehicles I had passed stopped to assist, even the white SUV I was following. Who exclaimed to me that he had seen everything and that my feet went "straight up in the air".
I was unable to remove my gloves and a nice lady assisted me, I was roasting and needed to get my leathers opened up to cool off.
It was around 1pm and pretty hot out.

I assured the Samaritans that I was ok and asked the nice lady to go inform my wife at the camp sight that I had had a crash but was OK and just needed her to come collect me.


(out of time for now, will continue the story next post)