Here I am always worrying about the small things when I’m riding. What’s that squirrel going to do? Is it going to run under the bike? At dusk it’s always the deer. We creep slowly down the lake loop knowing deer are everywhere, and luckily we haven’t had one run out in front of us yet. Squirrels, dogs, cats, and all the other small stuff tends to run out all the time. I’m normally sitting on the back of the bike not even thinking about stuff like that. My biggest worry is normally whether or not I’m sweating so much in my helmet it’s going to give me acne on my cheeks again. Hubby’s busy watching out for the animals.

This guy will always be on the lookout for animals now, though, after what happened to him a couple weeks ago.  My friend sent me a link from the 600rr forums that I had to share.  Dude hit a 40-50 lb coyote, and it didn’t take him down.  It did however sever the coyote in half.  Wow.  If you’re squeamish, don’t look at the photos, but if you’re interested you can see the photos and read the guy’s story here.

Hubby got to ride a little bit yesterday, and I realized something. I think I’m going to have to talk him into going to my aunt’s house a couple days a week to use her weight equipment because his leathers are getting awful tight on him. Not being able to ride means he’s not out doing things. Instead he’s sitting on the couch. It might not seem like the bike contributes to his weight loss, but it does. When he’s riding he’s sweating a good deal.  Then when we get off the bike he cramps up if we don’t walk around a bit before he sits down again.  Of course we also do a lot of walking on our mountain rides, too, because we stop at all the waterfalls and walk in to see them.  I guess I didn’t realize that we both are getting a little exercise while we’re out riding.

I’ve got an update tonight on the wrecked GSXR as well. Insurance did total it out, but that actually worked out for the better. He’s already found another new 08 GSXR that actually cost less than the first one, so even have to pay a little off on the wrecked one, it still comes out cheaper than the first one did.

I’m happy for him because he really needs the bike for transportation. Just like us he can’t afford the costs of commuting back and forth to work, and the bike has drastically changed that.

CA I hope you get to feeling better real soon, and I’m glad everything worked out for you.

Now he just has to wait 2 weeks for his arm to heal. He had his surgery yesterday, and everything went well. He’ll be in a cast for 2 weeks, and then he’ll be all good again. Thank goodness he’s smart and wears his gear at all times!

Yay. For once I have good news. So when the so called friend/ family member wrecked out bike he mentioned that he thought something was wrong with the throttle. He said it didn’t feel right to him, and Hubby agreed it was an excuse because the bike was in the best shape it had ever been in. He tried to say the throttle hung up on him and wouldn’t roll back, and that’s why he hit the rear brakes locking up the rear tire. No, you hit the rear brakes because you’re an idiot who was going too fast and reacted wrong.

Anywho, one of our friends at the bike shop offered to send the right clip-on off to Yamaha for testing. Two weeks ago I handed it over to him for the testing. He got it back today and just called me with the news. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the right clip-on. Besides from the actual metal clip-on part being busted during the wreck and the handle bar getting bent back, the clip-on is in perfect working order. It rolls smoothly, and they had no problems with it working properly even after the wreck and the damage to it.

The only issue we’ve ever had with the throttle is when we’re using the canyon dancer when hauling the bike. Sometimes it will pull the grip down over the bar end, and you have to put it back into place. That had happened the day before the wreck at Deal’s Gap, but not only was it fixed, the entire grip was replaced when Hubby went to Wheeler’s shop. Then Wheeler greased it up properly and made sure it worked. I mentioned I even had all the paperwork from the work Wheeler done.

Even though the accident wasn’t reported, I did take pictures of everything including the scene. An eye witness (not Hubby) gave an account to a cop friend of ours who checked it out for us. After seeing the photos and talking to the witness our cop friend (who not only investigates most bike accidents in the county but also rides) confirmed the accident was a cut and dry case of going way too fast for conditions and not handling the bike properly.

I love it when I’m right.

I finally have decent photos to share of the wrecked GSXR. The photos don’t show half the damage, but now that we’ve inspected it we’re not sure if it’ll be totaled out or not. You can see the new photos here. The reason we’re not sure if it’ll be totaled out is because we made a list of everything that’s damaged.

It doesn’t look like the damage costs more than the bike, but we’ll see. The subframe is damaged, but it’s a bolt on. The main frame isn’t warped or twisted. It’ll really just depend on the insurance adjuster they send. We know of bikes that haven’t been totaled out that had a little frame warping where as other bikes that had no warping, but were totaled out because the frame was scratched. Well the frame is scratched on this one, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

A lot of us were talking about how he’s lucky he wasn’t wearing his backpack. This guy almost always wears a backpack when he rides full of his normal commuting stuff sometimes including a laptop. If he’d had his laptop this time it would be trashed. Hubby has been wanting to take my laptop to work with him some so he can use it on his lunch break, but now I’m not so sure I’m going to let him. Awhile back I saw a laptop that was a protective hard shell case. It looked kind of like this Rimowa luggage. If I could find something like that, and if I knew it would hold up during a crash I might let him take it, but for now my laptop is staying at home.