In my last post I told you about my husband Jimmy's love of motorcycles and how people always say, "It's not if; it's when you're going to have an accident if you ride a motorcycle."
Jimmy's philosophy has always been that at least he would be doing something he loved. After twenty- or maybe thirty-something years of riding, the old adage hit home. An accident happened, and it happened to my husband.
He was minding his own business driving his bike to work as he has done for years, when a car unexpectedly stopped to turn left off the two-lane highway he travels. There was a car in front of him which blocked their turn signal and brake lights, and he didn't notice the brake lights on the car in front of him until it was too late to stop.
He braked, but the road was slick with overuse, causing his bike to wobble and slide, finally crashing into the right side bumper of the car in front of him.
Miraculously, his bike stayed upright. His 2002 Honda Valkyrie is a tank, never having gone down even after hitting three deer three different times. But none of those crashes caused injury, and none caused so much damage to the beloved Valk.
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| A view of the damage to the timing belt cover and engine guard. |
The impact crunched the timing belt cover, bent the engine guard, bent the radiator and broke the radiator cover, bent the chrome carburetor cover, and broke a reflector. It also crunched the fiberglass around the bumper on the car it hit and sprained Jimmy's right wrist.
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| We found pieces of the cover on the road. |
But the worst injury of all was to Jimmy's feelings. The bike laid down when he got off of it, leaking gasoline onto the pavement. The driver of the car, which was a taxi, helped him get the bike up and off the road.
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| A closer view. |
Of course, he called me right away after calling his boss to tell him he wouldn't be in that day. When I arrived at the scene there was a city police officer there, and we had to wait for a highway patrol officer because it happened outside the city limits.
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| Dirt from the pavement on the foot rest and gasoline that leaked from the carburetor. |
Soon the DPS officer arrived to evaluate the accident. You know you're getting older when police officers, DPS officers, and later the tow truck driver are all young enough to be your children!
DPS had to issue a citation for "failure to control speed," but he was apologetic. In fact, both the police officer and he were very polite and sympathetic. He even called a towing company so we could get the bike back home.
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| Jimmy after driving the bike onto the tow truck bed. The bike started up, no problem! |
If there was a bright spot in this mishap (besides my husband not being seriously injured or killed), it was that he got to ride his bike up the huge ramp of the tow truck and ride the ramp back to level.
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| The tow truck driver strapped the bike down so it wouldn't roll or fall over. Jimmy watched him to make sure. |
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| You can see the DPS car behind the tow truck. Absolute Towing did a great job! |
The Valk is finally home now, sitting sadly in the carport, waiting for the insurance adjuster. We hope that Jimmy will be able to have repairs made to get him back on the road. I have to confess that I'm not that sad to have him off the bike for awhile.
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| Unloading the bike onto our carport floor. The few hundred dollars were worth it to get the bike home safely. |
But it's hard to keep a dedicated biker down.
Does someone you love do anything you'd rather they didn't, but you wouldn't dream of trying to get them to stop?
Please share!
XOXO
