KevinsFJRPartDeux
Member
Hi All, Thanks for reading my first post here. I've actually been snooping since this time last year when my beau told me he was going to replace our ride - a pretty little 1980 Kawasaki 1000 LTD - his boyhood dream bike. Frankly - and I'd never admit this to him - as pretty as she is, her suspension was killing my nearly 50-year-old backside. So anywho...
He was 100% certain he wanted a sport tourer, and pretty sure he wanted an FJR - so being the Google-fiend I am, I set about to help him make his decision. This forum helped a lot in that endeavor! So, in January 2009, we found an '08 FJR at a local dealership, drove up, test-drove their used model, and purchased the new one on the spot. 5000 miles, a few add ons later and with fall vacation time looming, we were finally ready for our first serious road trip - to NE Arkansas - twisty-turny heaven!
So, on Monday 10/19 we trailered it and the 4-wheelers to a lovely little cabin in Jasper, Arkansas. The next morning we set off with the camera and 8 hours worth of plans. We navigated the highway out of Jasper - just full of beautiful scenery, twisty turny peg-scraping yeehaws! and were having a blast doing it. Seriously 2-up on this ride is just my favorite place to be - ever! Finally we hit the long, flat, straight of highway headed toward War Eagle Mill. I've settled back against my backrest to watch the farmhouses roll by when suddenly I hear "Hold ON" (I think there may have been an explitive or two there, too.) I turned face-forward just in time to see a ... HUH? Ladder? Flying perpendicular to our path and dead-on in front of us. So, being smart enough to know he knows... I hung on. The oncoming car on which it was apparently not tied down whizzed past my left side.
Needless to say, we hit it pretty much dead center of the headlight. We managed to stay virtually upright as it then hit the ground in front of us, we got over it with the front tire and I felt us go down on the right side, but not all the way down. Somehow Kevin managed to throttle hard and pull us back upright. I say Kevin because at this point, I'm still just holding on. We're back up, the ladder is schoozzing across the highway and we're fine, until we high-center our back wheel between the rungs. And I feel it coming. This time we're going down and there's nothing he can do. We're going down. Period. This time on our left side, into the oncoming lane. And I'm still hanging on.
I felt or heard the "whoosh" of breath leave Kevin, I heard the gawd-awful sounds of grinding and shattering plastic. It's then that I realized two things at the exact same time: I had my eyes closed and nothing hurt. I knew I was traveling - I could feel it, and I could hear the travel (aforementioned grinding), but nothing hurt. Weird? Lucky? Already dead? The only way to know was to open my eyes. I did, and the only thing I could see was our beautiful FJR flying (as my dad would have said a** over teakettle through the air. I shut my eyes again.
170 feet later we stopped moving. Or rather Kevin did. I still had some momentum going and traveled another 20 feet or so. I came to a rest staring through my face shield into a beautiful blue sky and thinking. HolyMotherofPearl I lived, and what's more NOTHING HURTS. I rolled to my side, looked toward Kevin, and there he lie in the middle of the street, clothes shredded, and perfectly still. Panic set in.
I'm going to skip the gorier details here, but he was ultimately fine. Or fine enough. Bruised, rashed, lacerated, and abraded, but for the most part... fine. I ... was still... unhurt. And I've finally gotten to my point.
Why was I unhurt? How could this be? I fell off the same motorcycle Kevin did. I slid the same (in fact more) 170 feet down the highway. The answer lies in two of my greatest loves. 1) Kevin; 2) his FJR. As for Kevin, when he said hang on, I did. I basically rode on his back all the way down that road. That's why I'm aware of having heard the whoosh of breath hitting him, I suppose. Wasnt enough he hit the ground on his face/chest, I was there hitting his back, too. (No middle-aged weight jokes allowed here - no these riding pants do not make my butt look big!) and then, there's the FJR. It took all of the impact of that flying ladder straight across the front, and while it fractured all it's front plastics, none of that ladder hit us. Then, it got the heck out of the way and began its acrobatics on the other side of the road from us.
