Well, I dumped my bike the other day, on the way home, third
time in 17 years, and it’s got me wondering if third time is, indeed, the
charm.
It was clear and dry, traffic was light, as I headed home
from a nice little ride for lunch at an old dive bar in a town named after a
lake nobody has seen. After passing
under the second to the last traffic light before the one that leads to our
house, I was following two cages at a reasonable distance when they began to
slow down at a point where they should not have needed to, so I grabbed my
front brake in preparation for whatever foolishness they might be about to
perform on the street, not a panic stop by any means, but a strong pull
intended to gain a little distance while the situation developed. It’s the kind of maneuver an experienced
motorcyclist does without thinking, the kind I’ve done many times in many
places with no problem.
This time, for some reason that will remain unknown, my
front end suddenly washed out from under me with no warning or time to react
and dumped me and the bike on our left sides in the middle lane of a four lane
road at about 40 miles per hour. Later,
we saw a flap of cardboard that just possibly could have found itself under my
front tire just as I hit the brakes, which could explain why, but we’ll never
know for sure.
It happened too fast to react at the time, but, looking over
the damage later, it was easy to reconstruct.
I landed mostly on my left hip and shoulder, then attempted a shoulder
roll on to my helmet, which gave up the faceshield on the left side as we
ground to a stop in the turn lane.
Somehow, I badly scuffed the toe of my left boot in the process, wore
almost through the left sleeve of my Harley FXRG riding jacket, which did its
job and sacrificed material to keep my upper body injuries to some minor
scratches along the left elbow, and one inexplicable but nasty little gouge
under my right glove along the base of my thumb. My nice padded riding pants were,
unfortunately, rolled up in the right saddlebag because it was such a nice day,
so I only had some denim jeans on, which explains the huge technicolor bruise
that is forming along that left hip right where the pads are in the riding
pants that I was not wearing, as well as a nasty combination road rash and
impact bruise delivered to the outside of my left knee inside my jeans, also at
the location of the knee pads in the riding pants I was not wearing. ATGATT means All The Gear All The Time,
Goddammit!
Bikers are everywhere, we know, and this incident made that
clear. As I lay on the pavement mouthing
bad words and looking up at the sky, a County employee who was mowing the tall
grass along the side of the road and saw it happen stopped his tractor and ran
over to help me out. It turns out he has
an FXR like mine, that he has owned and loved for years, like mine, and he
helped me pick up my poor wounded bike and get it off to the side of the road
and up a shady driveway. The first cop
on the scene went sailing on by, followed by three others, two fire trucks, and
aid unit, and possibly a Battalion Chief, I disremember all of them. Somebody must have told them something bad
happened when the old guy went ass over teakettle in front of about 40 cars. The cop who took my information was telling
me about his bike, and the nurse in the Urgent Care facility that said I had no
broken bones turned out to have a couple of Dynas at home.
My poor Harley, my beautiful 1992 FXRS-Convertible that I’ve
had for years and was slowly but surely turning into another FXRT, which I
believe is the highest form of the best bike Harley ever made, took a hard
knock this time, one that may well be a death blow. The left side saddlebag is toast, as well as
the tour pack, from grinding on the ground, and the front end somehow got
twisted and torqued so bad that it caved in the fuel tank in the left front
corner as the fork stop sheared off the lower triple clamp, leaving the twisted
fork tubes and the bent fender as surety that the ride was over for the day, at
least. Somehow, it even managed to rip
the speedo cable out as it bent the mounting bracket and ground away the corner
of the housing in the process. The
footboard on that side took a hit, as did my fancy heel-toe shifter and both mirrors,
which might explain that gouge in my right thumb. Every time I look I know I will see more
damage, all from falling down on blacktop; it didn’t even hit anything!
My wife came running to rescue me, like she does, every time
without fail. Thank you, Dear, I owe you
for life. We sent the bike on to the
local dealer, who won’t be able to even look at it for a month, and called the
insurance company, who will probably look at the year and the mileage and write
it off with a sniff. (Edit: it was
Safeco, and they did not. They did well
by me.)
So here I am, limping away, glad to survive another crash,
but profoundly disturbed by the randomness and inexplicability of the whole
thing. I had that bike set up just the
way I wanted it, and running so good with the latest improvements to cam and
ignition, that I considered it good enough to be my last bike ever, the one
that always has the best spot in the garage as other toys come and go, the one
I could always count on to start and run, take me there, and bring me home. This time, it didn’t quite finish. I know better than to make rash decisions
after a jolt like this, so time will tell if this is a sign for me to hang up
the keys or not. Wish me luck as I find
out. :-{)}
The Rest of the Story
Did you ever lose a bike, either by way of a crash and an
insurance company total loss or by selling it, and wonder how it made out once
it had left the protective confines of
your garage?
