The Pale Moonlight

[IcyHound]

The insurance company totaled the bike.

We purchased it back from them and plan to sell it with its salvage title. The damage is cosmetic + the clutch side muffler. So we're going to put it up for sale at the end of the week once we get the salvage title from the insurance company.

If it doesn't sell for what we want I'll start parting it out.

I'm picking up a FZ6 at the end of the week.

[Wrider]

Nice! Congratulations on the new bike, but sorry it had to come at the cost of your old bike... Anyway, glad you're doing alright and all, can't wait to hear the new stories and such!

Just no more venison for you!!!
Wrider

[sv-wolf]

Hi IH

Sorry to hear about the accident. From the way you describe it and the look of your gear, I would say that luck was with you. How are you doing? Something like that can really shake you up.

Glad to hear that you are getting back into riding, though.

And financially you seem to have come out of it quite well.

Congratulations on the new bike. Nice one!

[ceemes]

Damn, hitting a deer and walking away from it....I have had semi's totaled and written off after hitting those suckers....glad to hear you are okay

[IcyHound]

I wish we didn't have to do this. But it will work out okay. I hadn't planned to upgrade this soon but honestly I didn't want to get another 500 or fix and ride it. Right now its still pretty valuable since its low milage and brand new.

Maybe I'm a moron for upgrading.

I didn't expect to want the FZ6. I saw it in the shop and was floored. I've been reading up on it while waiting for the appraisal. I didn't think I'd want something semi naked. I do plan to get a lower fairing next year, once I'm sure I'm done launching myself from the bike.

I think the fortunate part of my accident was that the deer hit me in the side and I wasn't speeding. I'm not upset or frightened to ride because of this. A bit nervous and I'll have to rebuild some confidence but I'm excited to get back on.

I'm pretty much healed up. My knee is a bit tender still in the deep muscle above the knee. The joint is fine. The rash is healed to normal skin, no scaring. Its pigmenting back in nicely. Its still a bit pink in some spots but its picking up my normal golden coloring quite nicely. It seems to scare people who know I was in the accident thou. I don't think I'm stupid not to be scared and cry and run away from motorcycles.

I had done 4k miles on the ninja. When doing the paperwork for the FZ6 the guy was trying t get me to do their prepaid service and explaining how it will save me so much money because Yamaha wants this huge full service every 4k miles. I told him I will get a service manual and do it myself. I flipped through my owners manual and its lots and lots of checks that anyone that pays attention to their bike will do regularly. I'm not inept or incapable. I'm not going to pay the shop 400 dollars every 4k miles to go over the bike ether. They will get the first service and then anything I can't handle myself and I'm pretty capable.

[IcyHound]

Welcome Mantis



He is an incredable Machine. I never thought I'd go partially naked, yet I can't stop staring at him.

We settled all the insurance stuff today and my Ninja will go up for sale. I'm hoping that it goes well. We have the salvage information for it as well as the shops estimate for every nick and ding on it. If not I'll break it down and sell it.

My gear all got here so I can ride again. Its quite nice. I'm going to do an oil change before 600 miles. The finance guy was trying to talk me into their prepaid service. He proceeded to open my manual and show me all of the checks Yamaha wanted every service. He said that the services every 4k miles would be just under 400 dollars each. The prepaid plan would really save me, as he explained it.

When I told him how much I rode he was a bit shocked but tried to convince me that it'd be even better and I'd save even more money. That the prepaid service covered 6 checks (600 miles and then 5 services) and how I'd save money by my 3rd service. They call it a 5 year plan because most people only need one service a year.

I told him I was sure I could do my own checks. He told me how most people said they checked their bikes but it was only oil changes and Yamaha wanted a full service every time. He waved the manual at me and flashed the pages and pages of service areas.

Uh huh. Amazing as I go through the manual and find that it is a bunch of checks I can very well indeed do for myself. This really irritated me and helped me decide to take care of my bike myself. I'm far from incapable and to have someone attempt to scare me because there are a bunch of lines to suck money from me... well its irritating.

I've already dropped a little bit of cash on some things to make him mine. Including frame sliders and some little accents. Some of the decals are coming off and I need to find a reliable place that sells the 3m protective tape so I can keep that lovely blue color at the handgrips and tank bag.

