It was a silly accident. I was between a dentist appointment and getting full dental scan. The scanning facility was 5 blocks away and I needed to move the bike across the street for street cleaning anyway, so I decided to ride. Because of the short distance, I decided to forgo my usual riding gear for only the second time in 2 years of motorcycle ownership. This was stupid.
I was riding down 73rd between Columbus and Amsterdam, and there was a schoolbus parked on the right side of the road. As I approached, the bus threw out the stop sign. Trying to be a good samaritan, I attempted to stop before the bus, despite the fact that I was pretty much right up on it. The hard braking, combined with the torn up and potholed surface of the block, caused me to lock up the front wheel and go down. It was a pretty low speed accident, ~20-30 mph, but it was enough for the bike to bang into something and bend the front fork. I wasn't very injured, only a sprained ankle and some light scrapes. If I were wearing my boots and my jacket I literally would have had no injuries at all, none.
I picked up the bike, parked it, and walked home. After a while I decided it would be best to get my ankle checked out, just to make sure it wasn't broken. I took a cab with A.D. to the hospital and got an X-ray to confirm my ankle was just sprained. I was in and out in less than an hour, which is a credit to Mt. Sinai. The moral of the story is ALWAYS WEAR YOUR GEAR. ALWAYS. EVEN IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING A SHORT DISTANCE.
In any case, I used the damage to the bike as an excuse to do a suspension and brake upgrade. I got a smoking deal on a used '06 GSXR600 forks and started collecting the other parts necessary to put it on my bike. Right now I have the forks mounted. Lookin' good.
In other news, I saw this awesome Ducati 999 on the street the other day. It's been streetfightered out a bit, with the fairing and rear seat removed, but I think it looks great.
This was a less awesome Ducati sighting. It seems someone knocked over this row of bikes the other day, The Duc had some damage, which is unfortunate, because it was a very clean bike that I had been admiring for a few months. This is why we can't have nice things.
In Z news, two major things happened this weekend. First, my frame rails arrived! I started prepping the floor for their installation, but this will be a reasonably long process, as undercoating is somewhat tough to remove. Stay tuned for updates on that.
Second, a member of the HybridZ forum posted that he had some parts he wanted to get rid of but didn't want to ship. Luckily he was pretty local to me, so I was able to score some great free stuff. First was an intake manifold and two carbs for a triple carb setup for a Z. Complete working sets of these go for $1000-$1500, so this was a total score for free, despite the rough shape of the carbs.
Second, he had two 5speed transmissions for the Z. All in all not a bad haul for a few hours of driving!
-W.W. SBSS
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