I suspect this question is more relevant to a vintage
motorcycle enthusiast such as our illustrious selves than it would be for the
typical dilettante who runs out and buys the latest hot stuff only to quickly
tire of it, whereupon it languishes in the garage, if not the back yard, until
someone comes along to free it from such servitude and bring it back to life
under circumstances where it will be cherished, and maintained, and ridden once
in a while, if only to the TT.
Still, if you’ve lavished attention and money on a bike over
the years, put up with its tendencies, upgraded its weaknesses, even taken it
to the limit, that of new paint, you tend to develop some emotional attachment
to the machine, such that to let it go is a wrenching experience – less for
you, more for them. This effect is even
more pronounced when the loss is due to an accident, where you lose your bike
to an insurance company, who does unspeakable things to it, possibly.
I’ve been through this twice now. Once, in 2000, where, after a long day riding
through the desert of eastern Oregon on the way back from Sturgis, my front
wheel somehow got hooked up with the left rear corner of my buddy’s trailer and
dumped me and my ’89 FXR on the pavement in downtown Bend, Oregon in the middle
of rush hour.
After all the dust settled from that unfortunate incident,
my insurance company agreed to just send me the check, rather than have the
work done at the dealer, which I accepted with glee, since it bought me an
upgraded exhaust and front brake system, and I was happy to live with the minor
blemishes remaining from the crash. Then
my agent said, “Oh, by the way, all those items listed in the factory repair
estimate are no longer covered by your insurance, because you repaired them
yourself rather than have the dealer do it.”
So I had to let it go.
When that happens, the best you can hope for is a good owner that will
love and take care of your old bike the way you did. I remember when I took my first Harley, a
1971 FLH, back to work one day to show it to the guy from whom I had bought it,
and he looked at it, shook his head and said, “Well, I guess you didn’t fuck it
up too badly.” I felt pretty good about
that. So when the guy who bought my ‘89
FXR showed me how he was going to cut the frame to lower the seat so his wife
could ride it, I just sighed, and wished him luck.
In this latest version of the lose-your-bike scenario, with
my ’92 FXR on the losing end of it, I was determined to at least find out what
happened, since both the insurance claims adjuster and the dealership seemed
just as determined to prevent me from finding out what happened next, other
than that a salvage company would pick it up from the dealer, whereupon a check
would be released to me to compensate for the financial losses, but not the
emotional ones. So I hatched a plan.
I’m one of those guys who keeps all receipts in a file as
long as I own a vehicle, so I dug through it and pulled out the most recent
Dyno-tune results, as well as any relevant sales receipts, and put them in a
manila envelope, along with the following letter:
To whoever winds up with my old bike:
This was a good old bike for me, and never let me down,
until this latest incident. I’ve put a
lot of time and money into it over the years, and it should last a long time
and be a good bike for you if you get it up and running again.
On the day I crashed, I had taken the detachable windshield
off because the weather was so nice. I
will hold on to it for you, and give it to you if you want. If I don’t hear from you beforehand, I will
take it to the Tenino Swap meet and sell it.
Here’s my number, please give me a call if you have any questions or
want the windshield. Signed, me.
Then I took the envelope down to the dealership and put it
in the tour pack on back of the bike.
Two days later the salvage company picked it up, and off it went.
Two weeks later, out of the blue, I got a call from the new
owner! As it turns out, he lives in
California, near L.A. A buddy of his is
apparently in the habit of coming up to Washington and Oregon to buy up cheap
FXRs to resell in California, where they are apparently a hot commodity, thanks
to the Sons of Anarchy and the trend adopted by many real motorcycle clubs to
turn FXRs into hot rods for the street. (You
entrepreneurial types should have your ears pricking up at this tidbit.)
During a long and pleasant conversation, I got the
satisfaction of transferring to the new owner all the history of the bike, the
parts I had replaced or upgraded, including the special unique parts I had made
myself. It was especially gratifying to
find out that this guy was another enthusiast like myself, and that he had
bought the bike to make into his own personal vision of motorcycle perfection,
which he intended to keep forever.
The funny thing was, he didn’t want the windshield, but
allowed as how he was going to find an FXRT fairing for the front of it. I laughed at that revelation, and allowed as
how I had been collecting fairing bits and pieces for it myself for some years,
including a slightly damaged fairing body, and would he like me to put them all
in a box and send it to him, for a small fee?
I could hear his smile over the phone at that news, and the deal was
quickly done. He promised to send
pictures.
So it feels good to know that my old bike, after a traumatic
experience ending in dislocation from its old life, had wound up in a new place
where it would be loved and cared for just like it had in my hands. I don’t think you can ask for much more than
that, even if you’re a machine. :-{)}
