Get Busy Living

[Gurock]

The writing, photos and report are incredible. Pants I almost cried when I read about your get off. I'm sure glad that the ending was mostly happy. You have convinced me that I don't want to buy my insurance from Geico! Last year I had a get off on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the middle of the mountains of Virginia. My 08 looked like your bike after the get off. High side around 60 to 70 MPH. Like you I walked away mostly unharmed, twisted ankle and some road rash on my right hand as the glove got pulled off during the slide. I have Foremost as my carrier. I called the company from the tow truck and an adjuster assured the towing company they would pay the bill and told him to take it to his tow yard as the local Yamaha dealer was closed.Then the adjuster had me take a whole group of photos with my I phone and email them to him. The adjuster determined that the bike was totaled from the pictures. Then the adjuster told me that part of my coverage was to get me home if I had a crash more the 50 miles from home. Foremost payed for a one way rental car, two nights of up $100.00 a night for hotels and $100.00 a day for food. They let me take my RDL seat and side cases off the bike when I left it behind. They paid me $10,400.00 for the bike even though I'd bought it for $6,300.00 eight months earlier and they gave me about $800.00 more for my helmet, jacket and pants.

I had my money within 14 days of the get off with no hassles, bargaining, or non-sense of any kind. If that story is a little funny it gets funnier as a few weeks after I got the money I did a fly and ride to get a red BMW from Long Beach BMW in Long Beach, CA. I rode the BMW home by way of many of the places on your trip (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Durango-Silverton Highway and over Independence Pass then the boring plains states back to Chicago. In October of 2014 while I was waiting to make a left turn a dumb ass lady talking on a cell phone rear ended me and totaled my BMW. I called Foremost and they paid $9,000.00 for the BMW, as well as buying me another new helmet and jacket. Then Foremost collected from State Farm the dumb lady's company and they gave me my deductible back. When the bill came for this year's premium they raised me 10% for the first accident.

To end that long story, I took the money from the BMW and did a train and ride to Memphis a few weeks later where I bought the current 08 FJR AE with around 5,000 miles for $5,000.00.

Pants, I'm just so glad you weren't hurt worse!!!! The tentativeness after a high speed, high side get off is very normal, but the chances are that it will fade away after a while. Thank god for ATGATT. After that get off where my Olympia mesh glove got pulled off my right hand and I had to suffer through some road rash injury, I changed my view about gloves. I bought a pair of Held Evo-Thrux gloves and a pair of Held Touring Tex 5 gloves because road rash sucks. I'm currently riding with Firstgear Kathmandu jacket and pants, but hearing that the road sanded through your jacket it all the more makes me think that maybe I should take the time and expense to go to an Aerostitch jacket and pants.

 

[Mihalis fjr]

Congratulations hppants!

Nice to hear that everything has gone well as you like!

After the trouble a happy end!

Enjoy your new toy!

 

[Fred W]

Awesome story. Now I can feel good about this ride report again.

It is restorative to one's faith to see that, sometimes, just every once in a blue moon...
good things do happen to good people.

Best of luck, pants, with your new Bass Bote Red beauty!

 

[mcatrophy]

Congratulations!

The "tentativeness" will wear off. A hard lesson usually takes some getting over. My suggestion is to take every opportunity to ride, even if only for 10 minutes round the block. You'll soon be back to full flow.

Incidentally, your writing, as ever, is second to none. Thank you.

 

[Intech]

Good stuff. Great morning read. Congrats on the new ride.

 

[El Toro Joe]

Congrats...glad to hear that everything worked out for ya.

 

[LittleJon]

Excellent.

 

[hppants]

Appreciate the "Atta-boys", my friends. I know that you peeps get it. Many of you have BTDT. But even those of you that thankfully haven't fallen yet know the unexplainable but quite realistic magnetism of our passion. "Bikers" frustrate me with this because, for better or worse, they have the attention of the non-riders, who may want to know what "it" is. But like everything else, their attention span is very short and unfortunately, the "Bikers" response to this is woefully inadequate. OTOH, we RIDERS know what "it" is but suffer a proverbial death by association. One day I'd love to write a book about this but I'm afraid no one would read it.

RFH and Mr. Hillary are correct, the red one does it for Pants. I've been ape **** bonkers over that color since the day I laid eyes on it. The events that have transpired this last couple of weeks have really got this self-proclaimed Man of Science re-thinking a lot. As previously stated, finding a new '14 is now getting dam near impossible and would be difficult at best. Finding one with 1400 miles on it in my backyard and knowing the previous ownership, getting documented service history, etc - has got to be the next best thing. Then being able to buy it with virtually ZERO out of pocket expense, and include my 5 year extended warranty on it, well.... even this Man of Science thinks the statistical odds of all this is pretty astronomical.

As I drove the cattle barn home with my mangled crap bouncing in the back, I remember a constant but unrealistic thought pattern running through my head. "If I could just go back to before the crash." Well, I think when you put it all together, from where I'm typing, I've done that. At least from the physical side of things.

