Desdinova
September 15th, 2011, 12:16 AM
Between getting on a bike the first time and ending up in the emergency room.
Took the MSF course basically on a whim at the beginning of march, decided "hey, this is awesome", ran out and put down 1500 cash on 2007 Ninja. Put about a thousand miles on it before the end of april. I think it was april 30th; I was out riding in the morning after coming off night shift, blowing off a lot of steam, on the twistiest back roads I could find, went through once without incident, circled around, got too cocky.
Ended up going too fast into a blind 110-degree curve, pretty sure I was target-fixated on the guard rail. Lowsided the bike, slid about 20 feet. The bike hit a post with the front tire wedged under the guardrail, I ended up in the grass next to it. Grabbed the keys and took my gear off, couldn't get the bike out, ended up sitting in the shade for about 5 minutes thinking about what an idiot I was until a car stopped to help. I instantly regretted not buying more than liability insurance.
The deputy who responded was very cool about the situation, we talked about bikes, he declined to write me a ticket saying I was probably hurting enough. I had some very slight road rash on my right arm and a bigger patch on my knee and a stiff left wrist. The deputy called a wrecker out to pick up the bike, I declined sending any medics out and got a ride from a friend to the ER.
Took a couple days and a lot of pain before they decided I had a scaphoid fracture and put me in a real splint. Paid way too much to get the bike back (wrecker was a real asshole, agreed to deliver the bike, decided while en-route that he didn't have time then held the bike hostage until I paid him for making the 'attempt'. Decided the money was worth less than the time it'd spend fighting his ass, but I hope he gets rectal cancer). Elected to get a pin in the wrist instead of spending 6 months in a cast. Spent a couple weeks in a removable splint instead.
During this time I was tearing everything broken off the bike basically one-handed; I don't have any pictures of the bike in its immediate post-crash state unfortunately, but it was pretty bleak - front fairing in a bunch of pieces, headlight smashed, gauges broken off from all the mounting tabs, forks bent and a chunk taken out of the front fender. The right side rearset bracket was broken in two. One handle bar was bent, the other broken clean off when the bike slid under the railing. On the plus side, it started up, ran, and went in and out of gear without any problems at all. Me and a buddy tore it down to the frame to check for damage.
Being a person who goes crazy without a project, I started ordering replacement parts on ebay; maybe it would've been better economically to part it out but I kind of figured I owed the bike a shot. It didn't let me down, I let it down, after all. By the time I felt comfortable without a splint on, it was basically back together. I stuck a headlight, mirrors, and signals from ebay on to make it street legal so I could ride it home from the shop.
This is the state it was in at that point and basically still is:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y258/_desdinova/IMG_20110603_170133.jpg
I've since added a trail tech vapor readout for gauges since I didn't want to bother with a way of remounting the stock ones.
I was sort of hesitant about riding at first but after the first few miles with almost nothing important falling off (I may have forgotten to torque down a couple bolts adequately and lost one of them on the highway, yeah, I quadruple-checked everything after that) and not dying even a little, I started taking it back and forth to work occasionally (about 5 miles). I had to use it to commute after my car ended up in the shop for a week, and I started wanting to ride again more and began venturing farther. I've only been on one long trip so far when I decided to disappear into the backcountry for a couple hours, but I can say I feel completely comfortable on it again now. I've ridden almost 600 miles since the crash.
The bike's not 100% yet, the new forks I bought are straight but need new seals, the seat cover's ripped, and I don't think the shop that changed my oil replaced the gasket properly since it's developed a slight leak from the oil filter cover.
Now that I've paid off my car and can squirrel away a little more money I'm thinking of upgrading to a larger naked or standard like a GS500 or a honda nighthawk, but I think I'd be torn on what to do with the ninja. Can't really imagine someone would buy a wrecked 250 to ride, but I don't think it deserves the "take it behind the shed and shoot it" approach, either...
Took the MSF course basically on a whim at the beginning of march, decided "hey, this is awesome", ran out and put down 1500 cash on 2007 Ninja. Put about a thousand miles on it before the end of april. I think it was april 30th; I was out riding in the morning after coming off night shift, blowing off a lot of steam, on the twistiest back roads I could find, went through once without incident, circled around, got too cocky.
Ended up going too fast into a blind 110-degree curve, pretty sure I was target-fixated on the guard rail. Lowsided the bike, slid about 20 feet. The bike hit a post with the front tire wedged under the guardrail, I ended up in the grass next to it. Grabbed the keys and took my gear off, couldn't get the bike out, ended up sitting in the shade for about 5 minutes thinking about what an idiot I was until a car stopped to help. I instantly regretted not buying more than liability insurance.
The deputy who responded was very cool about the situation, we talked about bikes, he declined to write me a ticket saying I was probably hurting enough. I had some very slight road rash on my right arm and a bigger patch on my knee and a stiff left wrist. The deputy called a wrecker out to pick up the bike, I declined sending any medics out and got a ride from a friend to the ER.
Took a couple days and a lot of pain before they decided I had a scaphoid fracture and put me in a real splint. Paid way too much to get the bike back (wrecker was a real asshole, agreed to deliver the bike, decided while en-route that he didn't have time then held the bike hostage until I paid him for making the 'attempt'. Decided the money was worth less than the time it'd spend fighting his ass, but I hope he gets rectal cancer). Elected to get a pin in the wrist instead of spending 6 months in a cast. Spent a couple weeks in a removable splint instead.
During this time I was tearing everything broken off the bike basically one-handed; I don't have any pictures of the bike in its immediate post-crash state unfortunately, but it was pretty bleak - front fairing in a bunch of pieces, headlight smashed, gauges broken off from all the mounting tabs, forks bent and a chunk taken out of the front fender. The right side rearset bracket was broken in two. One handle bar was bent, the other broken clean off when the bike slid under the railing. On the plus side, it started up, ran, and went in and out of gear without any problems at all. Me and a buddy tore it down to the frame to check for damage.
Being a person who goes crazy without a project, I started ordering replacement parts on ebay; maybe it would've been better economically to part it out but I kind of figured I owed the bike a shot. It didn't let me down, I let it down, after all. By the time I felt comfortable without a splint on, it was basically back together. I stuck a headlight, mirrors, and signals from ebay on to make it street legal so I could ride it home from the shop.
This is the state it was in at that point and basically still is:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y258/_desdinova/IMG_20110603_170133.jpg
I've since added a trail tech vapor readout for gauges since I didn't want to bother with a way of remounting the stock ones.
I was sort of hesitant about riding at first but after the first few miles with almost nothing important falling off (I may have forgotten to torque down a couple bolts adequately and lost one of them on the highway, yeah, I quadruple-checked everything after that) and not dying even a little, I started taking it back and forth to work occasionally (about 5 miles). I had to use it to commute after my car ended up in the shop for a week, and I started wanting to ride again more and began venturing farther. I've only been on one long trip so far when I decided to disappear into the backcountry for a couple hours, but I can say I feel completely comfortable on it again now. I've ridden almost 600 miles since the crash.
The bike's not 100% yet, the new forks I bought are straight but need new seals, the seat cover's ripped, and I don't think the shop that changed my oil replaced the gasket properly since it's developed a slight leak from the oil filter cover.
Now that I've paid off my car and can squirrel away a little more money I'm thinking of upgrading to a larger naked or standard like a GS500 or a honda nighthawk, but I think I'd be torn on what to do with the ninja. Can't really imagine someone would buy a wrecked 250 to ride, but I don't think it deserves the "take it behind the shed and shoot it" approach, either...