It can't be THAT difficult! Can it????

Famous last words...It can't be That difficult can it? I found some discontinued fairings for my bike on Ebay for 300 bucks delivered. Smoking deal as most were around 600 dollars. They weren't the exact ones that I wanted but I could live with the colour until the wheels fall off the bike. 

Pete figured that I needed space to work on the bike so we put it in our front entryway which actually was pretty amusing when you think about it. The jokes were flying about smoky burnouts in the house

Yay! It's off!

 
I must say that I severely underestimated the amount of time that it would take me to remove all of the old bolts and fairings and replace them with the new ones.
The bolt schematic was a blast to try and decipher and I had to make some modifications and reuse some of my old ones to make it all fit together. There were 14 pieces and each piece linked in with every other piece so you had to be very precise when you put it on.

 I did a WHOLE bunch of bike yoga...

Putting fairings on a sportbike is a LOT more challenging that you would think it is. The weather was awful at the time and I thought it would take me a week to get the fairings changed. What I thought I would have done in a week, took me THREE with A LOT of cursing. I don't know how my mechanic does this day in and day out without pulling out every hair on his head!

When all is said and done, I'm happy with how it turned out, but I will NEVER do this again!

Before and After

Taking her out for a test ride

 

September 7, 2012

This started as a normal work day. I worked my shift and was on the way home. I decided to take the highway and stop off at the Shell before heading over Humpback road. I was making good time. I looked at the clock on my bike and thought, "2:07...great, I'll be over Humpback by 2:10 and be home before 2:30.

Then I was waylaid by a pothole in the middle of Humpback road.

the darned pothole..the demise of my bike and my confidence

And there she laid

 I wasn't going fast. I actually was doing about 25 km/hr when this happened. It just happened as there was oncoming traffic. I moved over to pass, didn't see the pothole and continued on down the hill.

My first thought as I was looking up the hill at the people looking at me was "shit". I hit my kill switch and looked at the guys looking at me and asked them if they could pull the bike off of me while reassuring them I was okay. As they were lifing the bike I felt my ankle and told them to stop lifting and pulled myself out from under the bike. I thanked them and reassured them that I was okay so they went on their merry way. 

At this point I was hobbling around on this sore ankle and thanking my lucky stars that my gear did it's job. Then I thought about how I was going to get to the kids. The reason I was looking at my clock in the first place was that I wanted to be home in time to pick up the kids from school. I phoned Pete and he was on the way to get the kids. Then I phoned my mechanic and said, "HELP! Come get me guys, I just hit a pothole on Humpback and I'm in the ditch"

Looking at my bike I realized that it was actually 10 feet down the ditch and the only thing that stopped me and the bike from going down another 15 feet was a tree that had fallen down. I didn't ride faster than my angel that day.

By this time I had made all of my phone calls and a nice man stopped to check on how I was doing. He offered me a bottle of water and could see that I was shaken from what had happened. He was going to Sooke and offered me a ride to pick up the kids from school as he was going there to pick up his granddaughter anyway. 

So, my mechanic was on the way and all I was going to do was stand there anyway so I took him up on his offer.

I tried to get a hold of hubby but he was already gone so I figured I'd just meet him at home. We got the kids, the nice man dropped me off at home, and Pete came home mad that I "left the scene of an accident". Hell, I didn't know that it would be a big thing...My first oops and all....

So we went back to try and meet up with our mechanic and he was already gone with the bike but there were tons of cops and ambulances there. The news camera was also there but I declined to make a statement.

From there we went to the shop to survey the damage. The left fairings were now a mess and my new windshield was broken and I lost a mirror but otherwise the bike was not bad. when it landed it was not only on it's side but it was almost upside down so a lot of oil got in the gearbox. 

Scotty at Adrenaline Motorsports took good care of her and got me back on the road within 4 days to go up to the Port Alberni Toy Run.

Thanks Scotty!

:)

 

Wow...I have a LOT of catching up to do here!

Last April I had to opportunity to upgrade my VLX to something with more power...LOTS of power! I went over to riding a sportbike! I put my beloved VLX up for sale and she went to a new rider who I am sure is loving her to death. I had the opportunity to buy my friend Bobbi's bike ('06 Honda CBR 600RR)which was written off by ICBC because a lady backed into it with her car. The bike fell over but all the fairings on the left side were scratched.
So, I got to pick her up for the tune of $4000 bucks. It didn't matter to me that the fairings were scratched just that it was mechanically sound, which it was.

 23,000kms on her when I bought her which was 1000 more than my lifetime kms riding. Easy to keep track of all my bike time now :)

Bringing her home was QUITE the rush! I was almost afraid of killing myself. Riding a sportbike is COMPLETELY different than riding a cruiser! The tolerances are so much tighter. I just had to twist the throttle 1/4 of a turn and I went from 60kms/hr to 120kms/hr in no time at all.

I was thrilled to move from 4 to SIX count em...SIX gears! What a treat! It was nice to have a motorcycle that didn't have to work so hard to go faster...And FASTER it goes!

I found that I had to use all of my core muscles to hold me onto the bike. It's quite the workout just staying on! :)

I am going to ride this bike until the wheels fall off and hopefully by that time I will be ready to tour and will be ready for yet another bike. I'm leaning towards buying a sport tour but I have quite a few years to decide.

:)