Here is my story from June of last year. I bought the bike in April. Laugh all you want, because I still do....
I dropped the bike today.
Well, it didn't drop like it had been shot so I guess you could say I laid it over in a simi-controlled drop.
The scene: In that Mecca of uber cool biker hangouts, the parking garage at Nordstrom's Galleria. (I broke the handle on my purse and had to go buy a new purse instead of getting my purse fixed.)
Up hill in the garage and pulled into a slot to the right. Stopped, engine off with stand down and both feet on the ground, but I had not leaned the bike over onto the stand yet. Taking off my gloves. Left side is up hill, right side is downhill. There is a pretty new Lexus in the space to the right. Next? I have no idea what happened. I am thinking that I looked up and saw the sloped concrete barrier in front of me or something, but next thing I know the bike is going over to the right. I grab the right bar and pull it in and I am able to slow the progress of the fall tremendously. I am hopping to the right on my right foot trying to keep my leg out from under it and I am envisioning how many points of impact there are going to be on the side of the Lexus. It's down and stopped. I am against left front fender of the car, but the bike is not touching the car at all. It is down on the slider and front bottom corner of the bag. It takes me a second to get out of the tight jam I'm in though by kind of crawling over the hood of the Lexus.
Now what? There are only inches between the bike and the side of the car, and it is the downhill side. I can't get between it and the car facing away from the bike so I worked my way back in facing the bike and I am so close that the seat is touching the front of my legs. There is no way to get any leverage on it so I just squat down for a hand hold on the bottom side and just do a dead lift with my legs. (I still have bicycling legs under there somewhere.) I finally get it up and leaned over onto the stand and take stock of things.
I immediately realize that the watch band on my Breitling is broken. Dang. (I have to send it to Houston to be fixed.) There is a little bitty scrape mark on the front bottom corner of the right bag and a little scrape on the slider. The bar ends or brake lever did not touch.
My back is killing me and it is more out of whack than it usually is. Both of my separated shoulders are screaming and I pulled a muscle or something on the outside part of my lower right leg. I'll live after a few trips to the chiropractor Monday, but it is going a very long Friday, Saturday and Sunday at work.
I limped my way into Nordstrom and bought myself a rather expensive new purse and felt much better. After a nice ride home and sitting down for a bit, I think I feel a sick day coming on tomorrow.
It just takes a second of not paying attention to what you are doing to screw a lot of stuff up. I am very glad I didn't hit the Lexus, but I sure wiped some of the dust off the fender.
In just a hair over 4 years and 43,000 miles on the Road Star, I only dropped it once, and I dropped a Honda Aspencade in 1982 or so. That is the extent of my drops in 35 or so years of riding. I hope this is the one time for the FJR.