The end of the story is, it's a month later, the ladder guy's insurance company just paid off, and we're headed on Saturday to buy another one just like the one we lost. I told Kevin yesterday, if you ever had any doubts about last January's purchase, now is your time to make a new choice. He looked at me as if I'd lost my mind -- holding his still-aching ribs.
He was 100% certain he wanted a sport tourer, and pretty sure he wanted an FJR - so being the Google-fiend I am, I set about to help him make his decision. This forum helped a lot in that endeavor! So, in January 2009, we found an '08 FJR at a local dealership, drove up, test-drove their used model, and purchased the new one on the spot. 5000 miles, a few add ons later and with fall vacation time looming, we were finally ready for our first serious road trip - to NE Arkansas - twisty-turny heaven!
So, on Monday 10/19 we trailered it and the 4-wheelers to a lovely little cabin in Jasper, Arkansas. The next morning we set off with the camera and 8 hours worth of plans. We navigated the highway out of Jasper - just full of beautiful scenery, twisty turny peg-scraping yeehaws! and were having a blast doing it. Seriously 2-up on this ride is just my favorite place to be - ever! Finally we hit the long, flat, straight of highway headed toward War Eagle Mill. I've settled back against my backrest to watch the farmhouses roll by when suddenly I hear "Hold ON" (I think there may have been an explitive or two there, too.) I turned face-forward just in time to see a ... HUH? Ladder? Flying perpendicular to our path and dead-on in front of us. So, being smart enough to know he knows... I hung on. The oncoming car on which it was apparently not tied down whizzed past my left side.
Needless to say, we hit it pretty much dead center of the headlight. We managed to stay virtually upright as it then hit the ground in front of us, we got over it with the front tire and I felt us go down on the right side, but not all the way down. Somehow Kevin managed to throttle hard and pull us back upright. I say Kevin because at this point, I'm still just holding on. We're back up, the ladder is schoozzing across the highway and we're fine, until we high-center our back wheel between the rungs. And I feel it coming. This time we're going down and there's nothing he can do. We're going down. Period. This time on our left side, into the oncoming lane. And I'm still hanging on.
I felt or heard the "whoosh" of breath leave Kevin, I heard the gawd-awful sounds of grinding and shattering plastic. It's then that I realized two things at the exact same time: I had my eyes closed and nothing hurt. I knew I was traveling - I could feel it, and I could hear the travel (aforementioned grinding), but nothing hurt. Weird? Lucky? Already dead? The only way to know was to open my eyes. I did, and the only thing I could see was our beautiful FJR flying (as my dad would have said a** over teakettle through the air. I shut my eyes again.
170 feet later we stopped moving. Or rather Kevin did. I still had some momentum going and traveled another 20 feet or so. I came to a rest staring through my face shield into a beautiful blue sky and thinking. HolyMotherofPearl I lived, and what's more NOTHING HURTS. I rolled to my side, looked toward Kevin, and there he lie in the middle of the street, clothes shredded, and perfectly still. Panic set in.
I'm going to skip the gorier details here, but he was ultimately fine. Or fine enough. Bruised, rashed, lacerated, and abraded, but for the most part... fine. I ... was still... unhurt. And I've finally gotten to my point.
Why was I unhurt? How could this be? I fell off the same motorcycle Kevin did. I slid the same (in fact more) 170 feet down the highway. The answer lies in two of my greatest loves. 1) Kevin; 2) his FJR. As for Kevin, when he said hang on, I did. I basically rode on his back all the way down that road. That's why I'm aware of having heard the whoosh of breath hitting him, I suppose. Wasnt enough he hit the ground on his face/chest, I was there hitting his back, too. (No middle-aged weight jokes allowed here - no these riding pants do not make my butt look big!) and then, there's the FJR. It took all of the impact of that flying ladder straight across the front, and while it fractured all it's front plastics, none of that ladder hit us. Then, it got the heck out of the way and began its acrobatics on the other side of the road from us.
The end of the story is, it's a month later, the ladder guy's insurance company just paid off, and we're headed on Saturday to buy another one just like the one we lost. I told Kevin yesterday, if you ever had any doubts about last January's purchase, now is your time to make a new choice. He looked at me as if I'd lost my mind -- holding his still-aching ribs.