[IcyHound]

We came back from a ride out to dinner and severe thunderstorms had run through N.VA. We somehow managed to miss them, being a bit to far west when they hit but it was pretty nasty when we got back home. Because of this I almost dropped Mantis twice.

We decided to come back home the more scenic route and try the seven miles of twisted roads up the mountain to the house. When we hit the base of the mountains we ran into wet roads and a drizzle. No big deal. It looked like we where at the tail end of the storm.

The trip up the mountain was full of debris. Driveways had washed out into the road leaving mud and gravel slicks behind them. Bits of tree and leaves washed from the overflow trenches made it slick going. Yet Mantis handled it well. I felt the slide through the gravel filled curves but relaxed and let him do his thing.

Even our soaked gravel driveway way fine.

It was the ramp to the shed that was my almost undoing.

We have a gigantic shed that you can park a car in. Its about two feet off of the ground and a ramp leads up into it. I've ridden this ramp, wet, dozens of times on the Ninja. I didn't think twice about it. However as I went up I slipped. I thought I put my foot down and slipped and we tilted to the side. My foot wasn't gaining traction but my rear wheel had slid back into the gravel. The hubby came to the rescue and braced me and we got tilted back upright. Yay. I was glad I had my frame sliders and a fall would have been low speed, but I really didn't want to fall.

I took some breaths, berated myself for not getting enough momentum to just glide up the ramp and tried again.

This is when I found out that it hadn't actually been my inability but the ramps slickness and fithyness and the power of my new bikes rear wheel.

When the rear wheel hit the ramp it kicked out. It slewed to the side violently and pitched me to the left. The front wheel made contact with the interior of the shed and my foot managed to touch down as my rear wheel lost all traction and kicked the bike over. Pinned between the door and supported by one foot I held onto my grips and locked my body in place. I was terrified my rear wheel was going to go over the edge since I was now at an angel. I could hear the bike reving from my grip on the throttle but I couldn't let go until the hubby reached me and we got everything rebalanced and kind of pushed Mantis up. His rear wheel kicked loose constantly.

When we got to the top the rear was covered in slime. Yuck. I peered closely at the ramp and realized there was even a fine moss like stuff growing on the wood. Yeah, it needs to be cleaned big time.

However we have no power. My pressure washer is electric so I can't clean the slim off the ramp. I'm going to pick up some grip tape to apply after I clean it so that this doesn't happen again.

[Shorts]

Lay strips of grip tape (from skateboarding) across your ramp. It'll take care of the lack of traction problem.

[Apollofrost]

Nice bike!

[IcyHound]

I got the ramp cleaned off. I did the inside of the shed while I was at it as well. I think the feel was better when I put the bike away this morning, but it may be a placebo as well.

The other half is going to look for grip tape today.

I did bolt kits on the bike and now it is very blue. The fairing bolts don't match the fairing color and I'm unsure if I will leave them blue or get black ones. All in all I'm trying to drop my colors to mostly blue and black.

I also need to get my state tax decal. Bleh, I keep forgetting.

I ordered a new decal from another ebay seller. The first one is no longer a registered user. Sigh. :( Only six dollars and its not enough for paypal to fight against. Blargh.

The interesting thing at work is that people are absolutely fascinated by my bike. I'd think it would have worn off, since I started riding in April, but it hasn't. Almost every day I get compliments on the bike, the gear, how nice it must be to ride in the weather. The looks, the stares and sometimes the sighs.

I consider myself an independent person. I always have been. Its caused me a lot of stress until I figured out where I was with myself. At that point, things started to click into place in an odd way. Perhaps, because of this, it does not occur to me that people may not do the things they want to do in life.

Such as learn to ride a motorcycle.
Or go to Vegas.
Or try blue nail polish.

I stopped trying to fit in a long time ago. I learned how to be friendly and outgoing and likable, but none of that means I fit in. That is fine with me. So when I deal with people who have spent so much energy attempting to fit in, its puzzling. When they have to deal with personal longing and want, yet decide not to do anything because it might not be acceptable to someone.