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.

:)

Spring is coming...eventually

This winter has just been awful. I haven't seen this much rain in many years. Might be that we now live in Sooke, but winter has been terrible everywhere this year. I haven't felt too badly about having my bike parked and LOVE that I have a garage to park it in. I am just really getting sick of having to scrape the frost off of my windshield on my way to work in the morning. Usually by now I would have had my bike insured and had been riding to work already.

So, we've been spending our time working around the house and getting the yard in shape for the summer.

So here's to hoping that spring is coming soon and I can get out and play on my bike!

WE BOUGHT THE HOUSE!

Finally! I ended up having to wait ALL day to find out! They say that the third time's the charm and it was so in our case. It took us a year to get all of our financial stuff in order but we got it all done and that was able to help our case.
I am so glad that I don't have to deal with the CMHC again as I think I would pull my hair out!
Time to start packing!

It's all good...

Next: The RENO blog! Whoo Hoo!

April 30, 2010 The fiasco continues...

Unbelievable is the word that I would use to describe this transaction to buy a home. I have never experienced such a poorly managed banking transaction.
Friday morning we had the inspector go through the house and it was pretty much what we expected to see. So that was a "go"
On the other hand it was a good thing that I was working all morning or I would have been a basket case waiting for the phone to ring.
I get home at 2:00pm and make a phone call to Debbie to find out the status of our mortgage.
I have to leave a voicemail.
I come back from picking up the kids at 3:30 and phone Debbie again. She tells me that she hasn't heard anything but she is still trying to get a hold of them.
Debbie phones back 15 minutes later and tells me that "there was a computer glitch". WHAT???
"they can't see your father's application at the other end"..WHAT???
Twitch, twitch, twich...
Great
Now what?
"Can you possibly get an extention until Monday morning?"...um, NO as there are other offers waiting on the house.
So, Debbie gets her bosses boss to phone Peter who then tells them to phone the realtors as it was their "f&%k up" and beg for an extention.
It looks like we got it as we haven't heard anything.
I have never been more frustrated!
So now we have to wait the weekend and find out monday (hopefully morning).
Still hoping to be able to start a renovation blog!
:) Miriam

A change of plans

It's funny how life makes plans for you while you weren't looking. I really enjoyed riding on the fine weather days that we had in the late winter and early spring. I even had my boss giving me the evil eye as his bike was still parked.

As the weather changed for the worse so did our lives (somewhat). At the end of March we received a 3 month notice for termination of rent. We have been renting this house for 4 years so it came as quite a shock as our landlord had told us not two months earlier that she was not going to sell the house. We were settling in beautifully and I had just planted some flower bulbs and had started a garden as I thought we were going to be around for at least a couple more years. Well, that was not to be so we were left with a decision.

We got ourselves a "plan B" and lined up a place to rent but thought "why not try and buy a home" as we were paying as much in rent as we would be to have a mortgage. Well, we did a mad week and a half dash and looked at 7 homes for sale and found one. Now it's not the prettiest thing on the block and it didn't show well, but it had LOTS of potential. Being handy kind of people we thought "why not" and put in an offer. They accepted.

So the insurance came up for renewal while all this was going on and we decided that we were going to park our bikes for the few weeks as we didn't want to have any extra expenses and wanted to put all our cash into the down payment. It hasn't been much of a loss as the weather this spring has been windy as hell and cold so I'm not really missing it too much. The only thing is that I had to give up the women's weekend in Uculet which is a real drag, but I couldn't justify the expenditure of going out to play while all this was happening.

So now we had to get the banking in order...
I would have thought that a 3 day wait would have been normal, but it's been 10 days of jumping through hoops to get this mortgage. I'm beyond frustrated with the whole thing and have lost 10 lbs (which I can't afford to lose) as I haven't been eating, and many nights of sleep over this whole fiasco.
It should be a simple accounting...they make x amount of dollars and the mortgage payment would be as much as they rent for...Shouldn't be an issue but of course it is. I think that the CMHC needs some new accountants that can actually add up the numbers!

So, we now have one day to get the mortgage and the house inspected. It HAS to all happen tomorrow or we LOSE the house as there are other offers in on it.

In the end, if we end up renting plan B I'll be fine with that but I sure as hell would be pretty angry for wasting my time and energy (and money for the inspection) for a house that they don't think we can have.

As soon as the bank says "yay" or "nay" I will be putting the insurance back on my bike and going for a LONG ride!

The fingers are crossed that I'll be starting a new renovation blog on my birthday June 1st. We take posession on the 31st of May and I think that taking ownership would be a great birthday gift!

Happy birthday, here's a sledgehammer...