The mental side is all together different. I'll spend the next few weeks taking things very slowly. I fear that I may not even ride the bike very much. Just writing about it kind of makes my palms sweat a little. I need to work through some thoughts and feelings, the biggest of which is guilt. I let my wife down and I feel immensely guilty about it. Years ago, I promised her I would be careful. With open eyes, we agreed that like all matters of life, there are certain things in motorcycling that are truly beyond my control. But unlike most matters of life, those uncontrollable things can kill me. I promised to hedge our bets against that stuff that I CAN control, and well - I flat out ******* lied. I need to re-build her trust. HERE is where my test of patience will eat at me the most.

Fred is right - most people associate Karma with negative thoughts. But good Karma must also be real. I'm lucky in all this, but I'm also blessed beyond my words.

To be continued....

 

[gixxerjasen]

Yay! Happy ending indeed!

So...now can we discuss an East Texas moto camping trip?

 

[Burnspot]

Pants, what a wonderful conclusion to this episode in your life! Take your time...and enjoy the ride!

 

[DesignFlaw06]

Glad it worked out. Be safe.

 

[Fred W]

'pants -

I would look at it this way: Yes you had a small lapse of attention, and it bit you in the ass. But you are whole (again) after the mishap, both physically and financially. And that little bit of new experience that you gained will help guide your decision making for the rest of your life, not just in the area of riding motorcycles, but in all ways.

There is a very good reason that you hear these sort of sentiments below repeated so often. It's because they are true:

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." - Johnny Cash

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." - George Bernard Shaw


"Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker." - Friedrich Nietzsche

(What does not kill me makes me stronger.)

 

[NightShine]

I promised to hedge our bets against that stuff that I CAN control, and well - I flat out ******* lied.

Lied? No. Lying implies an intent to deceive. That's certainly not what you did. You merely let your attention momentarily lapse. You are guilty only of being human.

I need to re-build her trust. HERE is where my test of patience will eat at me the most.

Any rider, any one who's done any living at all really, can appreciate that the trauma in these events is much more than just the physical damage to self and property. It jolts the very core of our survival instinct. Rather than just rebuilding another's trust, perhaps the trust we most need to rebuild is the trust in ourselves and our own abilities; to re-find our way back to the mental state that is best consistent again with our own riding safety and survival.

Fred is right - most people associate Karma with negative thoughts. But good Karma must also be real. I'm lucky in all this, but I'm also blessed beyond my words.

Fred has it right, I think. Karma is really just cause and its effects. We cause the effects around us, the circumstances of our lives, by everything we say, and do, and think. And if you consider yourself blessed beyond words, well, you had a hand in that too.

Note: I see that Fred chimed in again while I was typing this. Our experiences, of all kinds, are the little treasures we store up through out our lives. And if we perceive some of them to be a bit harsh, perhaps that's what helps their lessons to stick.

 

[Uncle Hud]

hppants, I also am a Man of Science, but must admit that I also believe in Karma. The fact that you could make such a large withdrawal from your Karma Bank means you've made many deposits. Such is the mark of living a goodly life. I am happy for you, sir.

Don't hurry your mental and emotional return; no need to go far or go fast. You can get a pretty big grin on your face just noodling down the road at 35 mph on a good-weather day, looking at the clouds and the trees and the grass and the houses and the flowers and the people and the dogs and the churches and the schools ..........

 

[gregory]

Congrats on turning the page in this story. Happy you found the perfect replacement. Uncle Hud, is correct sir, I do believe that you have made many deposits in your Karma Bank, and probably have lots left over for whatever comes next.

As for getting back on the road, it will take some time before you are riding and not thinking about riding (if that makes sense), but it will happen. Everyone has their own pace for this after a get off. Fortunately, for you, you have great roads, a lust for life and adventure and several amazing friends and riding buddy's.

Thanks for sharing this with us. I look forward to many more RR's featuring your Bass Bote Red Beauty!

 

[mcatrophy]

... You can get a pretty big grin on your face just noodling down the road at 35 mph on a good-weather day, looking at the clouds and the trees and the grass and the houses and the flowers and the people and the dogs and the churches and the schools ..........

... but don't forget to look where you are going ...

 

[JamesW]

Well done.

 

[CraigRegs]

'pants you're getting all kinds of good advice and philosophical meanderings. All I can add:

That red is dead sexy.

Enjoy the new ride.

 

[hppants]

Hud - thanks for the kind words. I'll be depositing plenty into my Karma bank account.

Jason - I'm thinking an East Texas camping trip would be fun. I need a little farkling time and some "get over the nerves" time as well. Let's kick it around.

McaTrophy - heard ya, and understood.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Hey, we don't have to drag pegs (not that I do anyway), we can go flower sniffing if need be. Might be just what you need in fact.